Dark (12 page)

“You already called Lucy to come get you. You have to do this,”
she murmured. The thought that so many people could die from those things that
had attacked her and Lucy horrified her. If she were at all responsible for
drawing them here, even indirectly, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
She had to get home and check her computer. And call John.

She turned the handle and crept into the night.

****

Greyson stared out the front window, watching Eva drive away when
her friend picked her up. He’d heard her wake up, listened to her dress in the
bathroom, and followed her up the stairs. He wanted to stop her, force her to
stay with him, but his
brother
Bruno’s voice in his
head told him to let her go. In his gut, he knew this was more than a woman
sneaking out on a man. He’d sensed her relaxation, then her panic as she got
out of bed. If she didn’t do this, too many people could die and she knew it.
Eva wasn’t the kind of person who could live with that on her conscience.

She’ll be fine, because you’re going to follow her and make sure
she’s safe,
he
told himself. He rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension pulling on
his spine. It didn’t work. “She’ll probably go home and turn on her computer, before
she does anything else. She’ll see if she can track down the leak that way. She
won’t call her stepfather right off the bat,” he muttered, angry with himself
for telling her about the hacker. “Damn it.” He headed for the table where he’d
left his cell phone. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment, then slid
his finger across the screen.

“Jesus, Greyson. Do you know what time it is?” Solomon groused as
he answered the call.

“Be happy I didn’t use the viewer to contact you,” Greyson said,
his voice rough. “Eva’s heading to her house.
Probably to
check her computer or call John.
Or both.”

Silence.
Then, “I thought you didn’t want
to use her as bait.”

“It wasn’t my decision.”

“You told her about the hacker,” Solomon said, sounding more
awake.

Greyson heard rustling over the line, probably his brother getting
dressed.
“Yeah.”

“You should call Bruno. It’ll take me at least five hours to get
there,” he said.

“You’re not in New York anymore?” Greyson frowned.

“No, I went home. I have my own territory to protect, you know,”
Solomon said, sounding irritated.

“Take a ship,” Greyson told him, not wanting to go to Eva’s
without backup. “And could you call Bruno and Isaac for me? I’m heading out in
a minute.”

Solomon sighed noisily.
“Fine.
Be there
in fifteen minutes.”

The line went dead. Greyson rubbed his face, then padded
downstairs to get dressed.

****

“God, does this road never end?” Eva muttered from the passenger’s
side of Lucy’s borrowed car. The headlights barely pierced the darkness. Off to
the west, an owl hooted, giving her the willies.

“This is crazy, you know that, right?” Lucy said to Eva, not for
the first time. “Does your Sentry know you’re slinking away in the middle of
the night? I mean, I’ve had my share of hookup walks-of-shame the next morning
and it sucks, but I don’t think Mr. Dark is going to be happy about this.”

“I have to get home. I have to check something,” Eva said,
clenching her fingers into fists. She was so nervous she was shaking. “Just keep
going.”

Lucy looked disgusted, but she kept her foot on the gas, driving
slowly through the trees. “This is insane, you know.” She put on her high
beams, wincing as she barely missed hitting a shrub.

“No, it isn’t. Having sex with him was insane,” Eva muttered.

Lucy huffed.
“Yeah, no.
Sleeping with him
was the smartest thing you ever did. Leaving? Not so much.”

“I have no choice,” Eva said, biting her lip to keep from crying.
She really didn’t want to leave him, but the thought of what could happen… She
shook her head.

“Why? Why do you have to sneak off? He’s going to freak out.” Lucy
finally pulled onto the road and sped up. “I’m having palpitations and he’s not
even going to be mad at me.”

“He won’t hurt you,” Eva said, rubbing her eyes. God, she was
tired.

Lucy flashed
her a
hostile look.
“Yeah, right.”

“He won’t. Anyway, this is more important than one man’s hurt
feelings.”

“He’s not a
man,
Eva. He’s a Sentry. That’s an entirely
different animal. They call us mortals, did you know that? Because they live
almost forever and we don’t. Who knows how he’s going to react to this?” Lucy
turned onto Eva’s road and slowed down. “Was the sex not good? Is that why you
bolted?” She shook her head as she pulled into Eva’s driveway and shut off the
car. “I can’t imagine him sucking in bed.”

“No, for God’s sake, he didn’t suck,” Eva said, feeling her face
go hot. Just the thought of the things they’d done had her blushing. “It was
good.
Great, actually.”

“Then why this?”
Lucy opened her door and got out.

Eva sighed. She’d tried to get Lucy to just drop her off and go
home, but her friend ignored her. She got out and followed her to the house. “There
are other things at stake here.”

“What, the fate of the world? Please. Tell me another one,” Lucy
scoffed.

Yeah, exactly that,
she thought, looking away from her
friend’s too-penetrating gaze.

“No. Oh, no. You can’t be serious.” Lucy frowned.

Eva opened the front door and flicked on a light, blinking as her
eyes adjusted. The box with her computer was… right over there. She headed for
the sofa.

“Eva, please tell me you’re not doing something crazy.” Lucy
followed her inside.

“That depends on your definition of crazy,” Eva replied, ripping
open the box and pulling out her laptop. She set it on her knees and booted it
up before she lost her nerve. Surely the ring would protect her and Lucy,
right? It had the last time. And Greyson had charged it for her, too. He’d said
so.

“The definition of crazy?”
Lucy snorted. “There
is
no other definition! Crazy is crazy.”
She plopped down beside Eva. “What does crazy have to do with your computer?”

Eva took a deep breath. “You know that the Sentries have tech we
don’t understand, right?”

Lucy nodded.
“Yeah.”

“Well, someone managed to hack into their net, Stronghold.”

“That’s impossible,” Lucy said flatly.

