by Anna Argent
Holt and Argo loaded the big man into a van with no windows in back—perfect for prisoner transport. If any of the surrounding residents saw anything, they didn’t call for help.
Just like they hadn’t called for help when gunfire had broken out earlier.
The rest of the group had already left. They would meet them at the plane, load the prisoner, then follow behind in the van.
He wasn’t sure how well he could fly with no depth perception, but he was about to find out.
Only Garrick and Eliana remained in the rundown apartment.
“Can you walk?” he asked Eliana.
She hesitated for a second before pushing to her feet.
He held her steady while she gained her balance, and as much as he hated her weakness, he loved having a reason to touch her.
After a moment, she nodded. “I’m good to go.”
He wasn’t sure she was being honest, so he kept a hold of her arm all the way down the stairs and into his rental car. He tucked her into the passenger seat.
Someone had left a clean shirt and a package of wet wipes waiting for her.
“Go ahead and drive. I’ll change on the way,” she said.
He wanted to watch. He ached to see even a modest glimpse of her bare skin. But his right eye was ruined, and he couldn’t see anything, even out of the corner of it.
When they reached the air strip, Argo and Holt had already loaded their prisoner into the back of the Cessna. The plane was equipped with a set of shackles that attached to bolts in the floor.
This wasn’t the first time they’d transported someone dangerous.
He started to open his door, but Eliana stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You can’t fly with only one eye.”
“I can. It will be fine.”
She shook her head. “You’ll kill yourself. We need you too much. I’m too tired to argue with you about this.”
“There’s no need to argue. I’m fine.”
“You’re half blind. I’ll get Argo to sedate you, too, if I must, but that will slow us down considerably.”
He turned in his seat to face her. “You’re too weak.”
“I’m not. I can do it.” Her fingers slid around his hand, squeezing it. “Please, let me.”
He didn’t know how to refuse her. He wanted to give her whatever she wanted, to rip the very sun from the sky if she asked.
She gave him a sweet, soft smile. “Close your eyes. When I’m done, go ahead and leave. I’ll need some time to recover, but I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I can’t stand the idea of hurting you.”
“Eyes aren’t that hard,” she said. “Mostly just water.”
He was the only pilot they had. They had needed to take to the air to save their asses more time than he could count. If he couldn’t fly, his people could suffer.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Just the eye, though. The cuts will heal on their own.”
“Just the eye,” she agreed, then she pressed a clean cloth over her own right eye.
“Close your eyes, Garrick. This will only take a moment.”
***
Argo watched the plane take off before he went back to find Eliana.
She was still in Garrick’s rental. She held a bloody cloth to her face. Her head was tilted back on the seat. She was panting in exhaustion.
Argo opened her door.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“As ready as I can be.”
She lowered the cloth, and what lay under it was horrific. Her skin was closed, but there was a scar running from her brow to her formerly perfect cheekbone. Her eyelid was split open just as Garrick’s had been, her iris white and milky.
“Do you want to heal that first?” he asked.
“I can’t. Too tired. Eyes are so hard. So precise.”
“So, what? You’re just going to leave it like that?”
“No choice. I have nothing left.”
“It’s permanent?”
Eliana nodded. “Don’t tell Garrick.”
“He’s going to find out sometime.”
“Not today.”
“Then when?” Argo asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “Do you think you could help me to the van? I’m afraid I don’t have the strength to walk right now.” Her voice was barely a whisper of sound, filled with exhaustion.
Argo wanted to tell her how stupid she was to push herself like that, how they needed her, how without her, so many of their kind would die.
But he kept his mouth shut and picked up Eliana.
As soon as Garrick found out what she’d done, what she’d sacrificed for him, he would say to her all the things Argo hadn’t.
With luck, the reckless girl would live long enough to hear them.
Chapter Twenty-four
Echo was dripping with sweat by the time she reached the farmhouse. Her lungs were burning from her run, her legs were shaking so hard, she didn’t know how she was going to make it up the broken steps to the front door. Thirst raked against her throat. She’d only taken one bottle of water with her, and it had been emptied hours ago.
The sun was behind the tree line now and going down fast. She still had to gather the spell components and draw the complicated circle before she could complete the spell.
There wasn’t enough time.
Worry rasped along the base of her spine, her instincts telling her that she was missing something.
Hazel said that you know where the other shards are. She said something about the dead staying buried for a while longer.
What had Stygian’s words meant?
The apparition from the park—the one that looked just like an older version of Hedy covered in blood—came to haunt her again. Her body had never been found. Echo had watched the news reports for weeks. Only one woman and one girl had been found in the alley. Mom and Melody. Echo hadn’t gone back to claim their bodies. She was at the pre-determined rendezvous point, hoping Hedy would show.
She never did.
Echo waited two towns to the east, in front of the post office. That was where they were supposed to go if they got separated. She waited for days until she caught sight of silvery eyes in the dark. A rodent’s eyes.
