Unmarked by Kami García Page B

answering.”
    Alara jammed her feet into her black tactical boots and buckled her tool belt around her waist as she walked toward me.
    “Can we break down the door or something?” I asked.
    “It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. You have to kick it in just the right spot.”
    Alara pushed me out of the way. “Back up. This is a one-woman job.”
    I stared at the layers of chipped white paint coatingFaith’s door. It had been painted at least a half dozen times, each new shade slapped over the peeling layer below it.
    Something terrible is waiting on the other side.
    Alara kicked the middle of the door with the bottom of her boot. The wood cracked and splintered. The second time Alara’s boot made contact, the lock snapped and rusty screws rolled across the floor.
    The door swung open slowly, and I stumbled into the room.
    A sweet scent clung to the air. At least it wasn’t sulfur, the telltale sign of a demonic presence.
    Bear whimpered, and my eyes drifted to where he sat next to the four-poster bed.
    Tiny green pods the size of olives were scattered all over the floor.
    “Oh my god.” Alara clamped a hand over her mouth.
    Faith was slumped against the headboard.
    My mind flashed back to the night I found my mother’s body—her empty stare and her pale arm hanging over the side of the bed.
    I just wanted her to wake up.
    I inched closer to my aunt, unable to stop myself.
    Wake up, Faith.
    Faith’s eyes were closed, her face smeared with the pink stain she’d been painting on the bear traps earlier. A metal bucket was tipped over next to her bed, a pool of poisoned sap oozing across the floor.
    Wintersweet.
    Above the headboard, crushed green pods streaked the walls in the same intense shade of pink. They formed jagged letters exactly like the ones that had etched themselves into the mirror in my dorm room. But the message was different.
    HE IS HERE.
    Voices drifted down the hallway. Jared, Lukas, Priest, and Elle were talking about something—maybe breakfast and hot showers or crazy aunts who tape garbage bags over their windows. They didn’t know Faith was dead—that I’d lost another family member, even if I barely knew her.
    “We’re in Faith’s room,” Alara called out, sounding strangely calm. She looked up at the Eye of Ever painted on the ceiling above my aunt’s body. “The Eye wasn’t strong enough to protect her.”
    Maybe nothing would’ve been.
    Lukas stopped just inside the doorway. “Hey, what are you guys—”
    Elle took one look at Faith’s body and the dripping wall, and screamed. “Is she dead? She’s dead, isn’t she?”
    Priest’s eyes darted from my aunt’s bound wrists to the green berries scattered across the floor. “What the hell happened?”
    Jared stared up at the message on the wall, transfixed.
    “A vengeance spirit or something poisoned her.” Alara stepped away from the bed, trying to distance herself from the body and the message.
    “Something?”
Elle backed into the doorjamb and jumped. “What kind of something?”
    For once, I was the one with the answer. “A demon.”

    Lukas, Jared, Alara, and Priest guided me and Elle out of Faith’s bedroom, their weapons drawn.
    “We should bury her.” I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her lying under the sinister message.
    “Not until we sweep the house.” Priest tossed Jared an EMF, taking command.
    “Stay here with Elle.” Jared kissed my forehead and handed me a semiautomatic with silver duct tape wrapped around the barrel. He slid his hand up the side of my leg until he reached the pocket of my jeans. The metal clinked as he dropped salt rounds inside. “Just in case.”
    “In case of what?” Elle flattened herself against the wall.
    “I’ll stay with Kennedy and Elle.” Lukas’ eyes flickered over Elle’s face when he said her name, but she was too terrified to notice.
    Instead, she clamped her hand around his arm in a death grip. “You won’t leave us, right?”
    He pushed