Fractured Legacy: Aicil Paranormal Files #1

Chapter 17

Jonah

Besides being hooked up to a dozen machines, there isn't much to indicate that Emmerson had a heart attack. He puts down the TV remote and frowns as Cole and I approach the bed. Cole hangs back, her arms pulled around herself.

Even my nerves seem like a bundle of raw energy, but there doesn't seem to be another way to get the answers before anything else happens. "Not to be blunt, sir. But if you know what's after Kaylyn, you need to help us stop it."

He stares intently at me for a moment, slowly shaking his head. "You shouldn't have let her in the hotel. There's nothing that can be done, now. It's like a damn bloodhound. Now that it has her scent again, it won't stop."

"What is it," I ask. "And how did you stop it last time?"

"We didn't," he growls. Then he drops his gaze and looks down at his fingers clutched against the white hospital blankets. "Her mother did. She stopped it with her own blood. We never figured out if it was intentional or not, and we haven't seen enough cases to compare."

Cole steps forward. "There has to be a way," she says with a shaky voice.

Emmerson raises his eyebrows. "Fancy dying for your sister?" he asks in an all-too-serious voice.

"If I have to," Cole says with equal conviction.

I shake my head, squeezing the bed railing to divert my tension. "No one else is dying. Just tell us what the hell it is, and why it's fixated on Kaylyn."

"What, I have no idea." Emmerson turns his head and coughs. "But it's after her because she belongs to it. She's the only target we've found who survived. After it took her mother, we thought she was no longer in danger."

Emmerson coughed again, but this time it continues on and on for what seems like several minutes. Two nurses enter, and while one waits by the door, the other checks Emmerson's vitals.

"You'll have to leave," she says.

I keep my sights on Emmerson, restraining the anger that urges me to fight. This isn't the place for it. We don't even have the answers we need. Someone else is going to end up dead if we don't figure this out soon, but how the hell am I going to convince the nurse of that importance. I rub my hand through my hair and down the back of my neck.

"Sir," the nurse raises her voice. "You need to leave."

I nod and stalk out of the room. Except for a few nurses, the hallway is empty. I scan one side of the hallway, and then the other. No sign of her.

"As ucht Dé." I clench my fists at my sides.

A blonde nurse pushing a cart stopped a few doors down. "If you're looking for the brunette girl who was sitting in the hallway, she left in a hurry a few minutes ago."

A glimmer on the floor catches my eye as I nod a "thank you" to the nurse. My necklace. I kneel and pick it up as adrenaline courses through me until my head fills with the sound of pounding drums.

Cole is next to me wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "Where would she—Oh, no, no, no. The hotel. You don't think."

We both run to elevator, where a crowd of people stand, waiting impatiently. No time for that, so I pull Cole to the stairwell.

"Why the hell would she go to the hotel alone?" Cole yells as we sprint toward our cars.

"I doubt she had a choice." We shouldn't have left her alone. I shouldn't have let her convince me to leave the house.