Free Carry On Wayward Son by Cate Dean

was in the note, Claire?”
    “I wanted him to know we were all right. You hardly left a good impression on him.”
    “And now you plot behind my back? Treat me as you would an entity of evil?” He moved forward, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. The exhaustion he fought to hide leaked through. “Until I get what I want—until I have my life—no one leaves this place.”
    Before Claire could open her mouth he disappeared. Left her trapped in the locked room. Again.
     
    *
     
    S imon vaulted back over the fence so fast he brought some of it with him.
    “Damn it—” He gripped his right wrist, cursing as he saw the thick splinters imbedded in his palm.
    “Let me see.” Eric cradled his hand, tested the splinters, smiling as Simon cursed louder. “Sorry, sorry. Those are really dug in. I have my bag in the car. Don’t poke at them.”
    Simon opened his other hand, held out the crumpled paper to Theresa. “Open this for me, will you?”
    She unfolded the paper, held it up just as Eric got back. “Sit,” he said, setting his black medical bag on the lawn and kneeling next to it. “You can read it while I extract.”
    Simon raised one eyebrow—and jerked his hand away when he saw the tools in Eric’s. “Oh, hell no.”
    “Read the note, let me do what I do.”
    “You work on animals, last I checked.” Eric merely smiled again and grabbed Simon’s wrist.
    “They’re splinters. I think I can handle them without much bloodshed.”
    To distract himself, Simon nodded at Theresa. She held out the pink paper; it took a couple tries to decipher Claire’s scribble. And when he finally did, he had to read it twice to actually believe it.
    “Damn it, Claire—what did you step in?”
    Brown eyes wide, Theresa stared up at him. “What is it?” She started to turn the note around.
    “Don’t bother—I’ll just tell you.” Maybe saying it out loud will make it seem less—surreal. “She wants to know if I can do a banishing spell.”
    “For what?” Eric lowered the giant tweezers just before they gripped the first ugly splinter. “Are they dealing with another ghost possession?”
    “If only it were that easy.” Letting out his breath, Simon looked at them. “Heaven help me—she wants me to banish a guardian angel.”
     

 
    NINE
     
    C laire lowered herself to the only chair in the room, still shaken. Zach had to know about her; he cracked the wall blocking her power, touched her more than once. But he still treated her as if she were like the others. As if she was completely human.
    Pressing one hand to her chest, she felt the scar, just below her sternum, where Natasha plunged the knife into her the night everything changed. The night she gave her life to save her friends.
    Now it ached, throbbing, as the wall Zach fractured, the wall Azazel built to block her power, started to crumble. She didn’t know what lay behind it, and part of her was terrified that the demon waited, crouching behind her shiny new soul.
    If that were the truth, if Azazel left that part of her inside, she had no way to keep it contained—both her tattoos, her barriers between her true self and the world, were broken, cut by iron and steel.
    She would not put the people trapped with her in danger, and she no longer knew if the angel she had been or the demon she became when she fell would win. She had touched too much evil, lost too much of herself, to know where she stood anymore.
    Fighting it exhausted her, but she didn’t know what else to do. She wanted so badly to tell Simon, have him on her side, by her side when the wall finally came down. Just in case.
    She felt herself sway, and slid off the chair, sinking to the floor. Her hand closed around the amethyst at her throat, and the heat already radiating from it surprised her. It was usually cool to the first touch—even when her fingers warmed it, the stone had never given off so much—
    Sand burst up from the floor, swirled around her, a barrier