Page 2 of Forever Found

Glimpses of another time, of another life—before he’d been assigned this angel gig—flashed in his mind. He caught snippets of him running into the street and pushing a woman with a stroller out of the path of an oncoming dump truck. The vehicle had struck him, sending him flying through the air. He didn’t recall landing.

He’d been thirty-four when he’d died. He’d been at the right spot at the right time to save them as he walked along the street to meet a friend for lunch. After being assigned his angel duties, he’d learned the woman and her three-year-old little girl were safe. They’d only suffered a few bumps and bruises. But for him, it had been his admission to becoming an angel—the selfless act of giving his life to save someone else’s. It hadn’t been intentional, though. He’d simply reacted…and boom, that was it. He was reasonably sure that was what the note referred to. No, he wasn’t a hero.

Regardless, a demon had a beef aboutsomething, and the beast had figured out where he lived. But which demon? Not one of the new residents of Terror—the town attracted all kinds of supernaturals. But demons weren’t welcome.

David considered the note. Was that aCscribbled at the bottom? He angled the page, trying to get better light. A name came to him as he did so.Caleb? The demon who had run him down, who was the reason David had died and was an angel today?

The missive ignited, the letters sizzling, burning, then disintegrating into ash that fell from his fingers, dotting the snow with black soot.

He wondered what this was about after all these years. Why now?

Behind him, the snow crunched beneath tires. He turned his head as Rylan Lewis drove his Hummer next to him and stopped, rolling down the window. The building contractor had arrived for their meeting to look over the construction of the new gymnasium.

“Our appointment still on?” Rylan asked.

“Yes.” David rubbed his fingertips together to release any lingering particles of ash, then clasped the other letters. He waved it slightly. “Just getting some fresh air and the mail.”

Rylan nodded. “Hop in, and we’ll head up the drive.”

David did, knowing Rylan would otherwise be left waiting on him. It was a long drive to the house.

At the top of the circle driveway in front of the mansion, Rylan threw the vehicle into park and turned off the ignition. “Something wrong?” he asked.

David paused, averting his eyes away from the lion shifter. “No.”

“Gotcha.”

They both exited the Hummer, then walked up the steps to the mansion—one of the perks of his life as an angel. “We’ll go through the house to get to the gym.” After depositing the mail on the counter, he continued toward the back of the house. Out the window, he noticed Grady, the butler and house organizer extraordinaire, talking with three of the other angels who lived there. They were probably putting in their requests for the shopping list.

David didn’t feel like continuing with the meet-up. He wanted to step away and contemplate the threatening message. But that was life. He often had to suck it up and do things he didn’t want to do even when he wasn’t alive in the traditional sense.

“You didn’t look at it already, did you?” Rylan asked.

“What? No. You asked me to wait. So I did.”

Entering the new gymnasium, David expanded his wings, allowing them to test the breadth, taking up about half the width of the basketball court. Excellent. There was a lot of space. He took in the shiny wooden floors, inhaling the fresh scent of polyurethane that hung in the air. “Your crew did an outstanding job. The gym is exactly the way the angels need it—massive, with extra room on the sidelines and a soaring ceiling. The row of windows high up near the ceiling let in great light.” His voice echoed, bouncing off the folded bleachers and walls covered with black-and-teal mats.

Rylan shoved his hands into his pockets, nodding. “Thanks. I knew it would come together. It was a bit dicey when I had to make a trip to Nocturne Falls around Halloween, but, since I’ve been back, everything has run like clockwork. The shell, meaning the framework and roof, was completed before the first snow, so we were able to do finish work from there on out.”

“You said you added something special?”

“Yeah. Right. That’s in the weight room. It isn’t quite finished, but let’s take a look,” Rylan said, leading the way.

The lion shifter headed to the back corner of the court, then exited through a rear door. He moved across a short hall and into another room, this one almost the size of the basketball court but filled with equipment—the dream obstacle course for a supernatural. Weights and barbells sat at one end. Those were the only items that spoke of a standard weight room. The rest could be a setting for a parkour training facility with half walls, beams, bars, and climbing walls in all manner of configurations to jump, flip, and fly over.

“Oh, wow. This is going to becometheplace. Awesome, man. Thanks.” He couldn’t wait to run off some tension in here himself.

“The allies will be thrilled.” The allied angels need a lot of outlets for their pent-up energy. This should help. At times, it was darn frustrating to stand by and watch what idiot humans and supernaturals chose to do. But there were rules, and they weren’t allowed to interfere with or engage in the troubled instances the earth’s population found themselves in. The angels were there for duty first—to keep balance within Terror—not on a vacay.

“Since we’re deep in winter, this will be great.” And maybe the angels could simply hibernate in the mansion all winter…in peace and quiet.

* * *

The road was slippery as Lyndsey drove along Sleepy Hollow Way. What a name for a street. Then again, the townwascalled Terror. Her stomach clenched as a bad feeling trickled through her. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. That was ridiculous.

Still, she couldn’t shake the nervous squeeze she’d had in her belly since she had crossed the city-limits sign.

Something awful is going to happen today.