Read Online Strife: Hidden Book Four by Colleen Vanderlinden - Free Book Online Page A

saving.
    Certainly, nothing worth breaking an oath for.
    This city was a glorified trash heap, and the people in it no better, deserving of the place they called home.
    I rise over the city. Block after block of emptiness, the stench of exhaust and fast food filling the air. I watch as Detroit’s East Side disappears beneath me. I am flying so fast everything is a blur, places I know and love almost unrecognizable from this height and speed. I see it all through a haze and it leaves me feeling both confused and nauseous. I am afraid, and I don’t know why.
    I stop still in the air, and through the haze, I see a neighborhood not unlike my own: mostly empty, except for a sad looking house or two. It is off of a busier street, and storefronts line that, mostly abandoned as well. I feel myself hurtling toward it, feel disdain, disgust. Not my own. The darkness has made its opinion known, and it has nothing but hatred for the city I call home.
    I know I’m dreaming. I know I’m seeing my home through its eyes, and that it doesn’t see things the same way I do. It’s choosing to show me how it sees things. And the way it sees things is terrifying. It wants to lay waste to everything it sees. It knows that, to the west, there’s a building in which the people I care about reside, where the two men who have been everything to me at one time or another, lie sleeping. Maybe another day, it thought, taunting me as I watched, unable to do a single thing as I was forced to follow, flying over the neighborhood, looking down on it.
    The thing was thinking that this was as good a place to start as any. And it laughed, and I watched my hands extend in front of me and shoot flames, and I heard it laugh as the storefronts exploded, as fire engulfed the contents inside a small resale shop.
    And it laughed and threw more flames, and flew in closer to examine her work; satisfaction, glee rolling off of her. I could smell the smoke. I could hear the flames crackling, the buildings creaking as their structure started to fail.
    This, little Fury, is only the beginning.
And then it ended, as if a curtain fell, and I was plunged into darkness again.

Chapter Five
     
    A loud pounding noise startled me awake, and I sat up, staring around, trying to get my bearings.
    “Molly,” a deep voice said outside my room.
    I groaned. What the hell was he doing here?
    “What?” I said, and the bedroom door opened. Nain stalked through, stared down at me. Now I was really glad I’d slept in my clothes. A barrage of emotions washed over me from him, but the most prominent was fear, and that was enough to make me want to puke. Nain was never afraid. Ever. The only time he had been was when he was sure I was nothing more than a normal demon and I’d die at Astaroth’s hands. His sapphire eyes flicked over me.
    “What’s going on?” I asked. And then something terrible occurred to me. “Oh, god. Everyone’s okay aren’t they?”
    He met my eyes. “Yeah. Everyone’s fine. They’re here.”
    “Why?” I asked, focusing. I could sense them. Everyone, for sure. Levitt, Heph, E, Ada, Stone, my parents. Brennan and Sean.
    Fuck.
    “What’s going on, Nain?” I asked, and I could hear the tremor in my own voice.
    “Did you go out last night?” he asked.
    I shook my head. “I got home from my meeting with the vampire queen around midnight. Why?”
    He looked uncertain. Angry. Worried.
    “Nain?”
    “Come downstairs, Molls.”
    “Tell me.”
    He shook his head. “Just come.” He took my hand, pulled me up out of bed and led me downstairs.
    My living room was packed, and everyone was staring at the television. Well, they were until I stepped into the room, then everyone turned to stare at me.
    “What the hell is…” I said, trailing off as I glanced toward the television. I was vaguely aware of Nain’s hand on my back, drawing me closer to the television so I could see better. I didn't want to.
    It was on channel seven. They’d broken into