Released (The Eternal Balance #3)(27)

Paul sputtered and clawed at my hands. With a sigh, Azi set him down, but didn’t let go. “My cell—list of employee—”

Sam went back to the cell and started searching. After a minute, she let go of a growl. “What is her name? The girl who works in the Haunted House?”

“Sv—Sa—Savannah Ggg—”

“Got it!” Sam exclaimed a few moments later. “There’s only one Savannah in here. Assuming that’s the girl that works at the Haunted House?”

“Good.” Azi turned from Sam and fixed its gaze on Paul. The man was shaking, the fear pouring off him in potent, delectable waves. “You’ll wish to leave now, Samantha Merrick.”

“Leave—” I heard her gasp. “I can’t let you kill him. As much as he deserves it, this bastard is a human being. The lowest kind, but still human.”

“I will honor my arrangement with the—Jax. I will not kill him.”

“But you’re going to hurt him.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m going to hurt him,” Azi confirmed as it pulled my lips into a wicked grin.

It waited, but Sam didn’t say anything else. Instead, I heard the soft click of the door as she slipped from the office. And as Azi dug my fingers into the soft skin of Paul’s shoulders, I knew Sam could hear him scream.





Chapter Twelve


Sam


As we drove, the sounds of Paul’s screams echoed through my head. The demon assured me the man was alive, and while not necessarily well, he was better off than he deserved. What bothered me more than hearing every last whimper was that I hadn’t cared. I hadn’t moved a muscle or lifted a finger to help. Maybe the demon was rubbing off on me.

I hung on to Paul’s cell phone just in case. Azi had technically attacked him, and on the off chance he thought about spilling to the cops, we had ammo. Azi informed him I’d send the pictures to the cops, along with posting his information all over the internet. I was betting the families of his models would love to get their hands on that.

Savannah—there’d been no last name on Paul’s list—lived about twenty minutes from the amusement park, in a complex called Ginger Pine Apartments. We didn’t know for sure that’s where she’d go, but it was as good a guess as any. When we pulled up in front of the place, I was a little shocked.

Ginger Pine was a rundown building at the center of town. There were bars on the windows and a broken sign that informed the public that there were heap roos lable. The missing letters made it seem like they were advertising gibberish. It wasn’t what I’d expected. I thought back to how Sadie lived—the only witch I’d had the misfortune to meet—and wondered why this Savannah girl didn’t just nose-twitch her way into some five-star apartment in the sky.

“Remember,” I said, closing the car door and stuffing the keys into my back pocket. “Let me do the talking.”

“You keep telling me that. I find it unnecessary. I am perfectly able to convey our needs.”

“Sure you are.” I sidestepped a huge piece of displaced sidewalk and stepped past a broken stair. “The problem lies with how you convey things.”

It grumbled something I couldn’t quite catch as I pulled open the front door and stepped inside. Savannah’s room was at the back of the first floor, the last door at the end of the hall. I sucked in a deep breath and knocked, then crossed my fingers and waited.

And waited. And waited…

“Maybe she didn’t come back here?”

“She’s inside,” Azi said. It tilted Jax’s head and leaned just a little closer to the door. “I can hear her heartbeat. It’s fast. She’s afraid.”

“Gee.” I stepped back from the door and glared at the demon. “I wonder why she’d be afraid. Y’know, it’s not like she was just attacked by some weird looking, freakishly tall corpse-man.”

“The Tracker is actually quite short where I am from. The average height—”

I held my hand out to stop it. “Honestly? Don’t care.”

With a nod, Azi nudged me out of the way and positioned Jax’s body in front of the door. It knocked once and, without giving her a chance to answer, gripped the knob and twisted. Hard. The hardware broke in several pieces and clattered to the floor at our feet.

Azi turned to me, and the smallest hint of a smile spread across Jax’s lips. “The door is open.”

I pushed past and gently nudged my way inside. “Savannah?” A single step confirmed the apartment wasn’t quite as bad as the outside. The walls were pristine white, and the floor, blanketed in thick beige carpet, was in good condition. The entry spilled into a tiny living room area with only a small couch and an antique looking end table. There was no television. “We just need to talk to you for a sec,” I tried again. Still nothing.

“This is foolish and wastes time.” Azi knocked me aside and stormed toward the doorway on the other side of the room. The demon made it halfway across before stopping, mid-stride, and turning back to me. “We are too late.”

“Too late?” No. That wasn’t possible. Her heartbeat—only a minute before—

Without responding, the demon started forward again, but someone stepped into its path.