“Um,” Jarrod said, hesitating. Memories crept through him from the last month or so of his mortal days. Screaming matches with his foster parents. Taking off in the middle of the night. A trickle of sweat dripped down his neck as Sullivan and Eden shifted to look at him. Sullivan’s hand slid across his shoulder, easing down his arm until she could lock their fingers together.
He bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to answer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I mean, the state came and took me away from my mom’s. The place they put me was worse, so after a few months I bolted. I was afraid the cops would find me and take me back.” He faltered, embarrassed and unsure of whether to go on. “I did things. Stole. I had to survive. I never hurt anyone,” he added, vehemently. “I’d never done anything like that before. I was crashing with guys I didn’t know well. There could have been a Sider in there, I guess. We were all messed up a lot of the time.” He couldn’t be certain. “It might have been Touch.”
Gabe’s gaze was still on him. “So none of the Siders you know of now were there? None of the territory leaders? Kristen, Madeline, Vaughn?” Gabe asked. “Think hard.”
Kristen and Madeline wouldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes around the group he’d taken up with those last few weeks. Vaughn would have stuck out. Jarrod shook his head. “No, I would have remembered.”
“How long were you with these guys?”
“Little over a month?” Jarrod guessed.
“Eden? What about you? Times you could have been on Touch,” Gabriel asked, though his eyes never left Jarrod. Why’s he looking at me like that? Jarrod wondered.
“Before I met you and Az?” she stammered, and Jarrod knew she felt the same strange disconnect he did. Their mortal days were gone. Forgotten.
The same way their mortal days had forgotten them.
Eden coughed weakly. “The first month or so of summer, there were a bunch of parties. I went to all of them. I didn’t really know everyone there, but it was the same crowd. Then I stopped getting invited. My friends stopped calling.” Her last words were almost inaudible before she rallied. “They were forgetting about me, because I was losing my path, weren’t they?”
Gabriel seemed to ignore her distress. “Do you remember seeing any Siders?”
Jarrod shot a glance her way to catch her shaking her head. “No,” he answered for her. Gabe’s agitation worsened, the angel’s irises darkening to rust-colored rings. “Sullivan became a Sider because Vaughn’s group passed her too much Touch and her path got eroded. I think you were all exposed that way.” His voice lowered to a mumble of concentration. “A month of parties, a month for Jarrod. And then death. But Sullivan was with Vaughn much longer.”
“No!” Sullivan piped up, and then stepped back against Jarrod. “I mean, I was with him for six months, but he kept me alive. He kept me from killing myself.”
Gabe blinked quickly. “The Siders started in New York, but someone was spreading enough Touch in New Jersey that Eden was exposed to it a significant amount.” He stepped back toward the door like an animal afraid to be caged. No one made an attempt to stop him. He sucked in hard, clenching his hands. “Question Madeline, Kristen, Vaughn . . . Erin if you can find her. If you can trace it back—”
“No.” Jarrod cut in before Gabe could go on. He didn’t bother to hide his anger. “We’re staying here. Inside. We can’t go wandering around with your kind out there. Look at Eden,” he said, tipping his chin toward where she leaned against the wall, swaying a bit.
“I can’t,” Gabe whispered. “Jarrod, please. If you can find out how the Siders started, maybe I can find a way to fix things.”
Jarrod tensed when Gabriel dug into a pocket, but rather than a weapon, the angel pulled out a folded piece of paper. “The Bound are coming. Some are already here, searching for Siders, trying to figure out how to kill them. When they ask me where you are . . .” Jarrod heard the heartbreak in Gabriel’s voice. “Please don’t be here.”
“Can’t they just materialize anywhere we go?” Jarrod said.
“Not if they don’t know where that is. They won’t be able to appear inside this apartment because they haven’t been in here, but your security door isn’t exactly going to hold them out.” As he palmed the paper to Jarrod, Gabe pulled him close. “I’ve already been inside,” he whispered in his ear, too low for the girls to hear. “Get out. Now.”
Then, as if to prove his point, Gabriel was gone. Jarrod still held the note. A moment passed in silence before Sullivan engaged the useless dead bolt.
“What’d he say, Jarrod?” Eden said. Her voice cracked, weak, as she spoke.
Jarrod slid the note through his fingers. The creases were damp and deep, as if Gabe had been worrying it in his pocket for hours. Slowly, he unfolded it.
In nearly illegible scrawl, was a single sentence.
Do not leave Eden alone with me.
CHAPTER 2
Stretched out beside Sullivan, Jarrod couldn’t help the way his stomach flip-flopped as she sighed softly in her sleep and leaned into him. There was something different about having a girl fall asleep on his chest, head tucked against his shoulder, an arm draped across his stomach. Maybe it was just something about Sullivan.
He hadn’t planned on liking her as much as he did, uncertain what was happening between them. The newness of it made it feel like it could crumble apart at any moment.
Two weeks ago, she’d shown up at Milton’s while he was working. She’d been mortal then and addicted to Touch. His stomach churned at the memory of the night Luke took her life, of her blood soaking Jarrod’s legs, the gush and gurgle of her last breaths and his disbelief when, hours later, she took another.
As if on cue, Sullivan’s eyelashes fluttered. “Hey,” she murmured, stretching against him. Jarrod felt the brush of skin in every nerve, his body humming for her.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, moved slowly to give her warning. She held her breath as his mouth hit hers. A pulse of Touch surged through him, slid back into her. Another, stronger one raised the hair on the back of his neck. Each drove a spike of need deeper into him. Sullivan grabbed his shoulder, squeezing. Lungs bursting, he tore himself away with a delayed gasp. “Sorry,” he said as he leaned back, biting his lip.
“You okay?” she asked, searching for any sign that he wasn’t.
He wanted to keep going, knew they had to be careful. Because Luke had killed Sullivan, she was tied to him, the same way Eden was tied to Gabriel. If they slipped up, and Sullivan exhaled at the same time Jarrod inhaled, he would wind up Downstairs in a cage. It had put a serious damper on their make-outs.
When he didn’t answer, she touched his shoulder. He leaned closer, his tongue pressed to the top of his mouth, blocking his airway just in case. Sullivan’s kiss was barely a peck. When she pulled away, he saw the fear in her eyes.
“We’ll figure this all out,” he promised.
Sullivan nodded, then seemed to reconsider. “Everything’s so different. I mean, between two weeks ago and now. . . .” she said.