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“Rixon’s in hell now, Nora. ”
I flinched. He’d said it without any hesitation and with just the right amount of melancholy. If he was lying, he deserved an award.
“Rixon’s dead?”
“He’s burning in hell, but yeah, same basic idea. Dead works, as far as I’m concerned. ” I scrutinized his face, watching for the slightest false movement. I wasn’t going to argue specifics of the afterlife with him, but I needed confirmation that Rixon was gone for good. “How do you know?
Have you told the police? Who killed him?”
“I don’t know who we get to thank, but I know he’s gone. Word travels fast, trust me. ”
“You’re going to have to do better than that. You might have the rest of the world fooled, but I’m not bought that easily. You dumped a car in my driveway the night I was kidnapped. Then you ran off into hiding—New Hampshire, was it? Forgive me if the last word that comes to mind when I see you is
‘innocent. ’ I think it goes without saying: I don’t trust you. ” He sighed. “Before Rixon shot us, you convinced me that I really am Nephilim. You’re the one who told me I can’t die. You’re part of the reason I ran away. You were right. I was never going to end up like the Black Hand. No way was I going to help him recruit more Nephilim to his army. ” The wind pierced my clothes, breathing like frost against my skin. Nephilim. That word again.
following me everywhere. “I told you that you’re Nephilim?” I asked nervously. I closed my eyes briefly, praying he would correct himself. Praying that he’d been using the words “can’t die” figuratively. Praying this was where he explained that he was the final stop in an elaborate hoax that had started last night, with Gabe. A big hoax, and the joke was on me.
But the truth was there, stirring in that murky place where my memory had once been intact. I couldn’t rationalize it in my head, but I could feel it. Inside me. Burning in my chest. Scott wasn’t making this up.
“What I want to know is why you can’t remember any of this,” he said. “I thought amnesia wasn’t permanent. What gives?”
“I don’t know why I can’t remember!” I snapped. “Okay? I don’t know. I woke up a few nights ago in the cemetery with nothing. I couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten there. ” I wasn’t sure why I felt the sudden urge to spil everything to Scott, but there it was. My nose began to run, and I could feel tears forming behind my eyes. “The police found me and took me to the hospital. They said I’d been missing for nearly three months. They said I have amnesia because my mind is blocking the trauma to protect myself. But you want to know what’s crazy? I’m starting to think I’m not blocking anything. I got a note. Someone broke into my house and left it on my pillow. It said even though I’m home, I’m not safe. Someone is behind this. They know what I don’t. They know what happened to me. ” Right then, I realized I’d divulged too much. I had no evidence the note existed. Worse, logic proved it didn’t. But if the note was a figment of my imagination, why did the thought of it refuse to fade? Why couldn’t I accept that I’d invented, contrived, or hallucinated it?
Scott studied me with a deepening frown. “They?”
I threw my hands up. “Forget it. ”
“Did the note say anything else?”
“I said drop it. Do you have a Kleenex?” I could feel the skin under my eyes growing puffy, and I was past the point where sniffling was helping to keep my nose dry. As if that weren’t bad enough, two tears tumbled down my cheek.
“Hey,” Scott said gently, grasping me by the shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. Don’t cry, all right?
I’m on your side. I’ll help you figure out this mess. ” When I didn’t resist, he pulled me against his chest and patted my back. Awkwardly at first, and then he settled into a soothing rhythm. “The night you went missing, I went into hiding. It’s not safe for me here, but when I saw on the news you were back and couldn’t remember anything, I had to come out of hiding. I had to find you. I owe you that much. ”
I knew I should pull away. Just because I wanted to believe Scott didn’t mean I should trust him completely. Or let down my guard. But I was tired of throwing up walls, and I let my defenses slip. I couldn’t remember the last time it had felt so good just to be held. In his embrace, I could almost make myself believe I wasn’t in this alone. Scott had promised we’d get through this together, and I wanted to believe him on that count as well.
Plus, he knew me. He was a link to my past, and that meant more to me than I could put into words. After so many discouraging attempts at remembering any fragment my memory saw fit to throw at me, he’d appeared without any effort on my part. It was more than I could have asked for.
Wiping my eyes on the back of my arm, I said, “Why isn’t it safe for you here?”
“The Black Hand is here. ” As if remembering that the name meant nothing to me, he said, “Just to make sure we’re clear, you remember nothing of this? I mean, nothing as in nothing?”
“Nothing. ” With that one word, I felt as though I were standing at the opening of a forbidding labyrinth that stretched to the horizon.
“Sucks to be you,” he said, and despite his word choice, I believed he sincerely meant he was sorry. “The Black Hand is the nickname of a powerful Nephil. He’s building an underground army, and I used to be one of his soldiers, for lack of a better word. Now I’m a deserter, and if he catches me, it won’t be pretty. ”
“Back up. What is a Nephil?”