She’d run then, as fast as she could. She’d run until she reached Chicago and then melded into the crowd, going from one homeless shelter to another until she was able to earn enough money to buy a trusty, old Volvo just like Mom’s.
Echo had always assumed that the only reason Hedy hadn’t met her was because she was dead too. The rat man had cornered her somewhere and her body was never found. Or maybe she had been found and Echo had missed the news of a lone girl’s dead body being discovered. Or maybe, there was nothing left to find at all. The rats had consumed her.
At least Mom and Melody had been cremated by the city, their ashes buried together, side-by-side.
Echo had gone back once to visit their grave, years later. They must have found Mom’s name on her driver’s license and Melody’s from her birth certificate. A small, metal plaque marked each spot, cold and unfeeling, as if it had no idea it was marking something so devastating.
She still missed them. The searing pain of new loss had dulled into a constant throb, but it was still there, like an empty spot in her soul where something vital had been scooped out. She didn’t think she’d ever get it back. She didn’t think anything could fill the void.
Funny, but she hadn’t hurt so much when Stygian had held her. He’d been a shiny, new toy distracting her from her pain.
Right up to the point that he’d hurt her, too.
Was that what life was? Little pearls of pain all strung together by the people she let into her life? Was she destined to spend the rest of her years alone? Was that even what she wanted?
It wasn’t, but she wasn’t strong enough to take more abandonment, more betrayal. She’d been right to guard herself, to keep her distance. As much as being on her own sucked, i
t was much better than watching those around her die, of feeling them turn on her.
She couldn’t join the Riven. She was better off alone.
But before she could break up with them, she had to finish this spell. She had to dig deep and find the strength to hurry her ass into that house and make it happen. The spell, the circle, the locket, the bizarre drawings and arcane words. All of it.
Even if she managed all that, would it work? Harold said she needed all of Hazel’s shards in one place.
That’s when it dawned on her. The rat man. He had to have some of Hazel inside of him. That was the connection they shared. That was how he kept finding her and her family—the thing they all had in common: their shards. Somehow, that connection had allowed him to find her wherever she went. It was the reason he’d hunted them. His shards were driving him to kill so the evil souls within him could be more whole. It was the only thing that made sense.
If that was true, then it was just a matter of time before Hazel’s shards came to her. Hazel wanted to be whole. She knew this spell was about to go down. She had enough control over the rat man to make him chase Echo for years. The bitch would be able to get him here in time for the big event to go down.
Echo was relieved by that right up to the point that she was terrified.
How was she going to cast a spell and keep a giant rat from eating her face? Running had always been her chosen method of survival.
She couldn’t run now. She had to stand and fight.
But how?
She thought about setting a bunch of traps leading up to the house, but discarded the idea instantly. She had no idea how to do that, and even if she did, there wasn’t time.
The gun shoved in her pocket was her only hope.
Echo pushed her wobbly legs up the stairs and opened the front door.
Stygian was still chained to the railing. He stood as she entered, wrapping his arm around his body at an awkward angle so he could face her.
He was so fucking handsome she couldn’t breathe. So big and solid. His indigo eyes were bright, glittering with an intense light of excitement. Color flushed his cheeks. His dark hair was messy. There were smudges of green on his face. His body filled her vision with wide shoulders, thick thighs, narrow hips.
She loved him so much she ached.
She feared him so much she trembled.
She couldn’t be with him. Even if she killed the rat man and was able to stay in one place for a while, she couldn’t be with Stygian.
He’d killed her mother. How could she ever let those warm, supple hands of his touch her and not think about what he’d done? How could she ever sleep beside him at night and trust that she wouldn’t wake up with his hand around her neck again?
Even if Hazel was out of him, there were more shards out there. He could get infected with another evil bitch just as easily.
So could she.
She was safer on her own. Not better, maybe, but safer.
Beside him, sketched on the floor, was a circle filled with intricate, swirling sigils and sharp, angular shapes. It had been drawn with crayon, in green and blue. She could see the waxy texture of the lines, matte against the shiny floorboards. The whole thing seemed to hum with energy, singing to her of its perfection.
He’d done it. He’d gotten the drawing right. She didn’t know how he’d managed the feat chained up like he was, but he had.
His dark gaze moved up and down her body, taking in her dirty, sweaty clothes, her blistered hands, her shaking legs. Her face.
“You found it,” he said.
She nodded, her throat too dry to speak, too tight with longing for something she couldn’t allow herself to have.
Being careful not to step on the circle or get within arm’s reach of him, she moved past him to a bottle of water she’d left behind. She drank the whole thing, stopping only when the last few drops trickled into her mouth.
“We’re running out of time,” he said.
“I know. What do I need to gather?”
“Salt, ash, water, a candle and some matches. We’ll need some dirt or sand, too.”
She looked down at her filthy clothes. “Dirt won’t be a problem.”
