Released (The Eternal Balance #3)(40)

The silence, along with the almost blank stare, was too much to handle. I balled my fist and, forgetting for a second that it was Jax’s body, I let loose and, as hard as I could, punched his shoulder where it looked like one of the carnivi must have gone to town. “Answer me!”

Azi righted Jax’s body and squared his shoulders. There was the smallest hint of a flinch. “I will not relinquish control of our body. Therefore, he is as good as dead.”

I wanted to argue. To kick and scream and fight until my hands were bloody and there was no strength left in my bones. But what good would it have done? The only way I was evicting that bastard was by getting my hands on that stone. And with Van gone, that task had just gotten a hundred times more complicated. At least Jax was still in there. Still safe for now.

“Focus,” I snapped. “What now?”

“We know where she hid the stone. We go there. I believe her last remark was her way of telling us that you would be able to take the stone from its resting place.”

I’d gotten that, too, but I’d hoped it had slipped the demon’s notice. I should have known better. Getting the stone would solve Azi’s problem, but without Van to wield it, I didn’t think I could use it to save Jax. “It can’t be as simple as walking in and snapping it up.”

“Possibly not. But Zenak will bring her to the cave. He will force her to hand him the stone. We know where. And we know when.”

“They could still get there first.” Either Azi was packing some serious ammo I wasn’t aware of, or the demon had lost its ever loving mind.

“Zenak will undoubtedly send minions to impede us. I imagine they will come at us from all ends. The task will not be an easy one.” It leaned Jax’s body toward me, so close that his turbulent gray eyes filled my vision. “But as you humans say, it wouldn’t be worth it if it were.”

I resisted the urge to push closer and instead took a step back. We had one day until the last full moon. This plan had a lot of problems. There were too many variables and loopholes for disaster.

Unfortunately, it was all we had.

…

It killed me to leave the park without at least trying to find Van, but in the end I knew Azi was right, so we headed back to her car. A throwback to my wilder days, I was able to easily hotwire the thing and get us on our way.

With a little on-the-go cell phone research, I found out that the Dandus Nature Preserve was a sprawling expanse of two hundred and forty acres nestled in the small town of Valley High, New York. Valley High was a town just outside of Buffalo, about six hours from Harlow. Since we were currently still in Virginia, that was an almost fourteen-hour drive, and about five hours in, we decided to stop for the night.

Well, I decided.

Azi had argued that I didn’t seem tired—and it was right—but Jax’s body had several nasty looking wounds from our throw down with the carnivi. Claiming fatigue was the only thing I could think of to get the demon to stop and let me tend to them. I stopped at a drug store, used the last of our cash, and bought some first aid supplies.

Luckily I had an idea about how to score us a room for the night, another trick from my earlier years. I drove us to a small motel just off the highway and waited for my moment.

It took about two hours before I found what I needed—a family of three leaving their room. I waited for them to get in the car and pull from the lot, and then I slipped from the driver’s seat. Azi made a move to follow, but I held up my hand. “Just hang tight and trust me, okay?”

I could see it wasn’t happy about staying behind, but the demon did as I asked and settled back in the passenger’s seat.

Across the lot and through the main doors, I sauntered to the clerk’s desk with a saccharine smile firmly in place. “Hey,” I said to the guy behind the desk. Just my luck—he was in his early twenties, and the second I walked through the doors, his eyes raked greedily up and down my body.

“What can I do ya for?” he said, with a cocky smirk.

“My sister was taking a bath and the water wouldn’t turn off. The tub overflowed, and now there’s water everywhere.” I flashed him my brightest smile. “You think you could send the housekeeping cart over to clean it up? We’re on our way out for dinner, so we won’t be in the way or anything.”

“Sure thing, beautiful.” He winked. “What’s your room number?”

“One eighty-seven,” I said, giving him the family’s number.

“No problem. I’ll send the girl right over.”

I thanked him, flashed one last beaming grin, and then headed out front. I didn’t go back to the car, though. I made my way around the corner of the building and tucked myself away to wait for the janitorial cart.

Thankfully, they didn’t keep me waiting. The guy behind the desk must have called it in the second I left the building. The young woman with the cart knocked twice on the door. When there was no response, she pulled out her keys and unlocked the room. The winds of luck must have been blowing in a different direction than they had been lately. Instead of leaving the keys in the lock like I’d seen most maids do, she opened the door and set them back in her tray—then walked into the room with an armload of towels.

I snagged the opportunity and sprang out from around the corner. A familiar rush of excitement surged through my system. I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching, then snagged the keys and slipped them into my pocket before casually strolling across the lot and sliding back behind the wheel of Van’s ancient car.