Scott’s mouth quirked up on one side. “Get ready to feel your mind blow, Grey. A Nephil,” he explained patiently, “is an immortal. ” His smile tipped even higher at my dubious expression. “I can’t die. None of us can. ”
“What’s the catch?” I asked. He couldn’t really mean immortal as in immortal.
He gestured to the ocean shattering itself against the rocks far below. “If I jump, I’ll live. ” Okay, so maybe he’d been stupid enough to make the jump before. And survived. That didn’t prove anything. He wasn’t immortal. He simply believed he was because he was a typical teenage guy who’d done a few reckless things, lived to talk about them, and now he believed he was invincible.
Scott arched his eyebrows in mock offense. “You don’t believe me. Last night I spent a good two hours in the ocean, diving for fish, and I didn’t freeze to death. I can hold my breath down there for eight, nine minutes. Sometimes I pass out, but when I come around, I’ve always floated to the surface, and all my vital signs are up and working. ”
I opened my mouth, but it took a minute for words to form. “That doesn’t make sense. ”
“It makes sense if I’m immortal. ”
Before I could stop him, Scott whipped out a Swiss Army knife and drove it into his thigh. I gave a strangled scream and leaped for him, unsure if I should pull out the knife or stabilize it. Before I’d made up my mind, he yanked it out himself. He swore in pain, his jeans seeping blood.
“Scott!” I shrieked.
“Come back tomorrow,” he said in a more subdued voice. “It will be like it never happened. ”
“Oh, yeah?” I snapped, still worked up. Was he completely out of his mind? Why would he do such a stupid thing?
“It’s not the first time I’ve done it. I’ve tried to burn myself alive. My skin was torched—gone. A couple days later, I was as good as new. ”
Even now I could see the blood on his jeans drying. The wound had stopped bleeding. He was …
healing. In seconds rather than weeks. I didn’t want to trust my eyes, but seeing was believing.
All of a sudden, I remembered Gabe. More clearly than I wanted to, I summoned up a visual of a tire iron projecting from his back. Jev had sworn the injury wouldn’t kill Gabe….
Just like Scott swore his wound would heal without so much as a scratch.
“Okay, then,” I whispered, even though I was anything but okay.
“You sure you’re convinced? I could always throw myself in front of a car
if you need more proof. ”
“I think I believe you,” I said, failing to keep the dazed bewilderment out of my tone.
I forced myself to snap out of my stupor. For now, I was going to go with the flow as much as I could. Focus on one thing at a time, I told myself. Scott is immortal. Okay. What’s next?
“Do we know who the Black Hand is?” I asked, suddenly hungry to get my hands on any information Scott might have. What else was I missing? How many more of my beliefs could he send spinning on their heads? And highest priority: Could he help mend my memory?
“Last we spoke, we both wanted to know. I spent the summer following leads, which wasn’t easy, given that I’m living on the run, clean out of cash, working solo, and the Black Hand isn’t what you’d call careless. But I’ve narrowed it down to one man. ” His eyes swept to mine. “You ready for this?
The Black Hand is Hank Mill ar. ”
“Hank is what?”
We were sitting on two tree stumps in a cave, about a quarter mile up the coast, tucked around a jutting cliff, and far out of view of the road. The cave was semi-dark with a low ceiling, but it offered protection from the wind and, as Scott had insisted, concealed us from any potential spies of the Black Hand. He’d refused to say another word until he was certain we were alone.
Scott struck a match on the bottom of his shoe and lit a fire in a pit of rocks. Light glinted off the jagged walls, and I got my first good look around. There was a backpack and a sleeping bag against the back wall. A cracked mirror was propped against a rock that jutted out like a shelf, along with a razor, a can of shaving cream, and a stick of deodorant. Closer to the mouth of the cave was a large toolbox. On it rested a few dishes, silverware, and a frying pan. Beside it lay a fishing pole and an animal trap. The cave both impressed and saddened me. Scott was anything but helpless, clearly able to survive on his own knowledge and fortitude. But what kind of life did he have, hiding and running from one place to the next?
“I’ve been watching Hank for months,” Scott said. “This isn’t a stab in the dark. ”
“Are you sure Hank is the Black Hand? No offense, but he doesn’t fit my picture of an underground militarist or—” An immortal man. The thought seemed unreal. No, absurd. “He runs the most successful car dealership in town, he’s a member of the yacht club, and he single-handedly supports the booster club. Why would he care what’s going on in the world of Nephilim? He already has everything he could possibly want. ”
“Because he’s Nephilim too,” Scott explained. “And he doesn’t have everything he wants. During the Jewish month of Cheshvan, all Nephilim who’ve sworn an oath of fealty have to give up their body for two weeks. They don’t have a choice. They give it up and someone else possesses it—a fall en angel. Rixon was the fall en angel who used to possess the Black Hand, and that’s how I came to hear he’s burning in hell. The Black Hand might be free, but he hasn’t forgotten and he’s not about to forgive. That’s what the army is for. He’s going to try to overthrow the fall en angels. ”
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