by D. Laine
“The others will come for you soon,” the Maria-Watcher continued. “You cannot hide. The three of us will eliminate Lucifer.”
“Just ‘three of us?’ That’s all you need?” Jake questioned.
“Others have come into power in the East. They have begun assembling slaves in preparation of our domination, but we are the ones in position to oppose Lucifer,” the Watcher said. “Once he is stopped, we will breed our human slaves so that more vessels can come. Earth will finally be ours.”
“What if you can’t stop Lucifer?” Dylan wondered.
“We will stop him.”
“What if he opens the gate to Hell?” Jake asked.
“Demons will walk among us, and we will be outnumbered for several generations until our numbers increase. The battle for control will be great and widespread. Though we will ultimately prevail, we would like to avoid the greater loss of resources.”
Dylan snorted softly. “The great battle of Armageddon would really cut down the gene pool of humans for you all to breed with, huh?”
There was a tense-filled pause before the Watcher answered. “Yes.”
“And what do you plan to do with those who have both Watcher and demon blood?” Jake asked.
“They are abominations.” Silence dragged on, and I couldn’t see what Jake and Dylan saw that caused them to shift even closer to me. Then the Watcher spoke again. “Not yet. Not until Lucifer is eliminated as a threat. They may still be valuable to us. For now.”
The shoulders caging me in relaxed a fraction, and I saw my opportunity. I didn’t know if regular bullets could kill a Watcher, or if they were superhuman, bulletproof creatures, but we were about to find out. I wedged between Jake and Dylan, separating them enough to swing my gun-holding arm up and take aim on the thing that had once been Maria.
Her lips twisted into a snarl when she saw me. My finger squeezed the trigger at the same time something heavy forced my arm down. The speeding bullet kicked up dirt and ash a few feet in front of us, several steps shy of the Watcher. As the thunderous blast echoed around us, it—or she—raced off into the night.
Finding Dylan’s hand on my arm, I spun on him with wide, accusing eyes. “Why did you do that? I had a clear shot.”
His mouth opened, then snapped shut without a response. He let go of me to run a trembling hand over his face, but he offered no explanation.
Behind me, Jake said, “We don’t even know if a regular bullet can kill them.”
“She ran away,” I pointed out. “That’s a pretty good sign that it wouldn’t have felt good.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Dylan finally spoke.
I gaped at him. “You could have let me try.”
Dylan lowered his head to the ground with a shake of his head. “I can’t do that. She’s . . . it’s still Maria.”
“What?”
His eyes squeezed tight. When he opened them, he still wouldn’t look at me. His arm swung in the direction the Watcher had run. “She’s in there. Or it’s in her. I don’t know, but . . .” He finally lifted his head to look at me. “It could still be Maria.”
“No. It’s a Watcher now.”
“Would you feel the same if it was one of us?” He tipped his chin toward Jake.
He had me there. I may not like Maria, but Dylan and Jake had history with her. Ten years of friendship and collaboration that couldn’t be wiped clear by a five-minute encounter with a Watcher. Despite the fact that it had referred to me as “disposable.”
“Fine.” I engaged the safety and slipped the weapon into the waistband of my pants since I had no use for it now. “Maybe there’s a way to get her back.”
Despite the nod of his head, Dylan didn’t appear convinced. He peered deeper into the woods, where the powerful white light had shot from.
“You noticed that she said three?” Jake asked Dylan.
“Yeah, I picked up on that,” he muttered.
I glanced between them while they shared matching looks of dread. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Neither was quick to respond. Finally, Jake said, “There are four of us.”
Dylan was the first to move, stepping deeper into the woods. My feet stuck to the ground as I watched him wander through the brush, the names of everyone in our group running through my head. Four tagged vessels and four untagged vessels. Not three, as the Watcher had said.
“Come on.” Jake grabbed my arm gently. “We need to find Marcus.”
