No Peace for the Damned

because the guard station went crazy. Shouting orders, making phone calls to the main house. I didn’t care. The memory of our intimacy stirred something inside me. Theo inhaled sharply. He turned me toward him and looked me right in the eyes.
    Everything will be figured out in time, Mag
.
    It was my turn to gasp. I was still invisible. My mental blocks were solidly in place. How could he see me? How could he speak to me with his thoughts?
    Guards blocked the east gate but Shane just sped up. He rammed the gate as guards leaped out of the way. We huddled low as their gunshots fired wildly around us. Shane peeled out onto the highway. The estate wall flew by as we drove along its length. Shane sped through the storm, but I could still make out every black stone embedded in the layers of white bricks.
    I did a double take. On the top the wall’s ledge, at the very end of the property, Mallroy stood. He leaned against a low branch, watching through the rain as we drove past. His eyes scanned the truck until he found me. Then he winked.
    He can’t see me. That’s impossible
.
    But he smiled at me. And waved with his fingertips. Then he jumped down from the wall and disappeared back into the estate’s woods. It wasn’t an illusion. He knew I was alive.
    I lifted my face to the pouring sky. The water soaked my hair and rinsed the blood from my face. I huddled closer to Theo, but it didn’t really matter. I’d failed. I’d been discovered.
    I’d never really be warm again.

It was near dawn. A wonderful breeze blew through the farmhouse, filling it with scents of cornfields and wet grass. The yellow sheers billowed out from my bedroom window. Should I take them with me? They matched so well with the ones in the great room. And it seemed fitting to leave something of myself behind.
    The monitor beeped twice. I sighed.
So much for an easy getaway
.
    In the kitchen, I retrieved the last of my whiskey. What the hell, there was time for one more quick drink.
    The alarm beeped once more. Heavy footsteps hesitated on the front steps.
    …
    Shane had driven the rusted truck to the hospital. The estate cameras had captured everyone’s image. When they arrived with theinjured hostages, the police took names and pictures to match to estate tapes.
    I wasn’t on the cameras. So rather than remaining invisible for the several hours that followed, I’d opted to come home.
    When they’d dropped me off at Jon’s car, I’d peeked into his thoughts as he’d handed me his keys. The image in his mind had been revolting: me, fighting with demonlike claws, ripping out Markus’s throat with beastly teeth. He had tried to shake the image, but I doubted he ever would. Just before they drove away, I’d looked back at Theo. He’d frowned with worry. His dark chocolate eyes held promises of conversations to come and moments alone.
    I’d hoped he would come to the farmhouse that night. But it was Thirteen who stopped by after the hostages were settled. The local law enforcement would now work with the FBI to investigate the Kelch family. The estate had been swarmed with officers before he’d even left the hospital. He’d sounded so eager. Finally they had real evidence—living victims willing to testify against my family.
    He should have known better.
    The next morning, Senator Maxwell Kelch held an impromptu press conference. His voice shaking, he asked the public for sympathy for the soul of his schizophrenic nephew. Twenty-nine-year-old Markus Kelch, in a deluded state of grandeur, had coerced and killed numerous Kelch employees, including several guards who manned the family’s estate. He had kidnapped and tortured innocent people, drugging them with hallucinogens stolen from his father’s own company. The drugs made his victims see things that couldn’t have possibly happened, made their suffering that much worse. That such atrocities had taken place in his own backyard—tears actually came to his eyes—it was more than any one family could take.
    He’d said a prayer on live TV for the victims and their families. Then he had addressed the governor. He’d asked for special recognition for those brave citizens who had so gallantly rescued Markus’s hostages. If only they could have saved his nephew, as well—before he’d murdered his accomplices and slit his own throat.
    Since Markus had used an abandoned part of the estate—and since the maintenance crew could testify to its years of nonuse—there was no way to