Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(80)

She nodded and Burnett raised his brows. For some reason she suspected he was recalling Shawn’s half-assed confession of being interested in her.

Burnett continued to stare. “Is this … the tears, somehow about your dad’s visit this morning?”

She nodded.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“You did.”

“I did?” he asked, confused.

“The hug,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Oh.” Then suspicion tightened his brow. “But this … problem isn’t anything I need to know about, is it?”

“It’s not about the murders,” she assured him, sensing that was what Burnett meant.

“Okay,” he said, hearing her truth. “But like I said, if you want to talk, I suck at giving advice about personal issues, but I’ll be happy to listen.”

“Thank you,” she said and couldn’t stop herself. She hugged him again.

As she released him, he moved toward the door, but sent back one parting comment. “Remember, any sense of danger, even if it’s tiny, contact me immediately.”

*

Miranda stood in the circle of twenty competitors—constantly aware of Tabitha standing four girls down on Miranda’s right. She didn’t look at her. But every few minutes, Miranda could feel the girl’s gaze on her.

Did her half-sister really hate her? For one crazy moment, Miranda tried to see this from Tabitha’s point of view. It would be easy for Tabitha to blame Miranda and her mom for destroying her cozy little family. If not for the conception of Miranda, perhaps her mother and father would have made the marriage work.

Damn, if Miranda couldn’t see how it would be easy for Tabitha to hate her. And her mom. Who wanted to share your father with an offspring of “the other woman”?

Trying to concentrate on the council’s words, she stood frozen in one spot. She felt several other gazes zeroing in on her from the audience. Scanning the spectators, she found the onlookers. Her mom sat in the first row. Alone. The seat beside her … empty. Where was her dad? Rumor was there had been an accident on one of the major streets and it had delayed several of the attendees.

Miranda noted the worry and fret tightening her mom’s expression. Was her mom dreading the meeting after the practice?

Join the crowd, Mom!

In the back of the audience, she spotted a blond shape-shifter. He watched her with the intense stare of a bodyguard. His protectiveness would have been appreciated if he hadn’t dropped her like a hot potato and let her fry in misery. And she didn’t care why he’d broken up with her, it still had been so wrong!

In the opposite corner of the room stood Shawn. He smiled. The slight nod of his head seemed to say he had her back. Her gaze eased back to Perry and she saw him glaring at Shawn. Okay, that felt awkward.

She focused on the high priestess speaking. She appeared French, her accent made her sound almost lyrical, but her pronunciation was spot-on.

The practice consisted of how the competition would go down. They weren’t told what the spells would be, but there were hints that they would return to one of the four elements. Miranda sent up a prayer that it wouldn’t be fire. Especially with her father here. His scars on his buttocks would no doubt itch if she started playing with fire again.

The memory of his teasing throughout the years scraped across her mind, and somehow it seemed tainted. Or at least different now that she knew his secrets. Tears stung her eyes and she wondered if all her memories would feel like a lie.

The sound of the heavy auditorium doors opening echoed in the large space. A crowd of around fourteen came bustling in. Miranda spotted her dad and Mary Esther, Tabitha’s mom, walking beside him. They almost got to her mother’s row.

Her mom looked back and scowled. Oh friggin’ great! Were Mary Esther and her mom about to cause a scene?

Dread and embarrassment ran through her. No one wanted their dirty laundry played out in front of a crowd. Her feet itched to hightail it out of there, but then the strong sense of danger chased away all thoughts of being humiliated.

She heard Burnett’s order: If you feel anything, anything at all, call me. She reached in her pocket to pull out her phone and spotted Tabitha doing the same thing. Both with cell phones in hand, their gazes clashed.

Obviously, Burnett had given Tabitha the same orders. She felt exactly what Miranda did.

Some bad shit was about to go down.

Fog, thick as mud, fell from the auditorium’s rafters. And nothing but screams followed.





Chapter Fifteen


“Miranda?” a voice, a deep male voice, called her name.

It took less than a second to recognize it was Shawn. Blinded and disoriented by the fog, she called out, “Here. I’m here.”

“Get away from me!” Another shrill voice echoed above the other screams.

“Tabitha?” Miranda called. Something was happening to her half-sister.

“Stop!” Tabitha screamed again. “Help!” Her plea seemed to fade in the distance.

“Tabitha! Where are you?” Miranda called out, but only the screams of others filled the thick mist.

The next thing Miranda knew something from above wrapped around her forearms and lifted her up. Up to the rafters, up away from the fog.

She glanced to the ceiling at the same time the large tan bird the size of a horse with a hooked beak glanced down. Its familiar light blue eyes met hers. Perry. Her next breath came easier, then she remembered.