“Wait,” I said, but Brooke, having caught on, was helping Betty Jo. I fought them both. I wasn’t stupid.
I knew to keep my distance, but I wanted some answers. “Wait, Granddad, what are you doing with him?”
I heard a sound come from Jared, deep and guttural like a growl, and saw Granddad take out a syringe.
“Hold him if you can.” He plunged the needle into Jared’s leg. In return, Jared offered him a look I could only describe as pure, seething hatred.
Then he bucked under their grip. They lost their hold and he fell to the ground with a thud. He tried to roll onto his knees, but he overshot the move and almost toppled over. Shaking his head as though disoriented, he tensed, panting and gasping as the drug took effect. Then he collapsed, the chains rattling as he hit the floor.
“Get him in there,” Granddad said. “Quickly, before it wears off.”
They took him into the archive room. It was more like a vault than like a room, created to protect the ancient documents that had been passed down. But why there?
“Hurry, close the door.” Granddad rushed out.
Jared was already regaining consciousness and the men were struggling to close a door I had never even paid attention to. It was behind stacks of boxes and filing cabinets that had to be cleared before they could close it.
“Bill, hurry!” Grandma yelled. She must have gotten rid of Mr. Davis. She stood behind me, her eyes glued to Jared.
I turned back to him as he shook his head again and rolled onto his knees once more.
“Bill,” she whispered, her voice faint with fear.
I didn’t like seeing her afraid. I stepped to her, took her arm into mine as Jared watched me from underneath his lashes, the same arrogant smile sliding across his face, the same taunting air. In one concentrated effort, he forced his arms apart, broke the chains. They slipped from his body like satin falling to the floor.
“Bill, please.”
His hands were still shackled behind his back, and with the force it might have taken me to break a silk thread, he pulled them apart.
In a breathy whisper I barely heard, Grandma tried one more time. “Bill,” she said, and the hopelessness in her voice broke my heart.
NIGHT VISION
“Push!” Granddad said, straining under the weight of steel. Just as the huge door swung shut, Jared rushed forward, his eyes locked on to mine until the thick, metal door separated us.
He slammed into it with all his might, and the six men who were trying to shut it skidded back, losing valuable ground. Two actually fell. But before Jared could take another run at it, Cameron pushed it shut, his teeth clenched with the effort, his face red as he pushed with every ounce of strength he possessed.
Another loud thud echoed in the room, but the door barely gave that time. Granddad rushed forward and spun the vault handle to lock it. Cameron collapsed and slid to the ground, holding his abused throat and coughing. Brooke hurried to him.
He looked up at the sheriff. “Took you long enough to get there.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t find the right tranquilizer darts. We only had the ones for small bears.”
I gasped. “What did you use on Jared?”
The sheriff turned to me. “The ones strong enough to bring down an elephant. Since we don’t have many pachyderms in these parts, took me a while to find them.”
Cameron grinned at Granddad. “We totally need to oil that door.”
Granddad stood and nodded in agreement, winded from the effort it took to get the massive thing closed. Then he turned on Betty Jo. “What part of ‘get her out of here’ didn’t you understand?”
I had never in my life heard him talk to anyone that way. Especially not to Grandma’s best friend.
“Do you know what he could have done to her? Do you understand the consequences?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, then added, “She’s stronger than she looks.”
Granddad was in her face before I could blink, and I jumped to her defense. “Granddad, this isn’t her fault.”
“You’re right,” he said, turning his anger on me. “It’s yours.” He pointed to the door we’d come in through. “When I tell you to get away—”
“What?” I asked, interrupting his tirade. “Are you going to tell me how right you were to insist Jared stay away from me? Are you going to keep more secrets from me until I’m in another perilous situation where that information would have come in handy? Are you going to send me away?”
Both Grandma and Granddad stilled.
“Bill,” Grandma said as another thud echoed around us. She squeezed his arm to calm him.
But my own anger refused to be squelched. It spread like a nuclear blast. “Just so I have this straight, you guys get to keep things from me again and again, treat me like I’m an idiot, and I’m just supposed to obey your every order like a robot?”
Granddad seemed to snap to his senses. He stepped back as though appalled at his own behavior. “I’m sorry, pix.”
The thought of being sent away caused a hollow pain to well up inside me. My chin wrinkled as I tried not to cry. Did they really think so little of me? To decide my future without even talking with me about it?
I stood there, accusing them with my stare. I was six again and my parents had just disappeared and I had no control over my life whatsoever. No direction other than certain doom.
“We just want to keep you safe.”
“Then stop lying to me. Stop keeping things from me.”
He wanted to talk more. I could see it in his eyes, but he cleared his throat and dropped it for now.
Turning to Betty Jo, he said, “Betty, I am so sorry. I—”
“No,” she interrupted. “You’re right. I risked everything by not following your orders. I was just … I was so scared.”
That made Granddad feel worse. He pressed his lips together and put a hand on her shoulder. “No, this is my fault. I should have caught on to this sooner, when Cameron first felt it.”
“Felt what?” I asked, questioning Cameron, but he didn’t have time to answer before another thud echoed in the room. “This won’t hold him,” I said, my tone worried. “It doesn’t matter what you put him in, he can dematerialize and pass through anything. I’ve seen him do it.”
“Not in there, pix,” Granddad said. “That room was built to hold anything supernatural. Do you remember the symbols on the walls?”
I thought back and nodded. There were hundreds of symbols carved into the metal walls. I just thought it was decoration.
“Those are impenetrable bars to supernatural entities, like a steel cage would be to us. Nothing preternatural can get past it. It will hold him.”
I was shocked. “You built this room to hold Jared?”
Exhausted, Granddad stepped to a folding chair and lowered himself into it. Grandma knelt beside him. He squeezed the hand on his arm, then said, “No, hon. We built this room to hold you.”
I glanced at the vault, at the thick metallic walls and steel door. “Does the word ‘overkill’ mean anything? Because I’m pretty sure a small closet would suffice. And what did I do to deserve imprisonment anyway?”
He smiled sadly. “We built it after you were taken. After you were possessed. We thought that if we managed to exorcise the demon, we would need a place to hold it. Otherwise, he could just jump into someone else. And, we just didn’t know what you would do with it inside you. If you would try to kill us.
We had to plan.”
“Oh. And I love that you never told me that either.” Now I was just being childish. What were they supposed to do? I had a demon inside me. They had little choice.
