“At least he has honor and integrity. At least he is willing to fight for what is right, even if it means creating something that can kill him.”

Ophelia looked to where Lorri walked across the rocks with Aimee behind her. She still looked a mess.

“Why hello love. Long time no see. I suppose not as long as it has been since you’ve seen me.”

Lorri squinted.

Oliver cracked a boyish grin, “You think you were that stealthy? You brought the Siren with you. Jonathan has a taste for them. He smelled her from ten miles.”

Lorri shrugged, “Maybe we brought her for him to smell.” Her eyebrows arched.

Hanna took a step toward Oliver, “You want me to show him inside Lorri?”

Lorri shook her head, “No I don’t want you breaking him until I get some answers.”

Oliver looked at Aimee, “So you’re the dealer?”

Aimee looked confused, “I guess. What does that make you, the player?”

He chuckled again. His smiles and carefree attitude only made the attraction to him worse for Ophelia.

“Oliver there must be a reason for this, now.” Lorri looked annoyed.

Seeing he was getting nowhere his face lost its joy. His blue eyes hardened like steel. He pursed his lips and flexed his jaw. After a moment he spoke, “He’s murdered my son.”

Lorri looked back at Dorian whose jaw dropped, “Phillip?”

Oliver nodded.

Lorri crossed her arms. Dorian looked at Hanna and Ophelia, “Leave us. You too Aimee.”

Ophelia watched a single tear fall from the face of the man. Where it landed on the ground a small white flower instantly grew.

‘Help me Ophelia. I need you. Help me get my vengeance Ophelia’ His eyes met hers for a second. She turned and walked back to the house in silence with Aimee and Hanna.

Aimee glanced at Ophelia and Hanna and walked ahead of them.

“She hates me.” Hanna whispered.

“She doesn’t hate you. She just loves Sam like family I think. They all seem really close. Have they been together long?”

Hanna shook her head, “A couple years, not long. Long enough that they formed a bond. You and I won’t ever be welcome members like they are.”

“Where is your father?”

Hanna blushed, “Aimee killed him.”

Ophelia felt her face scrunch into a ball of disgust, as Hanna opened up to her and spun a story Ophelia wasn’t certain she would ever believe, not fully. She was grateful that her parent's weren't the only fictional characters in the story of their lives.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sam

He sat staring out the window. The sun was shining and the birds were singing but he felt closed off from it. It was as if he had taken drugs that inhibited how he felt. Everything felt thick and sluggish. His mind moved as if it too were impaired.

“Sam I need your help.”

He looked at Lorri and shrugged. He didn’t feel like helping. He made himself get up. He imagined the years when Hanna was a little girl and how hard her mother must have faked loving her and enjoying being with her. It must have been exhausting to pretend.

“I need you to hang out with this guy for the night. You can’t come with us, obviously, but you can hang out with him. If he tries to get away from you, flash him to this picture okay?”

He looked at the water fountain, he had seen it before. He knew the area well. He nodded, “I guess.”

“He’s chained in Hanna’s room for the night. He’s in the chains we have left over from Marcus. The enchanted ones. He can probably get out of them but not without you seeing what he’s doing. If he flashes, follow his trail and text me.”

Sam shrugged, “Why?”

“He’s a bad man. I need to double check his story.”

Sam left the room and walked the great hallway until he reached Hanna’s room. She stood in the corner twirling her red hair around her finger and smiling at the man chained to the corner.

“How uncomfortable do I make you on a scale of one to ten.”

The man looked at him and sighed, “It was a nine but since he got here it’s an eleven, maybe fifteen.”

She turned to see Sam and dropped her hair and her smile, “Lorri wanted me to pester him. He hates me.”

Sam shrugged, “It’s cool.”

She frowned, “It doesn’t bother you?”

He shook his head, “I feel nothing for you, or anyone.”

Her face twisted, “See you later Oliver.” She walked out trying to maintain her composure. He’d seen that walk before. He wasn’t usually the recipient of it.

He glanced at the guy in the chains and smirked, “I’m Sam.”

He nodded, “Oliver. So you’re the entertainment are you Sam?”