Echo kept the wooden box in one pocket, the gun in the other, and went to work. She found salt in the little glass shaker on the table, right where her mother had left it years ago. The grains were clumped with humidity, but she tapped the shaker until they loosened.
There was no ash in the fireplace, so she found a few bills and junk mail and burned them in a metal bowl to create some. She shook some dirt off her pants, tapped some out of the treads of her sneakers, and dumped that all into a cereal bowl. She found a half-burned jar candle in the bathroom and matches in the medicine cabinet where Mom had kept them out of her girls’ reach.
With that all gathered, she went back to the circle. “Now what?”
“Without scuffing the lines, place the ash there.” He pointed to a blank area in the midst of a sea of squiggles. “The water there, the dirt there, the salt there.”
Rather than do as he asked, which would put her close enough for him to grab her, she handed him the ash, getting just close enough for their fingertips to brush.
Pain rippled through his features. He knew she didn’t trust him.
But rather than berate her for her perfectly reasonable choice, he took each item she handed him and put them where they belonged. Only the candle was left.
“Light it,” he said.
She did, then passed it to him as well.
He placed that in the empty spot closest to him. The only one that remained was the small circle in the center of the larger one.
Stygian held out his hand. “The locket.”
She didn’t want to give it to him. She didn’t want him to touch it.
She tried to tell herself that she worried something bad would happen to him if the tiny prison for an evil bitch touched his skin, but there was more to it than that.
She didn’t trust him.
What if he broke it or swallowed it or flung it across the room and she couldn’t find it in time? Already the house was growing dim, filling with the skeletal shapes of long shadows.
The new moon would rise two minutes before sunset. They had only a handful of minutes left before their one chance to cage Hazel was lost. Her phone’s alarm had already warned her twice that time was running out.
Trust him, her voices whispered.
She couldn’t. Not after what he’d done.
“All of Hazel’s shards aren’t here yet. We need the rat man before we can start.”
Stygian frowned. “The rat man? Why?”
“He’s got Hazel’s other shards in him. That’s how he was able to find my family all those years. I finally figured it out.”
His face changed from confusion to something else. Something terrifying. It was part anger, part determination, part killer.
“Give me the key to the cuffs,” he ordered.
She shook her head. “Not a chance. I may not be able to fight off the rat man, but I know I can’t fight you and him both at the same time.”
He let out a hard breath like she’d punched him in the balls.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She ran her fingers over the tender bruises around her throat. “I have evidence to the contrary.”
His body deflated with guilt and self-loathing. His eyes closed in defeat. “You’re never going to trust me again, are you?”
Her heart broke as she looked him in the eye and gave him the courtesy of the truth. “No.”
He straightened. “Then shoot me. Kill me.”
She reeled back in revulsion. “What? No.”
“You can’t fight him alone, not with the shards you have. Take mine. They’ll make you stronger, faster. More powerful.”
He was serious.
Stygian pointed to his temple. “Here. This is where you need to shoot me. You’ll have to get close for the bullet to penetrat
e. Marvel’s rounds are meant to stun, not kill. But they will if you get close enough and aim for a soft spot.”
He was giving her pointers on how to kill him?
“This is insane. I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Then set me free. Let me fight for you.” He glanced out the window. “There’s no time to argue. You have to start the spell.”
Until this moment, Echo hadn’t let herself think about what would happen next. Even knowing that the rat man would come, she hadn’t played through how she was going to read some convoluted incantation while simultaneously fighting off the man who’d been trying to kill her since she was a child. It’s not like he was just going to stand by, patiently waiting for her to either shoot him or finish the spell.
“We have to read the incantation three times,” Stygian said as if seeing her thoughts displayed on her face. “That’s going to take more than a minute.” He looked outside again. “We’re swiftly running out of those.”
Echo hesitated. She needed Stygian’s help. There was no denying that. The only question was, would she have it? Or, if she set him free, would she have one more enemy to fight?
Trust him.
She didn’t. Couldn’t. But she had no choice but to set him free.
If she died tonight, she almost preferred it to be by Stygian’s hands than the rat man’s.
Echo went to the living room and picked up the handcuff key. When she turned around to go back to him, Hedy was standing on the stairway.
Shock wrapped around Echo’s body, halting her legs and stealing her breath.
Stygian held out his hand. “Toss me the key.”
She lifted one hand just enough to point a weak finger behind him. “Hedy,” she breathed, the word airless and faint.
Was she alive? Was Echo hallucinating again?
He turned around and looked right at her, but didn’t react. He scanned the space as if Hedy were invisible.
Maybe she was. Maybe she was all in Echo’s head.
“What?” he asked in confusion.
“He can’t see me,” Hedy said. Her voice was deeper now, no longer that of a child. She was taller, her body had filled out to the curves of a woman. But her eyes were the same: big, blue and lit with a crazy light that promised chaos and pain.
