Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

extra oomph into my swing with the trash can lid. Raven had confirmed she was dead. I shouldn’t feel anything about that because she was dead to start with... and she and her kind were responsible for kidnapping and torturing my mom. She’d been an unnatural.

However, staring down at the lifeless body as I’d done many times before — like the moment the cops had caught me — was different when you knew the blood on your hands was intentionally there.

This was my doing.

I shook my head, trying to focus on my current vision. Even if I couldn’t control this one, it could tell me a lot. These kinds of visions told me what was coming. There might still be time to get to Bermuda before whatever I was witnessing happened. It could be helpful to know the details of how my mother was supposed to die... so I could do my damnedest to prevent it.

I scanned the doors along the hall, skipping quickly over the bloodstain on one wall that had been left by my mother’s face when the vampire had tossed her in a previous vision. My teeth gritted, and the remorse over the vampire woman’s death began to leave my system, clearing my head and spurring me faster.

“Where are you, mom?”

I turned at the end of the hall and paused. There was a massive ornate door at the end of an expansive entryway, and I ran toward it. Believing it to not be an obstacle, I slipped through.

Stumbling outside into bright sunlight, I threw up my arm, blinking hard. I tripped down a set of stone steps and blinked at the beautiful tropical garden. Turning, I stared up at the outside of a stone mansion. It was bland and in some disrepair but gargantuan. An ancient and warped sign hanging over the door from rusted nails read in fading letters, “St. George Psychiatric Hospital — Founded 1678.”

I paced backward down a gravel drive, mouth hanging open.

Suddenly, a piercing wail slipped out the door.

“Mom?” I cried out, half in relief, half in terror. “Mom!” I ran back into the vampire den, back down the hall, tracing the sound.

A swarm of vampires came scurrying forward, and I slipped right through a few of them at the back, joining their ranks to turn a few corners into an abandoned wing that was less decadent than the corridor I’d first appeared in. One swung open a metal door befitting my solitary confinement days and lowered a ladder that had been leaning against the wall outside.

I stepped forward, peering down into a familiar flooded room. Several vamps reached the bottom, a couple trying to quiet my mom. I cried out, though she didn’t, as they roughly pinned her against a damp stone wall.

The rest of the vamps who’d made it to the bottom were encroaching on something on the pedestal. My eyes widened as I stared at the display that looked almost like a sacrifice. Ember’s eyes stared vacantly up at me, a blooming circle of red spreading across her chest.

“Damn, she killed her,” a vamp said in frustration. “The banshee’s gone mad.”

The gurgling sensation started low and built up my throat, pushing its way to the surface. Just like my banshee mother, I began screaming at the top of my lungs as the vision faded and I was propelled back to the alley where I’d killed someone… just as my mother would soon do.

28

My sight snapped back to me just in time for my death screech to hit its peak, the wailing breaking only long enough for my lungs to inhale enough air to immediately expel again. My eyes darted all around, taking in exactly where I was… and what had happened.

This scenario was what landed my ass in the pen last time. My heart rate kicked into overdrive with the remembrance, but my ear-splitting pitch didn’t waver, didn’t let on the panic setting my limbs into rigidness.

This time… I’d actually done it. I’d killed the body lying bloody at my feet, and my fucking scream was going to get me caught. Again.

You need to learn to suppress your urges.

The Seke in front of me was saying something probably identical to the one in my head. But this one just wouldn’t be put back in its cage.

The ability was here for good, and that was kind of okay; I needed it now so I could rescue my mother. Consequences be damned, I wouldn’t stop now, not when we were so close.

We.

Being surrounded by my teammates — by friends — made this situation infinitely different than the last. For starters, I wasn’t alone. No one flinched. No one gawked or cried out. No one pointed accusing fingers. No one paid me, or the corpse, any mind.

It wasn’t until my death announcement finally gurgled to a close, my chest heaving and mouth gulping heavy breaths of stale, liquor-heavy piss-scented air did I finally realize just why there was no reaction.

“Did you cloak me?” I asked, searching for Gunhilde. She nor Torgny were touching me so…  Turning my attention to find Cole, I took in the towering, dark hellhound’s eyes glowing a bright crimson, adding another glow to the neon-lit alley.

He dipped his head once without a word. He was concentrating pretty heavily on keeping the scene concealed, I’d guess.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. My eyes threatened to fill with traitorous tears to indicate my emotional overload, but I forced the liquid to retreat.

Dad was wrong. I didn’t need to rely on only myself. Life would be infinitely better with people along the way who were willing to help me. And that included my mom.

Seke was right. His wisdom about working as a team, trusting in each other, and watching each other’s backs was proving much more solid advice than most of my father’s teachings. I wasn’t alone. I didn’t need to be alone. If I was going to survive this crazy life, I couldn’t do it alone.

We were the