Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
“You okay?” he asks, steadying us both, and his voice is somehow sharp and gentle at the same time.
“Yes,” I say, and at least in the moment, with him holding onto me, it’s true, but it won’t last, nor do I pretend the man I barely know is my salvation. Only I can be my salvation, and knowledge is power. And right now, I understand absolutely nothing.
“There’s a strap on the wall near the floor,” he says, “a safety measure in case the truck makes sudden movements.”
“For when the demons chase you?”
“Like I said, you do know what he is.”
“Demon,” I breathe out.
“Yes.”
“And you are what?”
“For simplicity’s sake, at least for the moment, call me a demon hunter.”
“He called you ‘Seer.’”
“Another name. Same me.” The truck jumps again, and he holds me steady and then motions to the wall. “It’s safer by the strap.”
Considering I desperately crave something to hold on to that feels real, something I can control, I happily head that direction, sink into a corner, and test the strap above me.
Micah shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it on the snowmobile, his wet shirt clinging to the hard lines of his obviously well-trained body, which, as a woman, I appreciate. As a woman who is on the run, I value his conditioning as pure survival and decide it’s time I learn to protect myself and protect myself well. Until I make that happen, and I will, this man has become my sanctuary. If a Seer is even a man. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know what I am. That’s the terrifying part of this equation.
Micah crosses to join me again and crouches next to me, turning on a small portable heater and pointing it at my feet. Once it’s cranked, he returns to the cabinet, where he grabs a small drawstring bag. I almost expect him to distance himself, to leave me in this desolate corner with no answers and no companionship, a stark contrast to Ryker throwing himself on top of me. I squeeze my eyes shut against the memory, and when they open, Micah is squatting in front of me again.
“You need to know that when I first found out you were in the company of Jeremy, I marked you for death.” My heart leaps, and when I would dart away from him, all he does is hold up a finger that somehow stills me. “There’s more. If you want to hear it,” he adds.
“If you planned to kill me,” I say, “why didn’t you?”
“I put myself in your path at the coffee shop, and I sensed no evil in you despite the evil I’d found all around you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“We both have questions, but I’m going to need my answers first. Do you know what you are?”
“If you had asked me that yesterday, I’d have said the foolish attorney who represents Jeremy, but that’s not what you mean, is it?”
“No. What are you, Ember?”
I hold up my hands and drop them again, at an utter loss. “I really don’t know how to answer that.”
“Did you sense evil in Jeremy? Did you know he was a demon?”
“Demon,” I repeat, and the word is poison on my tongue.
“Demon,” he confirms. “Did you—”
“No,” I say quickly, “but I’m a good reader of character. I don’t know how he fooled me. That’s why I went to his apartment that day we met. I needed to find him and do something to stop him.”
His brow inches upward. “Something? What?”
“I don’t know. I was compelled to go after him. I let him get away, and he killed those women.”
“What changed your mind about him?”
“At the end of the trial, he touched me, and—it was awful.” My voice is hoarse, and I barely recognize it as my own. “He showed me the murders. He showed me in gruesome detail. And I’m not crazy.” My tone firms. “It was real. It was so damn real.”
“That’s when you knew he was a demon?”
“I didn’t know he was a demon. That’s a horror movie, not real life, or that’s what I thought.”
“Then what did you think?” he presses.
“I was still trying to get a grip on what it meant. I thought either he was different or I’m different. How else could he put those images in my head?”
“It was a vision. Some of us get them.”
“Some of us?”
“You really don’t have any idea what you are, do you?”
“What does that even mean?” I ask, exasperated at this point, barely able to sit here like this. I need to move. I need to do something.
Incredibly, he seems to read me, capturing my shoulders and standing us both up. “Better?”
“As better as it gets while being hunted by a demon.”
“Demons,” he amends. “He has an army of followers. And when you don’t want to be hunted, you become the hunter.”