He shook his head, “I’m the tattletale. If you escape I rat you out. I have this weird gift with my flashes, I can track another persons flash. Like you leave a scent for me to follow.”

Oliver laughed, “You really are the perfect man to watch me then.”

“I guess.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow at him and nodded toward the door, “What’s with you and the Siren? She has no effect on you at all?”

Sam shook his head, “Nope. Used to. Used to be my match.”

Oliver scowled, “Oh that was a mistake son. No one can live through the darkness that comes to eat your soul when there is no love in it.”

Sam shrugged, “Hope it doesn’t come before I’m done watching you, then you’d get away.”

The man’s face looked proud and sad simultaneously, “My son would have loved you. Same dry sense of humor.”

Sam noticed the way he said son and would have, “Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You really have no emotions anymore do you?”

“No. How did he die? Was he Nephilim?”

Oliver ran his hands over his face and sighed, “Yes. He was murdered.”

Sam new the appropriate response, “I’m sorry.”

Oliver turned his bright blue eyes up to him, “Are you?”

“No, but it’s the right thing to say.”

“I dare say it is and before you ask, it was Jonathan. He is a man I have known longer than mankind has existed and he murdered my son. My son took a bite of the forbidden fruit.”

“The fruit the snake warned about?”

“The fruit the snake held captive to torture and force unwanted sex upon.”

Sam nodded, “Yeah sleeping with another mans sex slave will anger him.”

“Tis too true lad, too true.”

“How old was he?”

Oliver looked at him, “You really are a chatty thing for an unfeeling monster, and why do you smell so good? Are you a Siren?”

Sam nodded, “Half Siren.”

Oliver’s eyes grew wide, “You are not Anthony’s son?”

Sam nodded again, “I am.”

His eyes grew hardened again, “I was so sorry to hear about your father. He was a truly great man. What Lorri did to him was a crime. I know you feel nothing but you don’t even have an ounce of loyalty to your old man?”

Sam frowned, “He was with the dark ones. She doesn’t discriminate on that one.”

Oliver’s mouth curled into a grin, an evil grin. “Sam my boy have I got a story for you.”

Sam frowned at him, “You know you can’t make me angry. What’s the point in trying to provoke me?”

Oliver shook his head, “When you hear this you’ll find the witch who cast that spell and have it reversed.”

“It can't be reversed. Can it?”

“Just as your father was never an evil one, your spell can be reversed. Though I doubt you’ll hear the truth of either thing from the people you call friends. They don’t dabble in dark magic.”

“You’re a traitor and a liar why should I believe you?”

Oliver put a hand out on the bed next to Sam’s thigh, “I loved your father like a brother. I would have died for him. I wish I had died for him. He never had an evil bone in his body. He was guilty of the one thing I have never felt, love.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ophelia

The alley was dark and yet somehow the eyes of the wolf next to her glistened.

She patted the fur on his back, earning her a snarl. She pulled her hands back, “I just thought maybe you would like being patted or something.” She whispered.

Ari laughed, “Oh my god that was awesome. He only likes to be patted by me and even then I feel like I’m pushing my luck.”

“Why are we here?”

Ari pointed to the apartment above them, “We need to see if the man who lives there is alive or not. This is an area where the dark ones live, nice and close together.”

"What city is this?"

"Rome."

She couldn’t hide her feelings of excitement. She had never left her state before, let alone the country. She was in Rome. She sniffed the air and let the excitement build. She wished she could see more than just the balconies in an old alley.

"My sister is going to freak when she hears I came here. We have this plan for when we are both graduated. Back pack Europe for the summer."

Ari looked sad when she smiled, "I'm sorry. I know how it feels for all of this to hit you. It' not fair. Not even a little."

Ophelia dismissed the tears in her eyes and turned her face up to watch Lorri again. She flashed onto the small metal deck. In the dark her bright red hair looked black.

She crept inside of the apartment through the glass door and disappeared in the blackness of it.

Ari walked along the brick wall, but kept her eyes on the other patios and decks facing the alley.

Ophelia felt uneasy. Her fingers made small sparks from the nerves. The flashes made slight amounts of light in the alley. Lucas looked back at her and shook his wolf head. She clenched her fingers into balls, “Sorry.” She whispered into the silence.