A wave of apprehension washed over me as we followed Dylan. The trees grew bigger and taller the farther we hiked. Heavy undergrowth rose up, snagging my clothes as we walked deeper and deeper into the woods.
It was there, in a particularly thick patch of weeds, that we found him.
Jake’s fingers dug into my arm, and I winced from the pain he unknowingly inflicted. It had nothing on the pain I suspected he felt, nor the deep ache that originated behind my sternum. My free hand flew to my mouth to absorb the sob that passed my lips at the same time Dylan dropped to his knees by Marcus’s head.
He didn’t bother to check for a pulse. There wasn’t a doubt that Marcus was already dead. His skin was unnaturally pale under the light in the Dylan’s hand, his cheeks impossibly hollow. Other than a drop of blood on his upper lip, there were no visible signs of trauma.
“What happened to him?” I asked quietly.
“That explosion?” Jake offered with a shrug. “It knocked us out, and he was closer . . .”
“But it wasn’t really an explosion,” I pointed out. “Nothing else was damaged. There’s no fire, no trees snapped in half. It’s like nothing happened out here.”
“Except something big obviously happened.” Dylan pushed to a stand. He turned, sweeping the flashlight over the perimeter with alert eyes. “The others are coming.”
Only then did I hear their footsteps and nervous whispers. I looked over my shoulder to find Sadie leading the way at a run, Robbie and Ewing trailing closely behind her.
“We heard a loud bang,” Sadie said once she was within earshot. “What happened?”
“A Watcher took Maria,” Jake started. “And Marcus—”
“Oh, my God!” Sadie’s head swung between Marcus’s body on the ground and Dylan. “Is he dead?”
Dylan nodded mutely.
“Are you okay? Our connection went out for a few minutes and I didn’t—”
“I’m fine,” Dylan assured Sadie. “We’re fine. Just Marcus . . .” He swallowed thickly and I suspected Marcus’s death affected him more than he wanted us to know.
He had actually lost two close friends tonight, so it was no surprise to see him struggling to tread a flood of unfamiliar emotions.
I regretted leaving things between us the way we had now more than ever. Before yesterday, I wouldn’t have hesitated to offer him my support along with a much needed hug. Now, I didn’t know if he wanted it. I didn’t know how to respond, or what to do.
From the silence that surrounded me, I figured we were all in a bit of shock.
“Did Maria do this?” Robbie wondered.
“That wasn’t Maria,” Dylan barked. “Not anymore.”
“We don’t know what happened,” Jake answered Robbie calmly. “There was an explosion of some kind. He might have gotten caught in it. Or the Watchers—”
“No.” Ewing stepped closer, taking Sadie by the arm. “Calvin was right about this, too.”
Dylan’s heated gaze flicked to Ewing’s hand on Sadie. “Right about what?”
“The Watchers bred each of us to be a genetically perfect host for a specific Watcher,” Ewing explained. “Calvin always wondered why Watcher vessels came in twos. He found no reason, and suspected it was nothing more than an insurance policy.”
“If one twin died, they still had another one to use?” Jake asked tightly.
Ewing nodded, and glanced down at Marcus’s body. “That was the other reason he insisted on us protecting ourselves with demon blood. His hope was that th
e demon blood would protect us from this.”
“Wait a minute.” Dylan’s voice was low. Dangerous. His hands fisted at his sides, arms rigid. “You knew this could happen?”
“I didn’t—”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dylan turned his angry, accusatory eyes on Sadie. “Marcus could still be alive.”
“We didn’t know.” Sadie gaped at Ewing. “I never expected this to happen.”
Ignoring her, Ewing asked Dylan, “Would it have changed your mind about seeking out Calvin’s help?”
“Maybe.” Dylan rubbed his hands over his face with a growl. “I don’t know, but they deserved to know they were in danger. Is there anything else you’re not telling us?”
For some reason, he looked at me when he finished that question. As if I was privy to the same information as Sadie, Ewing, and Robbie. Like I was officially one of them, and on an entire different team.
