swirled, making it difficult to catch my breath.
Now Cassandra knew my secret, too.
I jumped in the shower and tried to let the scorching hot water—a relief after being locked in that basement for so long—wash my cares away. Didn’t work in the slightest. I got out in record time.
It wasn’t until I turned on my blow-dryer that I had the vision.
I didn’t have many of these. But when I did have them, they flattened me with their intensity. This one wasn’t an exception to the rule.
Like a waking dream with the intensity of a hurricane. The images shifted, sliding, turning so I could barely see anything properly.
It was a house—a big house with tons of kids there wearing masks and costumes. They milled about, drinks in hand; making out, talking, having fun. Music blared all around.
I also sensed the mind of the angel—the bodiless one. Somewhere else. Somewhere close. She wasn’t like the others—the team of angels and demons I’d come to know. She was different. The essence of what she once was distorted like a reflection in a funhouse mirror, turned monstrous, feeding on joy and hope to keep her own misery at bay. She knew doing this was draining her victims of the will to live. It filled her with despair, but she couldn’t stop. Survival and hunger were this angel’s only remaining motivations.
She was as wretched as she was terrifying.
She felt drawn to this house. It was like a bright beacon lighting her way through the dark city.
And when she arrived she would find so many kids who were filled with life and joy...
It would be an incredible feast for her.
The vision shifted, like metal twisting after a car wreck. It was after—bodies strewn around the house, lifeless, blood everywhere, it smeared the walls and oozed out onto the carpet and hardwood floors.
Noah’s Halloween party had turned into a mass suicide.
The vision ended and I staggered back, my head splitting in pain. It knocked me right to the floor. Immediately, I scrambled to get up, finished getting dressed and raced downstairs as fast as I could.
Bishop looked at me with alarm from where he stood, still in the foyer, this wild girl who’d practically flown down the stairs with still-damp hair.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
I explained as quickly as I could what I’d seen. Cassandra appeared, her arms crossed. She’d heard me. Neither of them told me not to worry, that it was only my imagination.
“Has it already happened?” Cassandra asked shakily.
I shook my head. “No, but it’s going to.”
“A vision of the future.” She eyed me warily. “Do you have these often?”
“Thankfully, no.” My last one had been a vision of the city being destroyed and sucked into what I now knew to be the Hollow. I didn’t remember it with perfect clarity—I think it was a way of my mind rejecting the sight of such an apocalyptic disaster.
But the future could be changed. Neither of my horrible visions had to come true.
“We’re leaving,” Bishop said firmly. “Right now.”
“I’m coming, too,” I said just as firmly.
He met my gaze. “Yes, you’re coming, too.”
Looked like I was going to Noah’s Halloween party after all.
Chapter 25
“We can take my mom’s car,” I said, grabbing the keys before I left. “But I can’t drive.”
“Why not?” Cassandra asked.
“No license. I’ve been meaning to get around to it.”
“I can drive,” Bishop said, taking the keys from me.
“You have a license?”
“Well...not technically. But that’s never stopped me before.”
“Good enough for me.” I climbed in the backseat. Cassandra got in the passenger side. “Just—promise me not to hurt the car.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try, like, really hard. Despite dealing with angels, demons and otherworldly death vortexes, you haven’t seen my mother when she’s angry.”
“I could grab a different car,” he offered. “I’ve hot-wired them before.”
“Stealing cars,” I said under my breath wryly. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I preferred to think of it as borrowing.” He flashed me a wicked grin that made my heart race even faster before he turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the driveway.
I didn’t want to think about how this night would end, but I knew that everyone at that party was currently at risk. If we didn’t do something to stop the bodiless angel, it would be a massacre.
As we neared the house, I felt the harsh stirrings of my hunger. It cramped my stomach. “Wait. Don’t get any closer.”
Bishop must have heard something in my tone that alarmed him. He pulled up to the curb and backed