An Inner Darkness Book 5 Bay City paranormal

giving way to the renewed glow of the light.

    Sam leaned forward, elbows on knees and head hanging down, panting like he’d just run a marathon. He heard Bo’s voice, speaking to Adrian in soothing tones. Adrian himself was silent. Raising his head with an effort, Sam studied the boy. He stood stiff www.samhainpublishing.com 115 Ally Blue

    and unmoving, hands loose at his sides, ignoring his father’s arms clutching him. His gaze caught and held Sam’s. The dark eyes glittered with a palpable terror.
    One arm still around Adrian’s shoulders, Bo steered the child back to the bed. They both sat, with Adrian sandwiched between Bo and Sam. Bo reached over to touch Sam’s cheek. “Sam? Are you all right?” Sam managed a wan smile. “Yeah. Hey, I’m getting better at this.”
    “That was a monster coming out,” Adrian whispered, staring at the floor. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t, ’cause I know it was. Sam made it go away.” Bo closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, the fear in them tore at Sam’s heart. Leaning over, Bo kissed the top of Adrian’s head. “We think they’re from another dimension. Sometimes they find ways to come through to our world. Not often, but once in a while. Sam’s psychokinesis gives him the ability to send them back, and to close the portals they use to get here.”
    Adrian’s head snapped up toward Sam, his expression full of hope. “Did you close this one?”

    Looking into the child’s pleading face, Sam wanted to lie. But he couldn’t, for reasons too numerous to count. “No, Adrian, I didn’t.” Adrian’s shoulders sagged. “Why not?”

    “I don’t know. That is,” Sam clarified in answer to Adrian’s puzzled frown, “I’m still not sure why I can close a portal for good when it’s all the way open, but not when it isn’t.”

    “We still don’t know very much about the portals,” Bo added. “All we know for sure is that psychokinesis like you and Sam have seems to give some people the ability to manipulate them.”

    Adrian’s brow furrowed. “You mean I might be able to do like Sam? I might be able to make the monsters go away too?” Sam and Bo shared a helpless look. Adrian clearly had the ability to open portals by accident, but Sam had no clue as to the true extent of the boy’s talents. Would he be able to learn enough control to keep from opening a portal every time the conditions were 116
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An Inner Darkness
    right? If not, would he have the power to close them again and survive with his sanity intact, as Sam had? Or would he end up as a vegetable like so many others? Sam had no answer to those questions, and no way of finding one without exposing Adrian and everyone around him to a horrific danger.
    He might even end up dead , a tiny voice whispered in the back of Sam’s mind. Just because those things haven’t harmed you doesn’t mean they won’t hurt Adrian.

    “We don’t know,” Bo answered eventually. “It’s possible, but…” But it’s also possible that the monsters will destroy you and everyone you love , Sam mentally filled in when Bo trailed off.
    Judging by the renewed alarm in Adrian’s eyes, he’d heard what Bo hadn’t quite said just as clearly as Sam had. “I want to go stay with you and Sam.” Bo chewed his lower lip. The war in his mind was plain on his face. Would it be better to take Adrian away and risk legal action, or leave him here with the threat of the portals and the creatures on the other side looming over him?
    Adrian evidently read his father’s hesitation as a decision to leave him. He clutched at Bo’s arm. “Please, Dad. I don’t want to stay here. I’m scared.” The sight of fearful tears welling in Adrian’s eyes seemed to shatter Bo’s indecision.
He tightened his arm around Adrian, holding the boy close. “Okay. You can go home with us tonight. We can have you back before your mother gets home.”
    “No, I want to stay with you for good.” Adrian curled against Bo’s side. His knuckles were white where his small hand fisted in Bo’s shirt. “If I stay here, the monsters’ll get loose. I know they will.”
    “Son, I—”
Adrian let out a little whimper and buried his face in Bo’s shoulder. “Please, Dad.
Please. Don’t make me stay here.”
    Sam met Bo’s pained gaze over the top of Adrian’s head. His transparent terror, so unlike his usual stoicism, made Sam want to scoop the boy up and hide him away. At that moment,