“I wish,” Eva muttered under her breath. “Well, Bruno Day thinks I’m
the hacker,” she said louder.

Lucy looked at her then burst out laughing. “What? That’s the
stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Eva nodded and pointed at her friend. “You tell
him
that.”

Lucy leaned back, clearly horrified. “Uh, no thank you. He might
decide to eat me for breakfast.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I have to figure this out,” Eva said,
clicking through her files. She hadn’t even set up wireless yet in the house,
let alone network access. How could her computer be the source? When her cell phone
rang, she jumped.

“That’ll be your Sentry,” Lucy said, a note of panic in her voice.

Eva glared at her and dug her phone out of her pocket to look at
the display. “Huh.” Fear congealed at the base of her spine. She hadn’t wanted
Greyson to be right, but there was no denying it now.

“Not Greyson then?” Lucy asked. “Who is it?”

Eva glanced at her friend.
“My stepfather.”
She tapped the screen, setting it on speaker. “John? It’s the middle of the
night. Is everything okay?”

Lucy gave her crazy-eye, but Eva waved at her to be silent.

“I could ask you the same question, Eva,” John replied. His voice
sounded weird.

Stressed or something
, she thought.
Not a good sign.

She frowned. “Is my mom there?”

“She’s in Florida, visiting with friends. You know that.”

“Why are you calling me then?” Eva held her breath.

John sighed theatrically. “I think you already know the answer to
that, my dear.”

Lucy grabbed her arm and dug her fingers in.
What.
The.
Hell,
she mouthed, soundlessly.

Eva shook her off. “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She faked a yawn. “You woke me up.”

“Turn off the computer and get out of there, Eva. Do it right now.
I love your mother and I like you a lot,” he said, as if he weren’t completely
insane.

“I like you too, John,” Eva lied. She squashed the part of her
heart that felt a pang of grief for the man who’d made her mother happy. He
wasn’t real. Apparently, he’d
never
been real, or he wouldn’t have
called her the moment she turned on her laptop tonight. “John, I don’t
understand. What’s going on?”

“Are we really going to play this game, Eva?” he asked, suddenly
sounding angry.

“This isn’t a game to me.”

He made a disgusted sound.

She took a deep breath to keep her temper under wraps and locked
eyes with Lucy. “Fine, if that’s how you want to do this. Why did you do it,
John? You know that the Stronghold tech is off limits. And what possible reason
could you have had for using my laptop to mess around with the Sentries’ stuff?”

He laughed. “Hmm, so you
do
know what’s going on.
Surprising, really.
I didn’t think you were that perceptive.”

What an asshole,
Eva thought, glaring at her phone. “The Stronghold net is the
only protection we have to keep those things away from Earth,” she said, voice
shaking. “And you screwed with it.”

“The Sentries want you to believe that, Eva, but how do we know it’s
true? The Spiders, as you call them, are nothing but non-intelligent bugs. They
pose no threat to us. The Sentries are lying to us all. That’s what men with
power do, not that I’d expect you to understand that, at your age.”

His tone set her teeth on edge. “You’ve never seen one of the
Spiders up close. I have. The Sentries are trying to keep us alive, John. Those
things are dangerous. I have the scars to prove it.”

Lucy’s eyes were wide as saucers. Eva nodded grimly at her friend,
but then John spoke again and her attention went back to her phone.

“Turn off the computer and get out of there. This is my last
warning. If you don’t, well…” He paused. “On your head
be
it.”

Eva stared at the phone as the line went dead.

“Shit, shit!” Lucy grabbed Eva’s leg. “Did what I think happen
just happen?” she said, voice rising. “Your stepfather hacked into the Sentries’
tech? Is he crazy?”

Eva laughed humorlessly. “Yes. And yes.”

“What the hell is he thinking? And what did he mean about turning
off your computer and leaving? Is he threatening you?”

“He’s thinking about making money, Lucy. What else? That’s what
men in power do,” she said sarcastically. “And yeah, that was definitely a
threat. Clearly he’s been monitoring my computer use, though just turning it on
shouldn’t have prompted him to call me. There’s something else at stake here. I
bet something went wrong on his end.” Eva stood up and began pacing. “I can’t
believe I ever trusted him.”

“He bought you a house,” Lucy said, glancing around. “That’s a lot
of emotional currency. It’s not surprising that you trusted him. And he married
your mom.”

Eva followed Lucy’s gaze around the living room. She hadn’t even
unpacked yet. “I can’t stay here.” Her eyes landed on her willow tree. Was it
only a few years ago that Greyson had given her the tiny cutting?

“Well, obviously not.” Lucy stood up. “You can crash in my
parents’ spare room tonight. We’ll surprise them at breakfast. It’ll be fun.”

Eva smiled tiredly at her friend, but before she could thank her,
an ominous
scritching
sound came from the windows.
She whipped her head around.
Oh shit.
“Lucy, I think our luck just ran out,” she said, her heart seizing up. The mass
of Spiders on the glass of her front window looked obscenely pretty, but she
knew they wanted her blood. She reached out and yanked Lucy down just as the window
cracked, then exploded inward. A wave of Spiders flowed inside like a
crystalline carpet of bugs.
Only way more frightening,
she thought
frantically, trying to figure out what to do.

“Oh God, not again,” Lucy moaned, scuttling back with her. They
ended up crouched at the far end of the couch. The Spiders were almost on top
of them and it had only been a few seconds.

Eva scrabbled at her shirt, yanking on the chain to expose the
ring. “I hope this works,” she muttered, holding it up for the second time in
less than twenty-four hours. A prickling of energy flowed through her arm, and then
the first Spider hit the dark shimmer of her ring-shield and shattered. “Crap. This
isn’t going to hold them off long,” she said, still inching backwards. “Greyson
had to recharge it after the last time.”