The oread had escaped from Starforce Tech, probably by seducing some poor security guards as a pretty lady, then set their revenge in motion, starting with getting a position as Leland’s assistant. Had the oread charmed him too? With Evie’s looks and an oread’s magic, it wouldn’t have been difficult. It also explained why, despite all the cauldron stirring Brady said she did, Leland kept her around; he couldn’t fire her because the oread trapped him under their spell. We’d all fallen for it.
I thought back to Evie’s dramatic reaction to the news of Leland’s death. Was that all an act? Had the oread used their powers to get us all to fall for her performance of grief? It’d worked so easily on me, even as I asked Evie questions about her suspicious discovery of a letter in Leland’s room. She hadn’t discovered it at all; she’d brought it with her and made a show of handing it to Leland in the reception room knowing he’d step out to read it, clearing her of any guilt and giving her the opportunity to point the finger at Brady who, with his background in security, probably had some idea that something was off about Evie but lacked any proof.
“We’re here, Selena. Are you okay?” Evie asked, but all I could see were her haunting, icy eyes, and the rows of jagged, stony teeth I knew lay somewhere behind the oread’s illusion.
“Oh, sorry, I zoned out,” I said and, against my better judgment, turned to put my hands on the grate without opening it, all while knowing I was the only thing standing between the oread and Kade. For a moment, I considered shouting down the hall to warn him, but thought better of it when I remembered the wink from Flora and her comment about catching up with me. With any luck, she’d already flown — literally — up the stairs to beat me to the punch. I wouldn’t know for sure until I stepped out of the elevator, but I couldn’t make myself move, despite the fear now screeching like a freight train in the back of my head. For better or worse, I had the oread alone and trapped.
I swallowed my hammering heart that had crept into my throat. “I know what you are and what you’ve done,” I said without turning around, terrified of what I might find if I did. A beat passed without an answer, and in the silence, a rush of magic washed over me, flooding my mind with a vivid image of a stone-toothed creature with jagged, angular joints and spotted skin lunging at my back.
Instinctively, I threw myself into the elevator’s wall to my left and fell to my knees, and the oread crashed into the grate where I’d been standing a moment prior, snarling and tearing at the metal with its horrible teeth. Shocked, I realized my magic had saved me once again. I couldn’t explain how or why, but somehow, it had warned me a split second before the attack, giving me just enough time to avoid it — but now the oread had me trapped and cornered, and the little magic I knew how to use wouldn’t save me.
The oread whirled as I crawled away from it. Its wild blue eyes flashed, and it bared its mountainous fangs at me. As I stared in frozen horror and waited for it to finish me, I couldn’t help wondering how something so terrifying could pass itself off as someone so beautiful. “I’m sorry for what they did to you,” I said, knowing full well it wouldn’t matter, but amazingly, the oread froze. Amazed and unsure what else to do, I kept going. “They trespassed on your land, kidnapped you, and killed your sister. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Sister!” the oread moaned, clawing at the surrounding air in grief. A moment later, its expression hardened, and its piercing eyes refocused on me. “Suffer,” the oread hissed, giving me chills. “You’ll all suffer. Nature always prevails.”
“You don’t have to do this. You’ve already punished the people responsible!” I pleaded, hating how desperate and helpless I sounded.
“No. Nature must cleanse itself of those who don’t belong. Nature will purify and heal,” the oread snapped. “This can never happen again. We trusted you, and you betrayed us. Now, you must suffer.”
“Hey, you! Suffer this,” someone called from behind the oread, and when they turned, a blinding flash popped in the elevator, making the oread screech and cover its eyes as it stumbled away from the source. Blinking away my temporary blindness, I scrambled away from the oread toward the door and found Kade standing on the other side with his camera aimed and ready to fire again. “Hurry and get out of there, Selena!” he shouted as I fumbled with the mechanism.
Finally, it popped open, and I heaved the heavy metal upward to stumble out of the elevator. The grate slammed closed behind me, trapping the oread inside. “What are you doing here?” I asked Kade breathlessly.
“I was standing guard at Zadie’s room like you asked me, and I heard a bunch of commotion, so I came running. Are you okay?”
“I’m in one piece, at least,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the oread, who was thrashing around in the elevator and clutching its eyes.
“How did you know to do that?”
Kade shrugged. “Just had a hunch from prior experience,” he said, and I remembered from my vision the way it’d felt from the oread’s perspective when Kade had flashed it. Did their environment make their eyes sensitive to light or something? “Besides, I didn’t want to hurt it, so I didn’t want to use magic. I figured a quick pop of the flash would keep it away from you long enough for you to get away.”
I laughed as I
