No Peace for the Damned

disjointed windowsill and gathered more ammo.
    “So what exactly are you going to do?” I asked. The high of a coming fight burned in their eyes. For some reason, I couldn’t think clearly enough to check if their thoughts were rational.
    “We’re going to get him back,” Shane said and swung a second long gun with a leather strap over his shoulder. “We’re going to the estate and we are going to get him back.”
    Yeah, OK, definitely not thinking rationally
.
    “Uh, no, you’re not,” I said.
    “No, Shane,” Thirteen said at the same time. “That’s not what we’re doing.”
    Jon moved to get in Thirteen’s face. “Then what the hell are we doing?” he yelled. “We won’t wait for Banks’s body to show up weeks from now after being tortured in some supernatural way. We’re getting him back. Now!”
    Thirteen stood at his full height, his jaw set.
Whoa
. Jon didn’t back down.
    “To break into the Kelch estate now would be suicide,” Thirteen said. “We aren’t ready to fight them. We don’t know the layout of the private lands. At this point,
we
would be more likely to get arrested than one of the brothers. It would be counterproductive to go in there now.”
    Theo cut in. “Then what are we going to do?”
    Thirteen kept his eyes on Jon. “We are going back to Banks’s house. We don’t know for certain that he was taken back to the estate, but if we can find a trail that leads us in the general direction, we’ll have a better chance of finding him before it’s too late.”
    Jon glared at Thirteen. “Fine.”
    They all turned and started to walk out.
    “Aren’t you coming?”
    Was that a thud from my jaw hitting the floor? “What?”
    “If Banks was taken by supernatural force, we won’t be able to find any traces of a trail to follow. You’re the only one who would recognize it.”
    “Can I change?” I asked.
    “There’s no time,” Jon called from the front door. “We have to be back here before dawn to brief the others and figure out what to do next. So just move it already!”
    So much for a nice little “please join us on tonight’s mission” moment. I threw back the rest of my whiskey, tightened the drawstringon my pajama shorts, slipped on my flip-flops, and we were on our way.
    …
    We rode together in Thirteen’s SUV, the extra weapons stored in the back. Fuzzy images of Banks kept flashing through my mind. His meaty hands, that metal eye patch—pieces of someone I knew. And now my family had him. I shifted in my seat. Turned up Korn on my iPod. It didn’t help. I was still uncomfortable.
    Of course, it didn’t help either that I sat bitch between Jon and Shane. Theo had insisted on sitting shotgun.
    I had no clue where Banks’s house was. We passed a street sign that probably said where we were, but Shane shot me such a glare that I turned away.
OK…I’ll just look out Jon’s window, then
.
    Thirteen wound the car through side streets lined with pear trees. Pristine turn-of-the-century homes sat on wide manicured lawns. Thirteen pulled up to the curb in front of a line of dark brick brownstones. Each townhouse stood three stories high with cement steps that led to the front door. And the doors were exactly alike—thick, chiseled glass with iron detailing.
    Except, of course, for the one with its glass door splintered into a thousand tiny pieces.
    We parked under an old-fashioned lamppost, or at least one that was made to look old-fashioned. The warm gold light mixed with the bright silvery moonlight to create an eerie glow along the sidewalk. The instant I stepped out of the car I felt it. The fog of power was everywhere. It felt amazing: tingly and warm. For a moment I closed my eyes and just savored the familiarity.
    “We have to hurry,” Thirteen said. “The police are on their way. One of the Network dispatchers rerouted the call, but it won’t take long before they arrive. We’ve got maybe five minutes, tops.”
    “Can anyone else feel that?” I asked. The air was so much thicker than before, surely the others felt it too.
    “What? The mosquitos?” Shane said, smacking a bug on his forearm. “Who can’t feel the little bloodsuckers?”
    “No, the…this misty, foggy stuff. Can anyone else feel that?”
    “I don’t think so,” Jon said. “What does it feel like?”
    “My family was here,” I explained. “Whoever it was definitely used power I’m familiar with, but it doesn’t…I can’t tell who.”
    “Can you follow