by Elicia Hyder
Orion nodded but didn’t meet my eyes.
He knew it too.
There was also Milly to consider—the next in line after my brother to receive the spirit of a demon. I shuddered. My brain already hurt way too much to think about that tonight.
“What will happen to Mal?” I asked.
“She’s out of surgery and recovering. I imagine she’ll go back to prison, which is probably the safest thing for all of us until we can come up with a plan.” Orion put a hand on my knee. “But don’t worry about that tonight. You need to rest.”
“I’d like to see my boss while I can. In my body, they won’t let me into the ICU because I’m not his—”
Because I wasn’t his anything anymore.
Orion offered his hand. “Come on. I’ll take you.”
Unlike most of the patients in the ICU, Essex didn’t have tubes and pipes coming out of every orifice in his body. An IV was run through the back of his hand, and heart-monitor pads were stuck to his chest. An oxygen mask had been sloppily discarded onto the pillow next to his head.
He was in a deep sleep, shirtless, with his torso wrapped in stretchy bandages. Pain would be his constant companion for a while. CPR alone was a bitch of a recovery.
Orion nudged me toward the bed. “Talk to him,” he said quietly. “I’ll be outside.”
I inched forward and finally placed my hand on the side of his warm face. He turned toward it and drew in a deep, crackly breath.
“Tyler.” With a painful swallow, I sat beside him on the bed. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you another way.” My face fell. “But hell, maybe this is for the best. I don’t see my life getting any less complicated, and the last thing I want is for you to be in more danger because of me.”
I put my hand on his. “But the past couple of days, I’ve been happier than I ever thought I’d be again. Maybe happier than I’ve ever been. Thank you for believing in me. And for not giving up, even though three years is a long time to wait.”
I leaned down and touched my ghostly lips to his. “I do love you,” I whispered.
With those words, he wrapped his fingers around mine.
“Don’t give up, Nyx.” From somewhere far away, I heard his voice. Disjointed.
Detached.
My soul eased.
My heart soared.
His voice continued.
“There’s more going on here than what you see. This is only the beginning.” His face was serene. Eyes closed. Breaths even and deep. Still unconscious—or maybe more conscious than he had ever been—he squeezed my fingers. “And I love you, too.”
Chapter Thirty
“You can do this, Nyx.” Ransom draped his arm across the steering wheel of his truck and stared at me across the cab.
I was sitting on my hands to keep from fidgeting. “What if I imagined everything?”
“You didn’t.”
“But what do I even say?”
“You don’t say anything. You’re not here to cross that bridge today.”
But Essex would be here.
Aside from whatever had happened in his ICU bed, we hadn’t seen each other since we were on the other side of this same cemetery. And while I’d gotten my hopes up after our beautifully eerie exchange, in this world, Essex still had no idea who I was.
Orion couldn’t tell me whether or not Essex’s memories would ever surface. According to everything he knew, Essex communicating with me in the Boundary shouldn’t have been possible. His memory should now be a clean slate regarding the supernatural, and if he ever remembered, it would be because, like Paps, he created new memories with new-to-him information.
But sometimes what we know in our hearts doesn’t always line up with what we know in our heads. And maybe the truth in my heart superseded even Orion’s experienced perception.
Despite my natural inclination to value facts over feelings, I believed that on some level, maybe even a subconscious one, Essex still loved me. No matter what he remembered when he was awake.
Maybe we are all just spirits masquerading in bodies, unchangeable at our core despite what our brains think they know—or don’t know.
Ransom nudged me with his elbow. “Or you can walk in there and say, ‘Hi, I’m Nyx, the Goddess of Night. And, surprise! I’ve seen you naked and I liked it. Nice funeral, isn’t it?’”
My laughter surprised me. “Thanks for doing this with me.”
Ransom shrugged. “It’s nice to finally do something for you for a change.” He reached across me and opened my door. “Now go. You’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”
“You’ll do what I asked?”
“As soon you get your ass in there. Bess is picking you up?”
I looked at my watch. “She’s supposed to already be here.”
He grinned. “You really surprised?”
“No.”
He pointed outside. “Go.”
I took a brave, deep breath and hopped out of the truck. We were far away from the hypnox bluff Orion had scorched into oblivion, but adrenaline seeped into my veins nonetheless when my feet hit the ground. With a hard swallow, I looked across the cemetery. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck. You’re a fucking goddess.”
With a genuine but fleeting smile, I closed the door behind me and straightened my black button-up shirt.
I hadn’t attended the service at the church. I was more responsible for Everly’s death than anyone, so it seemed wrong to grieve before God and all his witnesses. This would be where I would pay my final respects and hopefully sneak out without too much fanfare.
Our guys were on the second row of white chairs beyond the mahogany casket. I slipped onto the end seat beside Rivera.