I returned his gaze as the others murmured a string of “nos.” Then I gave him my own firm confirmation. “I don’t keep secrets from the people I care about.”
He stared at me a beat longer, glimpses of anger and remorse taking turns as the predominant emotion on his face, before finally looking away. His gaze landed on Marcus’s body with a heavy sigh.
No one spoke for a long time after that as our thoughts drifted toward our fallen comrade and friend. As hard as I tried to absorb the information Ewing had told us, I couldn’t. Not now.
Marcus lay dead at our feet. He was gone. I would never see another one of his uncomfortable smiles or hear another one of his awkward jokes.
When the first hint of light appeared on the eastern horizon, I inwardly cringed. We had a long, grueling day ahead of us. A day we would face not one but two persons down, with a new enemy hiding somewhere nearby, and the threat of distrust eating away at our group like a malignant cancer.
I worried that Marcus’s loss was only the beginning, and I feared that we would not survive as a cohesive unit much longer.
9
THEA
I would speak to Dylan today. I had avoided the inevitable for long enough, and it was time to rip off the Band-Aid. After a few hours of restless sleep, I woke fully prepared to confront him. But he was gone when I marched into the living room, his makeshift bed on the couch folded neatly and placed to the side.
Sadie stood at the window, and glanced over her shoulder when she heard me. “He’s taking this pretty hard.”
“He’s outside?” I stepped up to the window to see for myself what he was doing out there. The deep ache behind my sternum, that I had woken up with, intensified sharply. If it were possible for a heart to shatter, mine did so now.
Behind the cabin, under the branches of a small tree, Dylan attacked the cold, hard ground with a shovel. There was no better way to describe what I saw.
“He’s been at it for an hour already,” Sadie told me. “He’s been trying to block me since I woke up, but he keeps getting surges of emotion he can’t contain. I think something else is bothering him, too, but he won’t let me in.”
She turned to me then, with a question in her eyes.
“We had a fight. I think,” I admitted with a shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know what happened. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Talk to him,” Sadie pleaded. “Get him in the right mindset before he runs off and does something stupid. We need Calvin’s help. He needs protection, but he won’t listen to me.”
“Sadie, I—”
“Please. I can’t lose him to the Watchers.” She paused, holding my gaze imploringly. “I know you feel the same.”
I did, but I also understood why Dylan and Jake wanted to wait. Except . . . things had changed since our group discussion yesterday. Maria had been taken by the Watchers. If Dylan and Jake were given a dose of demon blood to protect them, Maria would still be left to take on Lucifer if it came to that.
I doubted Dylan would be receptive to that kind of reasoning now. Not when he was preparing to bury his friend.
Regardless, I gave Sadie a nod. “I’ll talk to him.”
I decided to face him now, while he dug Marcus’s grave. We would repair our relationship and, if all went well, I would help him deal with Marcus’s death. Only then, once the storm had passed, would I approach him about his plan for dealing with the Watchers and Lucifer.
When I made it outside, I quickly learned none of that was going to be easy.
If he heard the crunch of my shoes over the frost-covered ground, he gave no indication. He rammed the shovel down with a grunt, breaking up a chunk of dirt, and I stopped several steps away from the danger zone. He was in a mood—that much was obvious from the scowl I glimpsed on his face when he turned to dump the heap of dirt.
Before I used that as an excuse to back out, I blurted, “I have trust issues.”
He froze with the shovel in mid-air. His head turned over his shoulder and his eyes flicked in my direction briefly before he turned back to the hole. He thrust the shovel into the ground again—harder.
“I’m trying to work on it,” I added softly.
He didn’t look back.
“I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion yesterday.”
Nothing.
“Dylan, please talk to me.”
Still nothing.
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
Finally, he lowered the shovel to his side with a long, drawn out sigh. “I don’t want to fight either.” Despite his words, his posture didn’t change. He remained closed off, defensive.
