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Everything seems to be business as usual. There are plenty of cars on the street, people arguing in front of the taco-friedchicken joint on the corner, and trash blowing across sagging cars that aren’t worth stealing.

The motel is one of the two-story sticks. Two dozen rooms on the top, two dozen rooms underneath, and a maltreated office in peeling tan stucco. The parking lot on the front side has a few cars, but I don’t recognize any of them—I let out a frustrated growl before remembering the back. That’s right, this concrete vermin trap has a strip for cars on the front and the back, all the room they have with the street and other equally dilapidated businesses encroaching.

I park in the front, cursing my ill-preparedness. I could run home and grab what I need. I could wait.

Yeah, right.

What if I don’t have powers against these guys?

I sit for a minute and try to let my instincts connect. Resurface.

Nothing.

All these decades of being able to save people with my inhuman abilities, wishing to be human—and now that I’m more human-like, I can’t sense a damn thing.

I think I’m still strong, but there’s no time to test it. I exit the car slowly, and on a whim, I see if I can lift it.

I can. One-handed. But who knows how long that will last? I yank the small fire extinguisher from the trunk of the vehicle and pat my thigh. One knife. One blunt object. One massive desire to rescue Teri that far outweighs my desire to be alive at the end of it.

Striding to the back of the building and searching for a familiar car, I hear Artie’s voice in my head, soft and soothing. “Don’t give up, Reg. One day, it’ll feel right. It’ll feel right,here.” He had tapped my chest all those years ago, a young father with two children at that point.

I put my hand over the spot he tapped, over words he anointed me with.

Calmness settles over me.

Therese is my right place. She is what makes things right in my world, in my life. She is what makes me right as a being. I am no longer just a shell with sigils. I am something—no,someone, with a soul.

I just have to get to her.

Chapter Sixteen

Isee the car that I observed earlier in the week, the one that was at the airport, at the very end of the row. It’s hidden behind an overflowing dumpster amid overgrown thistles and weeds that have surpassed my height.

And they say there’s no greenery in the city.

To get Therese inside without being seen... I shake my head and look around the hellhole’s exterior. I doubt if anyone would have paid attention to anything outside of a bottle or a needle. They obviously think she won’t be pursued for a little while—because of the mole. They also think I’m the real deal, a husband who will be frantically relying on the police and panicking in place, not a bodyguard who has crossed oceans and battlefields. If they knew exactly what I was, they probably would have traveled farther.

I’d love to have more time to analyze, but I’m too busy worrying about why they took Therese and what they’re doing to her. Delgado’s expecting to get offered a sweet deal—he’s not worrying about revenge since he’s about to get off with a slap on the wrist and a new name.

That means Estrada. My stomach ices over. Estrada’s henchmen would have known they’d be lugging either deadweight or a struggling woman and would have parked as close to the room as possible. I start to move toward the last room at the end of the first floor, eyeing the rusty green doors of the rooms that I pass.

Therese’s attackers probably walked her in, holding her upright and supporting her weight between them. They either had a weapon pressed against her to keep her quiet, or she was incapacitated. Otherwise, she would have been screaming and fighting.

She would have screamed for help at the store.

She shouldn’t have needed to scream; I told her I would be between her and danger—God, I’ve failed her, broken a promise to her... Even if I save her, she won’t love me anymore. How could she?

But I can’t have a pity party now.

Fuck it, this could go badly. Who knows how many addicts are flopping in this place? How many of them have guns and drunken trigger fingers?

I’m going to have to go for a mix of brutality and cleverness—and prayer.

“Let me get Therese back, and I’ll still be Your servant, even with this soul. I will protect her for the rest of her life, and any who need our help. My help. I won’t desert the place You’ve placed me, the place You’ve enabled me to protect, make a safe haven.” I picture Pine Ridge—and Therese. That little home, with the grass mowed, and quiet, peaceful headstones with tulips and buttercups dotted in between the gray... Like her. Sunshine and color, mixed into my shadow.

“Amen,” I mutter as I bang on the door.

SOMEONE IS YELLINGsomething in Spanish. Matteo spoke fluent Spanish, but mine is rusty and fragmented. I hear “fuego” several times.