I took a quick inventory of who was around.
Essex wasn’t anywhere.
I sighed with—relief? Disappointment? Then I waved down the line to the rest of the guys.
Baker reached across Rivera to shake my hand. “Glad you made it,” he whispered.
I hadn’t seen or talked to anyone much since the battle. Not in person or in the group chat. I never dreamed I’d be so thankful for a doctor’s order to rest. There was so much to process. So much more to do.
Mal was back in prison. Attempted murder was clearly a violation of her parole, and with all the new charges, she’d never see the light of day again except through prison bars.
I hoped they’d be strong enough to hold her, now that we knew exactly what she was.
Ransom had many questions, for which I still didn’t have answers. After finishing what needed to be done today, seeking out the truth was the next priority on my agenda.
Across the lawn, Ransom’s truck rolled toward the crowd of reporters being restrained by the county deputies. He got out and walked around to talk to them. A few moments later, Ransom’s truck left the cemetery, and the convoy of news vans followed.
My heart thumped in my chest.
Rivera leaned toward me. “Thanks a lot, Nyx.”
I looked at him confused.
He glanced down at my outfit. “I had twenty on you wearing a dress.”
“Shut up, Rivera.”
He chuckled and settled back in his seat. “Doing okay?”
“Not yet.”
He nodded. “I know the feeling.”
It was a little hard for me to believe that Rivera had feelings. But if I’d learned anything in the past few years, it was that the armor built around the heart of any law-enforcement officer is there by necessity, not choice. Gods and goddesses aside, we dealt every day with the worst mankind had to offer, all while wearing a brave—or sometimes (in Rivera’s case) hateful—face.
“Sarge isn’t here,” he said, not meeting my eyes.
“Does he . . .” I couldn’t even finish the question.
Rivera shook his head. “No. He still doesn’t know who you are or what happened.”
His words were like a punch to the gut.
“But the doctors say
the amnesia will probably fade.”
I nodded but couldn’t speak.
Thankfully, we weren’t a group that asked too many questions—at least not of each other.
In front of us, the casket hovering above a large rectangular hole offered a heavy dose of perspective. It could have easily been Ransom or Essex being laid to rest today. And considering everything, it was probably better that Essex had no memory of the events.
“Plausible deniability is everything,” Chief Magnus had once said to me.
Plenty of first responders had seen the nightwalkers on the cliff. The group-chat debate leaned heavily toward the wild-animal theory. It had been dark, and the nightwalkers even darker, so no one was certain what they saw. And if questions lingered, none of our guys would ask.
A black limousine wound slowly through the cemetery. When it stopped, the driver got out to open the back doors. Everly’s parents, I assumed, got out first. Chief Magnus and Essex followed.
My heart squeezed.
He walked with a stiff spine, the only way to move and cope with the blinding pain of broken ribs. The shirt beneath his black jacket looked bulky from the bandages certainly binding his rib cage. It had only been six days, but he looked thinner. Paler. Dark circles sagged beneath his tired eyes.
When they were close, his gaze swept down the line of cops until he reached me. Our eyes met, and his perfect lips bent into a polite smile. Beyond that, there was no familiarity. Not one flicker of recognition, let alone anything resembling what we’d so recently had.
I wanted to explode into a million pieces. And yet, I knew the truth: on some level, locked somewhere far away, his soul still loved mine.
“This is only the beginning,” he had said.
That truth didn’t make this moment any less brutal. He sat at the far end of the aisle in front of me, not meeting my eyes again.
“Nyx?”
I’d been so lost in my own grief that I hadn’t noticed Chief Magnus break from the group.
When I’d woken up back in my body at the hospital, Bess had presented me with her full report on Chief Joseph Magnus. As Orion had said, he wasn’t a supervillain after all.
In the blaze my father had gone to prison for, Detective Owen Ryan had sacrificed himself to save the other officers. Magnus included.
Magnus had taken the job in Sapphire Lake, in part, to work with me. And, by proxy, to work with his old partner again.
He wasn’t going to like how I was about to spin things.
“How are you, Corporal?” Magnus asked.
“I’m alive, so I’m not complaining.”
He nodded. “Can we talk after?”
“We’ll talk soon.”
He squeezed my shoulder and left to sit with the family.
Everly’s mother cried through the whole service. I watched her with perplexity and envy. Had it been my body in that box, my mother might have celebrated.
The service ended with a twenty-one-gun salute. I flinched with every bang.
When it was over, I bolted from the group without so much as a goodbye. Bess’s green jalopy was parked under a tall sugar pine. She waved from the driver’s seat.
“Corporal!” a deep voice called midretreat.
I slowed, but it took a moment to work up the nerve to turn around. When I did, Essex was within arm’s reach.
So close.
So far.
“Corporal Nyx,” he said so formally I wanted to scream.
