Page 15 of Guardian

7

Winter still felt numb as Logan led her to his car and helped her in. She couldn’t speak. It felt as if she’d been in the middle of one of her nightmares, yet at the same time it had been different. It had been real. Which meant everything she’d ever seen during her episodes was real. The green-eyed monsters were demons and she had been right to fear them: they wanted to snatch her away and drag her to the Underworld. To hell. She’d actually seen herself there. As if it was her destiny. Or had Logan now altered her future? By killing the demons had he spared her from her fate?

“I’m not crazy,” she murmured to herself.

“What?”

She met Logan’s gaze. “I thought I was going crazy. I thought the nightmares meant that I was mentally ill.”

“You’re not,” he confirmed and looked back at the street ahead of him as he weaved through light traffic.

And it was a relief. She didn’t need the pills her psychiatrist had prescribed. Pills that made her feel like she wasn’t really there. Like she was living in a fog. Now everything was clear again, but she still had questions. A million questions. And she had no idea where to start.

“What exactly is a psychic? I mean, does that mean I really am a fortune teller?”

Logan gave her a sideways glance. “In a way. Psychics can see into the past as well as the future. But that doesn’t mean that what you see will necessarily happen. Just by communicating with somebody what you’ve seen, you may alter its outcome.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example if you warn somebody of something that might happen, that person can prepare for it and thus change the outcome, change the future.”

“Oh.” Now she realized the impact any of her visions could have. And she’d had no idea, until these creatures had shown up and attacked her. “The demons… tell me about them. They seemed so strong. And their blood… I’ve never imagined a creature could have green blood,” she said.

“They are evil to the core,” Logan started. “Their blood and their green eyes are the only way they can be detected. And they’ve found ways to disguise their eyes, so we have a harder time spotting them.”

“Colored contact lenses?” she guessed.

He nodded and tossed her an appreciative glance. “That, and sunglasses. The fact that they still use sunglasses makes us think that the colored lenses don’t always work. We’ve suspected for a while now that the green color of their eyes is the result of some sort of chemical that might eventually burn through the lenses and render them useless.”

“Hence the need for sunglasses as a backup?”

“You learn fast. That’s good.”

She had no choice. “I want to survive.”

“And I’ll make sure of that.”

“You knew how to fight them.”

“My people have fought them for centuries. And we’ll continue fighting them until we’ve eradicated them,” Logan said grimly.

“But they seem so strong. Even injured, that demon who pinned me would have choked me to death had you not killed him. I tried to fight him… I had the knife, but when I cut him, he just laughed as if it didn’t hurt at all.” She shook her head. “Don’t they feel pain?”

“You fought bravely. But you didn’t have the right tools.”

“But I had a knife,” she protested. “And all of you were fighting with knives.” Which was strange in itself. Why not use guns against an enemy so strong?

“Daggers actually,” he said with a sideways glance.

“No different than a knife.”

“Our weapons were forged a very long time ago. From special metal. They are the only weapons that can kill a demon. Sure, your knife cut him, but it didn’t really hurt him, nor would you have been able to inflict a mortal wound with it.” He shrugged. “That’s just how it is. You couldn’t know. You really had no way of defending yourself.”

Winter swallowed. It was true what people said, that during a dangerous situation a person wasn’t really aware of how bad it was and what else could have happened. But afterwards, as the mind processed the events, all kinds of scenarios played out as the mind imagined the things that could have happened. She let the attack play out in her mind again, frame by frame—and stopped almost immediately.

Winter whipped her head to Logan. “You disappeared before the fight even started. I was in such a panic that I thought I was hallucinating, but now, looking back, I remember: you just disappeared.”

He turned his head slowly, a hesitant look on his face. She saw him taking a breath.