Sacrifice by Denise Grover Swank Page A

they have a connection in their dreams?
    Jake didn’t have a mark and she could communicate with him telepathically. Until Aiden’s interference. But Jake was half-deity, or whatever they were. That had to account for something.
    Could Will be alive? Raphael was right about one thing—when she searched deep in her heart for the answer, the cold truth ached in her bones. Will was dead. They had tossed his dead body into the van. The surety permeated every part of her. But her subconscious just couldn’t let him go yet.
    When she allowed her head to consider the bigger picture of who she was, she found herself on the verge of a panic attack. Most people would jump at the opportunity to be part of something bigger, something immortal, but Emma had always craved normalcy. The chance to live a safe and ordinary life. And as sucky as her existence had been the last twenty-seven years, an eternity of it was more than she could stomach.
    A week ago she would have settled for life with Will, Jake, and their baby, driving a minivan, and complaining about Will forgetting to take out the trash.
    Now she didn’t know what to hope for.

 
     
    Chapter Nine
     

     
    “James, how can you be sure that the bag is still at the cabin? First of all, wouldn’t Kramer and his men have taken it? And if it had been left behind, wouldn’t the management have taken it?”
    “I told you I had insurance. This was just one of many pieces. I knew you had the book and I figured Kramer would want it. So I hid it in the crawl space under the cabin after you left to go look for Jake. How many campers are climbing into dirty, cobwebby crawl spaces? Trust me. It’s there.”
    “So what are the other pieces?”
    James’s chin jutted then he turned to Will, his eyes full of worry. “We can talk about this later. You need to eat more of that grease feast in a bag and get some sleep.”
    Will shook his head and tossed the fast food bag into the backseat. “I think a couple of hamburgers will hold me for a few hours.”
    “You need sleep. You look like shit.”
    “You’re no beauty queen yourself.” James was evading him. No . Will was paranoid and crazy. James was concerned about him and wanted him to rest. It was no secret that James was the mother hen of the two. James had always gone to great lengths to protect him, acting like the brother Will never had. Will had almost died in the compound and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the realization had kicked James’s protective instinct into high gear.
    Still, the voice had warned him.
    Will nearly laughed at his thought. The voice. He was listening to the advice of a mysterious stranger over his best friend of twenty-plus years? That was fucked up. There was no voice. The voice had been his mind’s way of trying to cope with the situation.
    Will leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes. “I need to know what happened. What I’ve been doing the last month.” He needed to know more about Emma.
    He felt James tense. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
    “Consider it a bedtime story.”
    He hesitated then shifted his weight. “I’m not sure you want my version. It’s not pretty.”
    James’s answer was no surprise, but Will wasn’t sure he was ready to let go of the fantasy in his head.
    “You showed up on my doorstep after getting the shit beat out of you. Emma was with you and had brought you to me.”
    “So she knew about you? That’s totally unlike me.”
    “I know. I guess you told her because you were desperate. In any case, you were in bad shape, with broken ribs and, I suspected, a punctured lung. I told you that you had to go to the hospital and you refused. You said they’d find you there and get Emma. Emma, to her credit, wanted you to go as well. But then again, you weren’t any good to her if you were dead.”
    Will tried to associate the cold, calculating woman James painted with the woman in the woods and in his dreams. The two didn’t