The Thursday night crowd was enough to keep me awake and on my feet for the first half of the evening at the Cinemark, but during my break, I went to check on Alec and discovered that he’d already gone on his. I started my search in the parking lot, where he usually napped in the car on his breaks.

Unfortunately, Emma’s car was empty.

When I didn’t find him anywhere else in the lot, I headed back inside and glanced into the break room, then called his name outside of all the men’s rooms. But Alec was gone, and he wouldn’t have wandered off without telling me. Not after what we’d figured out the night before.

Think, Kaylee! I demanded, leaning against the closed door of theater two. My heart was beating too hard, and I was starting to sweat, in spite of the enthusiastic air-conditioning. If Avari really has him, he’ll be looking for someone sleeping. But why would anyone pay to sleep in a movie theater, when you could sleep at home for free?

Maybe he’d left. Maybe Avari knew we were on to him, so he’d hijacked Alec’s body the first chance he got, then simply ditched the theater? Surely a hellion wouldn’t care whether or not his host got fired….

I’d taken two steps—on my way to tell my boss I had to leave—when the door to theater two opened so suddenly it slammed into my shoulder. The two college-age men who emerged didn’t even notice me in the shadows.

“I swear, I’m gonna fall asleep in there if I don’t get some more caffeine and sugar,” the shorter, rounder of the pair said, running one hand through pale hair. “This better pay off.”

“It will,” the taller man said, as they headed toward the lobby and the concession stand. “Dana always leaves these tearjerkers all mushy and willing, ’cause she’s grateful her life doesn’t suck like the chick in the movie. Don’t fall asleep, though. That’ll piss them both off, then we’ll have sat through an hour and a half of women bonding on screen for nothing.”

And as they walked off toward the land of caffeine and sugar, what they were saying truly sank into my exhausted, frustrated brain. If a chick flick could bore them to sleep, it could bore some other poor jerk to sleep. Which made theater two my best bet for finding Alec, assuming Avari had actually caught him asleep at the wheel. Literally.

I pulled open the doors and rushed up the steeply inclined walkway toward the front of the theater, then had to pause to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Fortunately, theater two was one of the smaller spaces, so it didn’t take me long to find a familiar, close-cropped head of curls about two-thirds of the way up, several seats from the right-hand aisle.

I made my way up the steps slowly, but he saw me before I got there. Unfortunately, in the dark, I couldn’t see his expression, so I had no clue whether I was looking at Avari or Alec. Orwhether lights would have made any difference.

“Hey,” Alec’s voice said, as I sank into the chair next to him, and I took a deep, silent breath. My heart raced. It was Avari. It had to be. Why else would Alec waste his dinner break watching a six-week-old movie about middle-aged women rediscovering their lost youth?

I was even more convinced when I noticed that the man in front of him was snoring softly, while his wife munched on popcorn, oblivious.

But I had to be sure.

“What color was my first bike?” I whispered.

Alec’s head turned toward me slowly, and my pulse tripped faster. “I’m sorry?”

My heart leaped into my throat, and I had to swallow it to speak. “I know it’s you. Let Alec go. Now.”

Alec only blinked, and my hands clenched around the armrests. Then, finally, he nodded, and the voice that replied was all hellion, oddly muted but rendered no less terrifying by the whispered volume.

“Ms. Cavanaugh, how delightful to see you again, without all the pretense.”

Hearing his voice left no room for doubt—it was really Avari. I’d known that, deep down. But knowing it and experiencing it were two completely different things, which I didn’t discover until I found myself staring into the unfamiliar depths of a familiar pair of deep brown eyes, lit only by the flicker of the big screen.

“Get out,” I repeated, whispering through clenched teeth.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Avari leaned Alec’s head so close his lips brushed my ear, and my skin crawled. But I didn’t dare pull away, for fear that he’d only come closer. “Alec has been very difficult to get ahold of lately, and I’m disinclined to let him go, now that I finally have him.”

“You can’t stay in there forever,” I insisted softly, resisting the urge to rub the chill bumps popping up on my arms.

His hand settled over my wrist, as if he knew what I was thinking. “No, not forever. But I have quite a bit of energy stored up at the moment—thanks to our friend Alec—so I can hang on more than long enough to replace the meal you’ve interrupted.” He waved one dark hand toward the man sleeping in front of him in an eerily graceful motion, which looked very wrong on Alec’s strong young body.

I jerked my hand from beneath his in horror. He’d already been feeding. But with any luck, my interruption had saved the poor idiot’s life, if nothing else.

“Get out!” I demanded, forgetting to whisper, and the lady in front of me turned to glare.

“Or you’ll what?” Avari leaned close again. “Dump popcorn all over this badly tailored, ill-fitting uniform?”

And that’s when I realized I had no idea what to do next.