Starren pulled her sword. “You stay here, Cray. Wade, Trisha, come on.” She let herself through the fence gate and moved toward the front door.

This really was it. Somehow I knew it was. No weird fae power or anything, just a feeling. Hopefully the Fae Distribution Center had Jaden’s birthday right. A flutter went through my chest but I clamped it down. I glanced in both directions at the houses around us. How were we going to protect these people if he had some type of dangerous power? Starren and Wade wouldn’t care unless it exposed the fae, so I was on my own if it came down to that.

With a motion of her hand, Starren sent Wade around back. She took off for the front, apparently expecting me to follow her. I did. What choice did I have? I wasn’t coming this far and having her say I didn’t fulfill my side of the bargain, even if we didn’t know what this guy could do. Starren was in a bad enough mood right now to have me taken back to Faerie and locked up until I was fifty. Only let out on good behavior, which wasn’t likely to happen.

Starren paused to listen at the front door. Then, apparently satisfied, she reached forward and tried the handle. Locked. She held her hand over it and the lock clicked.

I drew my sword, the slight rasp of metal on scale making me bite my lip. Starren glared at me for a second, then motioned me forward. The fae shield, yay, what an exciting role. No seriously, it was actually a little more exciting than I would like.

I moved around her, sword held out in front of me. Somewhere inside a TV was on. Pots and pans banged around in the back of the house. The same vanilla air freshener Nina liked at home was in the air. This seemed like such a normal place, not some evil den. I slid a few more steps forward and looked around a corner. There was a little girl, probably seven or eight watching some Disney channel show. Seriously, a little girl? What was she doing here? I leaned around to get a better look and her gaze flew from the TV in my direction, like she could feel me. I jerked back around the corner before remembering that unless she was fae, she wouldn’t be able to see me. How could I know if she was human or not? Was there something that gave it away?

Someone shoved me from behind and I swung around, sword in front of me. I nearly sliced Wade right open.

Stupid, stupid. Lots of training one on one with Mom didn’t seem to be helping me much right now.

“Nothing that way,” Wade mouthed to Starren and me. He walked around me and headed straight into the living room, toward the girl watching some guy play guitar on TV. I should probably be embarrassed that I didn’t know what show that was, it was on Disney channel. Weren’t teens supposed to watch that stuff? Whoever he was, he was super cute, but acting like a little kid. Wade was definitely more my type. The more manly type. I glanced in his direction. He didn’t notice.

The kid looked around again, almost like she knew something was up. Her gaze went right through Wade though, like she wasn’t seeing us.

Something slammed me from the side. I twisted as I fell, barely catching sight of a blur. I crashed into the fake wood floor, the little girl shrieking above me, screaming something about it happening again as she ran toward the back of the house. I caught a better look at what had hit me. A guy, probably a year older than me, dark hair and fae good looks. It was the same guy Starren had showed me a picture of last week. Jaden. We’d found him. He lunged at Starren. She had her sword up instantly, making him change his mind. He took off for the front door.

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“Stop him,” Starren yelled.

I scrambled up off the floor and tore out of the house after everyone else. Wade was turning a corner by the time I was through the small gate and out into the street, Starren only a step behind him. I jumped sideways, nearly getting plowed by some gangster vehicle. I opened my mouth to scream at the driver, then realized he couldn’t see me.

Cray stopped where the other two had turned and waved me after them. I took off following.

It was a good thing we were in a housing section of town and not some high traffic area, the way those three were tearing across streets and jumping over and around anything in their way. I watched people’s expressions as I passed, wind blowing back their hair, their confused faces nearly making me laugh even while we were chasing a criminal.

Poor people probably thought they were going crazy, hearing us run by but not seeing anything. I slowly gained on the three fae ahead of me, leaving Cray behind. They were in great shape, but not nearly as good a shape as me.

Even I was starting to get tired after dodging around fifteen more people and racing up five more blocks. I was catching up though. Then Jaden disappeared around a corner. At least I assumed it was Jaden. This wasn’t exactly how I had expected confronting him would go down. Soon after, I lost sight of Starren and Wade as they popped around the same corner. I pushed myself to catch up, afraid that they would make another turn before I got there. Oh nope, there they were, looking furious.

“Where were you two? We could use some help here,” Wade said, nearly snarling.

Maybe super speed was Jaden’s power. Somehow he’d managed to get away from all four of us.

“Cray,” Starren called. A pedestrian looked in the direction her voice had come from, his eyes going huge when there wasn’t anyone there. Starren didn’t seem to care. “Stop and feel. Where is he?”

The random guy jogged off, looking behind him. A pretty funny sight considering he was dressed like a punk with tattoos all down his arms. Not as tough as he’d thought.

I looked toward Cray. He was leaned over, sweat beading down his face. His eyes were closed and he was concentrating intently. “That way,” he panted out, flapping his hand. “Two blocks.”

Starren and Wade took off at a run.

“You can keep a lock on those two, right?” I asked Cray. He nodded. “Good. We’re going to cut around and see if we can get ahead of him.” We jogged after them, keeping them in sight for a few minutes, then cut through a dirty alley, pausing on the other side.

“See them?” I asked.

Cray didn’t answer.

“Cray?” I looked over. His face was white and he was staring off behind me. I turned to look. Jaden was standing there, beckoning us forward with a crooked finger. He looked even better in life than in the pictures Starren had shown us. Dark hair wavy, even though it was a little disheveled. Where had he been living since his escape? At the house with his family? He had that warm California skin, all nice and tan. Maybe they had been there, before they had come to Chicago. I shook my head, rearranging my thoughts. This guy was a killer.

I took a step back, Cray moving to keep behind me. What did he want, to get us out of hearing range and bump us off? I pointed at myself in question, my face no doubt letting him know I thought he was crazy.

He nodded and tried waving us over. What was with this guy? Didn’t he know we were chasing him? Well, of course he did, or he wouldn’t know to ask us to come over. My first reaction was a no way. But, if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead by now, right? That’s what everyone always said on TV. And it seemed to fit here, if the fae were so scared of him.

“Should we?” I asked Cray. Surprisingly he heard me. I could barely hear myself the way my voice cracked. He shook his head no. Hard. Yeah. That seemed smart.

But Jaden looked so earnest and he hadn’t made one move in our direction. Plus, he’d been at the house with what I assumed was his little sister, with both of them and their dark looks, so maybe he didn’t want a fight around here.

This could be my chance. There was no way the Council could say I hadn’t held up my end of the bargain if I caught him single-handed. I’d just go over there, pretend I was going to listen to him or whatever, then knock him on the head. Good plan. I took a deep breath. “You stay here then,” I told Cray. “I’ll heal, you won’t.” I started forward. Hopefully I wasn’t about to find out there was a way I could be killed. Nina would be so mad.