Shadows Rising (Darkness Falls Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Samuel, Elena, and Luke were waiting on the front lawn when we got back, and, to my utter disbelief, Ava stood with them. Luke's eyes blazed when he saw my bloody lip and bruised chin, but even as he hurried towards me, I was looking over his shoulder. The shock of seeing Ava standing alongside the vampires almost made me lose my balance and face-plant the ground.

"What are you doing here?" I blurted out.

"She wants to help, Kiara," Elena said. "And she might have found something."

Wait, the lead was Ava's?

My gaze moved to my mother and she stared tentatively back, as if unsure of her welcome. I suppose I couldn't blame her for being uncertain, considering the last time I saw her, I as good as accused her of selling us out. But this wasn't the time for us to hash out our own issues.

"What have you found?" I said.

"When I heard about Riley, I started doing some digging of my own. I guessed you'd already have checked Caleb's bungalow and found nothing, but that's not his only property. He's got a small lodge just outside Dalwick," Ava said.

Hope surged in my chest. "How do you know that?"

Ava held something aloft and I recognised Caleb's leather-bound journal. "I stole this from Caleb's house." She flicked through the pages and stabbed her finger at something. "Here. He writes about his secret lodge outside town, his retreat in case his enemies ever found where he lived."

Noah was right. Caleb would never really have given up hunting. Luke tensed at my side; he must have been thinking the same thing.

"Leon told you he read his father's journal, which means he also knows about the lodge," Ava said. Her eyes gleamed with triumph. "If Riley is anywhere, she's here." She jabbed her finger at the page again.

I could have hugged her. And I could have kicked myself for not looking in the journal in the first place.

"Is there an address?" Ethan asked.

"Just a road name," Ava said. "I've –" She stopped and cleared her throat, looking almost sheepish. "I've already got us a car."

The awkward way she said it, coupled with the look on her face led me to surmise that by 'got us a car' she meant she'd stolen one.

I felt oddly proud of her. I'd stolen Caleb's car once, and I'd always thought my parents would kill me if they knew. Now I wondered if I didn't get my rash side from Ava, which was weird because I wasn't used to thinking of us as having anything in common.

"Come on then, let's go," Ethan said, jumping up and down on the balls of his feet.

Samuel opened his mouth but Elena touched his arm and shook her head. He looked down at her, another moment of wordless communication passing between them. Elena met my eyes and nodded ever so slightly in Ava's direction, her face earnest. Suddenly I understood. Samuel had been going to offer to help, but Elena felt that Ava should go instead of them. She knew that Ava and I were trying to build a relationship, but she also knew that it was still in the rocky, early stages. Elena was the woman who'd taken me in, essentially a replacement mother, and she thought it would be good for me to do this with my real mother.

I flashed her a grateful smile.

"Come on, already," Ethan cried.

Probably the only thing that had kept him rushing off as I had done was that he didn't know where Ava had stashed the stolen car. She wasn't stupid enough to bring it to the clan's house.

As we turned to go, Luke whispered in my ear, "As soon as this is done, I hope you're going to tell me what happened to you." He traced a finger along my jaw-line, stopping just shy of the bruise from Rachel's fist. Worry turned his eyes the colour of storm-clouds, but there was no time to fuss over minor injuries.