Repairing the rift between us was going to be harder than I thought, but I was determined to try. I took a tentative step closer. “I’m ready to talk . . . whenever you are. It doesn’t have to be now. Or it could be now, if you want. Or . . .”
He turned all the way around, and I trailed off when I saw the hardness in his eyes. His lips pressed into a thin line and I realized he wasn’t going to say anything. So I did what I probably should not have done. I kept talking.
“Or you don’t have to talk to me at all, I guess. Whatever it was before . . . that you didn’t tell me . . . you don’t have to tell me.” I swallowed hard when his eyes narrowed. “We can talk about anything. We don’t have to talk about that, if you don’t want to. I won’t hold it against you if you decide to keep it to yourself.”
I forced myself to stop. And then I waited. One long second turned into two. Two turned into five, and my mouth opened with the need to fill the silence.
Fortunately, Dylan interrupted me. “Whether or not I told you isn’t the point,” he started smoothly, his tone contradicting the chill of his stare. “The point is I was going to tell you, but you didn’t give me the chance.”
“I know and I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I told you I have trust issues.”
“You seem to think I lie to you about everything.”
“But I don’t,” I gushed. “I really don’t. I just—”
What had been the problem yesterday? I barely remembered now, after everything that had happened since. What I did remember was knowing that something was bothering him—and he didn’t tell me what. I was pretty sure I overreacted after that. No doubt this stressful environment didn’t help matters.
“I was frustrated when I knew there was something you weren’t telling me,” I started slowly. “Especially after everything we had already been through . . . I thought we weren’t keeping any more secrets.”
“Thea, I—”
“Wait. I need to say one more thing.” I held a hand up pleadingly. “I don’t think you lie to me about everything. In fact, I think the opposite. So when I suspected there was something, I felt . . . disappointed. It came out as anger, and I’m sorry.”
“Fuck. Not the d-word,” he muttered. His eyes squeezed shut. When they opened again, the ice had melted. But he struggled to meet and hold my gaze.
“What?”
“Disappointed. My mom used that word when I got into trouble. Hearing her say
it was a worse punishment than being grounded.” He blew out an exhausted breath. “It still is.”
“I wasn’t trying to . . .”
“I know, but that was probably the reason I was worried about telling you. Why I hesitated.” Finally, he looked at me with a forlorn sigh. “I knew you would be disappointed.”
All I could do was breathe. And wait.
“Hell, I’m disappointed in myself.” His eyes lowered to the ground between us and his brows pulled together. I watched in anxious silence as an array of emotions danced across his face, many of which seemed to surprise him. Finally, with a resigned nod of his head, he looked up at me. “Right before you woke up yesterday, Maria told me she was pregnant.”
Seconds ticked by and I forgot how to breathe . . . until my lungs began to burn from the lack of oxygen, and my body took an involuntary gasp.
“Wait.” Dylan’s eyes widened. “That didn’t come out right.”
I finally found my voice, though it sounded squeaky to my ears. “There are only so many ways you can say that, and I’m pretty sure they all mean the same thing.”
“No . . .” He started toward me, then stopped. “What I meant to say was that Maria was pregnant.”
I blinked, not understanding how those words were any different.
“As in past tense pregnant,” he added softly. “As in not pregnant anymore.”
Oh. That was better. But still a bit of a shock. I assumed I knew the answer to my next question, but I asked it anyway. Or I tried to.
“And you . . .” I pointed a shaky finger at him.
He swallowed hard before answering. “Yes.”
My breaths came faster now. In stark contrast to a moment ago, my body couldn’t keep up with my demand for air. I gulped it in like an oxygen-starved fish as white bursts filled my vision. I wrung my numb fingers in an attempt to regain some of the feeling in them. Because Dylan was waiting, I said the first thing that came to my mind.
“It’s really cold out here, isn’t it?”
Dylan stared at me, his face scrunched up in bewilderment. “That’s all you have to say?”
