Midnight Hour (Shadow Falls: After Dark #4)(5)

The armadillo made a hissing noise. It scurried closer to the door, stopping at the threshhold. Its glowing golden eyes seemed to suggest they

follow. Smart armadillo.

The sensation of a premonition restarted low in her gut and began to grow.

And grow.

“Everyone should leave.” Miranda looked at the witch and knew it was true. The heart and pulse of the storm was aimed right for them. Thunder

shook the foundation of the house. The smell and sting of its power filled the air.

Devastation hung seconds away. “Out everyone!” Miranda waved for the witch to move.

She didn’t move. Could she not feel this? Hear this? Or was she the one causing it?

The roar of impending calamity rang louder in Miranda’s ears. Lightning hit the table and the crystal ball exploded. The sizzle and crack of

it sent shards of glass through the air.

Several of those shards pricked Miranda’s skin. Blood trickled down her arm, streaking the marks the witch had put on her.

“We’ve gotta go! Come on,” Miranda screamed, but the witch remained frozen in an odd kind of stillness. A few rivulets of blood snaked down

the old lady’s face, getting trapped in her deep wrinkles. Miranda reached for her but she jerked back as if Miranda was the evil one.

The sound of the storm screamed louder. Miranda grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her out of the room, down the dark hall, and hurried in

the direction of the door. Hitting a wall, she brushed her hand around searching for … Finding the doorknob, she swung it open.

Sunlight blasted inside, but left her blind. She kept moving. Her clasp tightened on her sister’s hand.

They’d barely escaped to the porch when the loud ka-boom sounded behind them. “Mother crackers!” Miranda screamed as the force of the

explosion threw both her and her sister across the yard. The last thing registering in Miranda’s brain was her sister’s fingers sliding from

her grip.

She tried to hang on.

She tried with all her heart. With all her strength. But her sister was gone. Nothing but charcoal-colored smoke filled Miranda’s vision.

Everything went black.





Chapter Two

“Just do as he says and you won’t be hurt.” Perry Gomez’s voice came out muffled from behind the Halloween mask. Through the eyeholes he

watched the pretty bank teller’s large hazel eyes brim with tears. His father shot his gun up in the air. Her eyes, eyes almost the same color

as Miranda’s, held an inexplicable foreboding that he felt in his chest, outgrowing his rib cage—pushing against his chest bone. Oddly the

warning didn’t seem to be only about the robbery, but about … Miranda.

Seconds before entering the bank, a flood of Miranda images filled his mind. Her hazel eyes, her long strawberry blond hair, her small,

slightly pugged nose. One right after another, the images came.

Her laughing.

Her teasing.

Her crying.

A lot of her crying.

Not that he ever went long without thinking about her. It had been nine months and two days since he’d left Shadow Falls, and damn he missed

her. But something about those last visual snapshots felt different. Like she was trying to tell him something. It felt almost like an omen.

But that was stupid, because shape-shifters didn’t get omens.

Not unless … someone had sent it to him. Shit! Had Miranda sent it to him? Was she in some kind of trouble?

“Please don’t hurt me,” the teller said, her voice shaking and bringing Perry back to the problem at hand. And what a handful of a problem

it was. Damn it. He hated this. He’d sought out his parents hoping to find … something.

Love.

Acceptance.

Answers.

Answers to how someone could just abandon their child. Or maybe not answers. He knew why they’d done it. His powers as a shape-shifter had

arrived way too early, and made him … difficult to parent. Impossible some would say.

Hell, he couldn’t even put a name to the reason finding them had felt so urgent, but whatever he’d been seeking, he hadn’t found it.

That empty feeling inside him hadn’t disappeared. He still needed … something. Yet, he’d been forced to admit that their abandonment had

been the best thing they’d done for him.

Right now he wished he could return the favor. Just walk away, forget everything, and not look back. He couldn’t. It was too late for that.

“We’re not going to hurt you.” Perry met the young woman’s gaze, seeing and sensing bone-deep fear. Recently, after learning to control his

power, he’d tapped into sort of an extra gift. He’d heard other shape-shifters had it, he just hadn’t known he did. It was the ability to

read shifts in people’s emotions. He made an effort to sound calm, though he knew his Frankenstein mask didn’t encourage tranquility.

Hopefully, she recognized the truth in his voice. He purposely kept his own gun pointing down.

He hadn’t wanted to carry a shotgun, but Caleb—his dad’s friend who was the boss of some secret mob-like gang—ran the show and had insisted

everyone be armed: If we’re not all carrying, the FRU might suspect we aren’t human.