Free All Hallows Night (Night Series) by Marie Hall Page A

“Just this gut feeling I’ve got, thinking back on it. How do two people just disappear like that?”
    “Three.” I lifted my fingers because he wasn’t counting the guy at the taco stand. “But whatever it is, I’ve got this terrible feeling that somehow this might all be intertwined. Call it a hunch, but I believe the Order is screwing with us again.”
    “Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. “Let the games begin.” Clapping the doorframe, he made as if to leave, then paused and turned to look at me.
    And there was a change in his look. A haunted aching filled his eyes and I swallowed hard.
    “That night, when you disappeared. I couldn’t find you, Dora.” His brows twitched. “I couldn’t find you. None of them would have survived anyway; I gave them the only mercy I could.”
    I sensed it was as close to the truth of what’d gone down that night as I would ever get from him.
    I searched his cold, beautiful face and whispered, “I’m sorry, Luc. For everything.”
    And for a second I could have sworn the hard shell cracked and that for an infinite moment in time he was as conflicted and unsure as I was. But it was so fleeting it made me question whether I’d seen it all.
    He grinned. “Yeah, I bet. Get some rest.”
    Then he was gone and I was alone, just me, Kemen’s sweater, and a head full of memories.
    ***
    B y two in the morning, I figured out sleep wasn’t happening. And though I was supposed to be scouting for an elusive zombie hive, there was no way in hell I’d be doing that in the middle of the night.
    I might be strong, but I’m not stupid.
    So I traced to my trailer, just long enough to grab a vintage bottle of cabernet sauvignon and that ratty old book Billy had told me to read.
    Billy.
    Just the thought of him made my toes curl and a delicious heat spread through my middle. Where was he right now?
    Returning to Kemen’s home, I set the wine down on small end table and walked to the window, pushing aside the curtain as I stared out. The night was pitch-dark. We were a few miles outside the village, which meant we had no city lights to mar the splendor of the rugged, harsh beauty of the Mexican desert at night. Barrel cacti and dry sagebrush dotted the landscape. A full moon took up the center of the sky and a million stars winked back at me. And I felt completely alone and small.
    “Billy,” I murmured, leaning my head against the cool pane of glass and allowing myself one moment that was mine alone.
    One moment to remember his touch, the way he’d felt on me. How his hands had caressed my face. And yes, there was lust when I was around him.
    But when he’d died, I’d felt any semblance of humanity inside me bleed out. And though there’d been so many questions hammering in my skull—whether he’d meant to kill me that night or whether he’d been there to save me—I could never let him go. Out of one toxic relationship and into another, it seemed a curse I was doomed to repeat ad nauseam.
    I snorted. “You’re freaking sick, Pandora.”
    With a slight shake of my head, I walked back to the bed. Uncorking the bottle, I drank straight from it. I wasn’t even trying to play around tonight. The full-bodied red hit my empty stomach like a sledgehammer, but it felt good. Woke me up, gave me the focus I needed to tackle this coma-inducing medieval read.
    Cracking open the book, I greedily inhaled the musty scent of old pages and was just ready to flip to the beginning when a sheet of paper that hadn’t been in there before caught my eye.
    Grabbing it, I turned it over and my stomach bottomed out.
    This is an allegorical work—read between the lines, Dora.
    ~B
    I blinked. Billy had been in my room. Probably tonight. I wet my lips, refraining from tracing back there just to see if he was still around. The man moved like shadow and more than once he’d given me the slip with me only figuring out he’d been there well after the fact.
    Clutching the paper to my heart, I didn’t want to