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journals. None of us had ever read ours cover to cover, except Priest. My dad and my uncle never let their journals out of their sight. Then our family members died, and suddenly the four of us
were
the Legion. We were so focused on finding Andras and destroying him before he crossed over that no one knew if the journals explained what to do if it actually happened.”
    “Do they?” I didn’t want to let myself hope.
    “We’re still looking.” Jared took a deep breath. “But we figured out what Andras wants now that he’s here.”
    “What?” I braced myself for the answer.
    Jared shifted nervously, the leaves rustling under his boots. “Remember the original entry in Lukas’ journal? The one where Markus wrote that Andras wanted to open the gates of hell? He meant it literally.”
    I thought about some of the vengeance spirits we had encountered and the violence they had been capable of—the girl in the yellow dress and Millicent Avery at the bottom of the well; electrocuted prisoners and Darien Shears; and the dybbuk wearing the magician’s skin. I couldn’t imagine what might be waiting in hell.
    “You have to find Faith Waters.” I thrust the documents back into Jared’s hands. He reached for me, but I stepped away. “I’m staying here.”
    “Wait…” Jared stared at me, his expression blank. For a moment, he was silent.
    Please don’t make me say it again.
    Fear flickered in his eyes, and he fumbled with the papers, trying to shove them back in his pocket. He raked a hand through his wet hair. “Kennedy, please. Don’t ask me to leave you again. I can’t do it.” He took a step toward me, erasing what little distance I’d created between us, and rested his forehead on my shoulder.
    I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but it would only make it harder to walk away. “I’ve screwed up enough already. If something happened to Alara, Priest, or Lukas because of me… if something happened to you—”
    “Something already did,” he whispered. Jared took my hand and slid it under the bottom of his damp thermal, guiding it across his bare skin.
    My fingers hit a strip of tape.
    I yanked up his shirt and ran my hand over his stomach until I found the bandage above his hip bone. “Oh my god.”
    “I’m okay.” Jared moved my hand away.
    “Then why is there half a roll of gauze taped on your stomach?”
    “It could’ve been a lot worse. We were taking downa full body apparition in an attic. It turned out one of the windows was shattered.” He shrugged. “I was distracted and I didn’t notice. The spirit had a piece of the glass, and I got cut.”
    His explanation didn’t add up; in a situation involving a paranormal entity, Jared’s focus bordered on obsessive. “You can’t afford to be distracted in that kind of situation. What the hell were you thinking about?”
    He turned away.
    “Jared.” I grabbed his sleeve, forcing him to face me. “What were you thinking about?”
    For a moment, he didn’t respond. “You,” he finally said, softly. His eyes moved up my neck slowly until they found mine, and my heartbeat sounded so loud that I was sure he could hear it, too. Jared ran his finger down the side of my face, lingering at my jawline to tuck a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “I can’t explain it. But when you’re not with me, I can’t stop wondering where you are, and if you’re okay. Andras is out there somewhere, and I keep imagining what will happen if he finds you.”
    Me too.
    But I couldn’t admit it to Jared, not when I was trying to convince him to leave me here. Not when all I could think about was the way his touch made me dizzy. “That’s crazy.”
    “Call it whatever you want, but it’s not something I can just turn off.” He hooked his fingers through the belt loops of my jeans and pulled me against him. “I’m safer
with
you than without you. And you’re safer with me. I know you’ve heard about the missing girls, Kennedy. Are we going to talk