Age of Demons

Chapter 33 - Ashlyn

Detroit Safe House

People stared at me. More than usual. They didn't look away either, not even when I stared back.

Already, everyone knew what had happened. That we were overcome by demons. My team didn't have the only death either—a whole other team had been demolished too. The safe house hadn't seen this many deaths since the year it was established.

When we had woken up in the asylum, Zamara told us to go back to our friends and families, eat something, and to come back at night to discuss what had happened.

I was in a daze. I hadn't even known Kole for long, but still, his death ate away at my heart. He had been such a positive force. I couldn't imagine what the rest of the team was feeling.

Like Zamara suggested, I decided to seek my friends out. I hadn't seen them in days, and the loneliness was creeping up on me.

I opened the door to mine and Leyla's room. The light was off, but the morning sun illuminated the dimness. Both beds were empty. I sighed. Maybe she was at the cafeteria.

Maybe Jace will be in his. I did not want to subject myself to the crowd in the cafeteria. So I shut the door behind me and left for the Perez Residence building, the other living space. It was a short walk, and luckily I didn't run into anyone. After walking up three flights, I stood in front of Jace and Des's room.

I tentatively knocked on the door.

A couple seconds transpired. There was no sound of movement. I knocked one more time, but still nothing.

I ended up at one of the tables in the library. Not the main one. But the smaller one in the building where the possessed lived.

Just like the first day, hardly anyone was there. One man read a book at a table in front of me. I could only see the back of his head, but I wondered if he was the guy we had seen on the first day, the only one in there. He wore the same black leather coat.

I decided to ignore him and contemplated the view out the tall window. The grass sparkled with morning dew from the sun's rays. A bird swooped nearby the window, a dart of brown that disappeared into the sky. Everything appeared normal, but it was only an illusion. An illusion masking the evil that lurked in every shadow and under every ray of sunlight.

Someone cleared their throat, jolting me back to the present. I glanced up to see the man in the black leather coat standing above me.

"You're Ashlyn?" he asked. His voice was deep. He seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties. Since this was the library in the Perez Residence, I automatically assumed he was possessed.

"Yes. Who are you?"

He gestured to the chair across from her. "May I?" he asked. I nodded.

He sat down. "My name's James. I'm Vince's father."

I straightened up. "Oh, I didn't know—it's nice to meet you," I stumbled. I could see the resemblance then. Dark eyes and skin. The same long nose and wide lips that were set as if in a permanent grim line like how Vince's always were.

"How have you been holding up?" he asked. He didn't stare at me with those questioning eyes, like everyone else I passed by did. I was back to square one: distrusted, an anomaly. But he wasn't giving me that look. It was like a normal question anyone could ask me, as if all that had happened was a small grief, instead of the world and other people's lives crawling on top of my shoulders.