Page 140 of Walking in Darkness

Buoyed.

Fortified.

“What the fuck was that?” Keith wheezed as he stared at Aria.

“She’s the one,” I said, because the Kruen were fuckin’ right. She was the one. The one who meant everything. To me. To all of us. The one who possessed the strength to see this through. “She’s the one who was sent to save us.”

“This way,” Aria mumbled, and we ducked out from behind the store and ran across the street to a strip mall on the other side.

It was the same here.

Chaos reigning.

People who’d been possessed wandering around and inciting whatever misdeed they could conjure.

But Laven were in the middle of them.

Fighting them.

Physically, because they didn’t possess any other power here.

One Laven woman screamed when a man suddenly pulled a knife out of the back of his jeans and thrust it into her stomach. Blood gushed when he ripped it out.

For one moment, she swayed before she fell face-first to the ground.

From behind, I clamped a hand over Aria’s mouth before she could release her own scream.

A shout of grief.

Besieged by the horror.

By the atrocity being meted out right in front of our eyes.

I pulled her against me, my mouth at her ear, words grinding as I said, “I know, I know, I know. But you can’t save them all.”

Her spirit flailed against that, no way for her to accept it. This burden that she’d been given.

“Ambrose. Ambrose is your goal, Aria. Your target. You end him, and you end all of this.”

She nodded frantically against my palm, and I released her and moved in front of the group. My attention darted in every direction to see if I could find a clear path to move deeper toward the middle of the town.

While shouts and screams lifted and rose. Explosions and gunshots. Complete mayhem.

“This way,” I said when I saw a break in the swell, and the five of us cut across the road and around the side of the strip mall.

Then we all froze when we saw it.

An old man wandering across the street. His body frail as he hobbled toward a woman who stood out in the middle of the turmoil on the other side.

My fucking heart seized.

Ellis.

And he was moving toward Josephine.

“Oh my God.” It was a whimper from Dani, just as Aria’s spirit thrashed.

A brand-new kind of fear tore through us as we watched him stagger in her direction.