Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,118

Dex yells.

Oh, so now you see how annoying it is?! I yell back at him.

“Ada, stop!” I shout at her.

She does stop, back to us, facing Victor. She raises her arm out at an angle, signaling for us or for him to halt.

Then she walks to one side of the hall, then the other, pacing, keeping her eyes on him the whole time.

Then she walks backward toward us a few feet and puts her hand out at Victor, motioning for him to come forward.

“Come and get me,” she says.

What is she doing?

And Victor starts to move.

Fast as hell.

Coming straight for her.

“Ada!” I scream.

She doesn’t budge.

She crouches down instead, watching him as he comes at her, staring right at him. His hands are turning into claws, ripping up the carpet on the floor as he frantically drags himself along, mouth snapping, about to throw himself at her.

A scream gets caught in my throat as Ada suddenly springs into action, leaping up into the air sideways, her boots making contact with the wall like she’s in the fucking Matrix, and then she’s pushing off the wall, twisting around until she lands right on top of Victor, facing us.

“Ha, you little bitch!” she yelps, bending down and snatching Victor by his throat, pulling him off the ground with one hand.

With her other hand she puts her palm flat out toward the wall until a hole appears in thin air, showcasing the grey world beneath. Her fingers dig into Victor’s neck, his mouth snapping, trying to get at her, but she pays him no attention.

With a quick flick of her wrist, the hole starts to swirl, turns from grey to burning flames and ash, a roaring sound of hellfire and anguished cries filling the house, vibrating through my cells.

And then, like she’s tossing a paper ball into a wastebasket, she chucks Victor through the air.

He goes flying right into the hole, igniting in flames, and then she brings her palms together, swirling them counterclockwise until the hole closes, sealing shut.

The sound stops, the energy disappears, the house returns to normal.

She smiles at me and Lana, dusting off her hands. “Okay, now where is Ginger Balls?”

I glance at Lana, both our mouths are open in disbelief.

Oh my god.

Holy fuck, Dex exclaims. How the hell did she do that?

Ada saunters over to me in her little catsuit, grinning like she’s got the canary. “I told you,” she says sweetly.

Told you what? Asks Dex. Told you what?

She said I have no idea what she can do, I admit. She was right.

No fucking shit we had no idea, he says. I’m just glad your body has better bladder control than mine does.

Dex, please.

“That was…impressive,” Lana says to her, looking awed. Then she glances up at the ceiling. “But very loud. I’m not sure how well my spells will have worked through that. We should hurry.”

Dex snaps out of it faster than I do, and he leads us, via me, down the stairs to the basement.

I knock on the door, feeling more confident about this now. After seeing what Ada is capable of, I feel foolish for even doubting her to begin with. She’s a fucking badass.

You’re also a badass, Dex reminds me. Don’t you forget it. A beat passes as I wait for Maximus to open the door. Shit, it really is hard for you to accept compliments. It feels like you’re deflecting it, like it’s not even sticking. You need to work on that, baby.

Not now, I tell him, trying the door. It’s locked.

“Shit.”

“Is he not there?” Lana asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, trying not to panic. “It took a while last time. I think maybe he sleeps or zones out, I don’t know…”

Maybe we can kick the door down? Dex asks hopefully.

Wrong body, Dex.

I look over my shoulder at Ada. “Do you think you can kick down this door?”

She raises her brows. “Doubtful,” she says. “But I’ll try anything once.”

Lana and I step out of the way while she moves back, steely determination across her face. It’s at this point that I really have no idea what her training with Jacob and Jay actually entails, but it seems to be a lot of physical shit.

“Here goes nothing,” she says, and from the way she positions herself, full of both bravado and uncertainty, I’m reminded of myself, the way I kicked those doors down in my uncle’s lighthouse.

I was thinking the same thing, Dex muses.

But as Ada flies forward, the door opens, revealing Maximus, and she collides