I forced a smile. “Sergeant.”
“We haven’t seen much of you since the . . .” He looked away.
I shifted uneasily. “Uh, yeah. I’m still on leave.” I pointed to my head. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Right. That’s a nasty head wound. When do you return to duty?”
That was a complicated question. “I’ll have to check my paperwork. How are you feeling?” My eyes dropped to his chest.
“I’m sore.” He gingerly placed a hand on his side, under his blazer. “Broken ribs . . .”
“Are the worst,” we said in unison.
He chuckled, then winced. “Exactly.”
The awkwardness between us returned like a boomerang. We were no longer a couple, if we ever were. We weren’t even friends. This whole exchange was Essex in boss mode, trying to address the massive elephant between us without actually admitting he had no idea who I, his subordinate, was. No doubt everyone had told him he should remember me.
He just didn’t.
“Well, I hope you’re back on the shift soon,” he said, looking everywhere but my eyes.
“Thanks. Take care of yourself, Ty—” I choked on the name, snapping my lips shut.
His brow pinched, like something locked far away was trying to break through to his memory’s surface. “Tyler,” he said, surprising us both. “You can call me Tyler.”
Hope flickered in my heart before I could tamp it down. My lips curled into a shaky smile. “OK. Take care of yourself, Tyler.”
I turned before the moment could shatter. It wasn’t until I reached Bess’s car that I allowed myself to look back. Essex was in the same spot, staring after me like his brain was trying to untangle itself.
Then our eyes met, and he smiled.
Hope bubbled again.
It was a quiet drive across town. Well, relatively quiet for being in a car with Bess. She hummed “All the Single Ladies” the entire drive. When we pulled into Sterling Frights, Ransom was waiting with an army of news vans.
Word gets around fast in their world.
The reporters started buzzing when one spotted me in the passenger’s seat.
Bess pulled into a handicap parking space. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Are you sure you want to park here?” I pointed to the wheelchair sign capping the space.
With a groan, she backed out and reparked three spaces over. “If you do this, you won’t be able to critique my driving anymore.”
“Sure I will.”
She put the car in park. “Well . . . good luck.”
I smiled. “Thank you. You coming?”
“You kidding? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Cameras started flashing the moment we stepped out of the car. A microphone was thrust in my face as we walked. Ransom ran over to shield me from the swarm. “Just give her a damn minute!” he bellowed. “Bunch of fucking vultures,” he mumbled in my ear.
I walked up onto the steps leading to the hospital and pulled a slip of paper from my pocket. I took off my sunglasses and looked around at all the faces. The microphones crowded in around me.
“Good afternoon. My name is Corporal Saphera Nyx with the Sapphire Lake Police Department. I am not here today representing my department or Chief Joseph Magnus. I’m here as a private citizen with valuable information on the deaths of Ryder Stone, Amber Stevens, and Calvin Fleming.”
I gestured toward the hospital behind me. Staff and patients were crowded around the doors and windows, watching the circus happening outside. “For seven days, Corbin Fleming has been held here at Sterling Heights Mental Health Center on medical watch, pending the investigation of what happened at the Drexler. Corbin Fleming is innocent.” I held up the flash drive I’d stolen from Birch’s office. “And I have proof.”
Bess had trimmed and clipped the video surveillance I’d downloaded. Two phone calls and one meeting were particularly damning. She’d even added the bit at the end where the mayor had demanded an arrest before he left for vacation.
“There are a lot of guilty players in all this. Not the least of which are all of you, the media.” I glared specifically at Marianne Clarke from News 4. “Now that you’ve helped land an innocent man in his own hell, maybe another news network can help set him free.” I tossed the flash drive to the tall Hispanic man who’d helped shelter me and Bess at the Drexler.
He smiled.
I took a deep breath and spoke to everyone again. “While I hold the police department specifically blameless in th
is situation, I’d like to formally announce my resignation from the department, effective immediately.”
Murmurs fluttered through the group. From the back row, Bess held up both thumbs.
“Thank you for coming. That is all.”
Questions fired from every direction. Ransom shielded me with his arm as he escorted me off the stairs. Overhead, a pounding noise drew my eye. I looked up and saw Teek waving wildly from the window.
I laughed and returned the wave.
“That was exciting!” Bess said when she caught up to us at Ransom’s truck.
My heart was still pounding a thousand beats per minute.
Ransom opened the passenger door for me, and I got in. “Proud of you, sis,” he said with a smile.
Bess wedged into the doorway beside him. “Me too! But geez, Nyx, what are you going to do now?”
I handed Ransom the second slip of paper from my pocket. It was his business card. I smiled. “I don’t know, but Specter sounds like a good idea.”
The series continues in Specter.
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The Next Book
SPECTER
The Saphera Nyx Series - Book 2
