“Yes. You good?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking maybe we’re jumping the gun a little. Maybe we should wait a couple more days.” He swiped a palm over his temple.
What was up with him? It was hard enough to keep myself calm. “What’s the problem? Are you still worried about Kane? I told you, we’ll be square. Even if I don’t make it out, Butch and Leon won’t go back on their word.”
He shrugged in a way that didn’t inspire any confidence. His eyes shifted to the guys, and then he turned to give them his back. “I don’t have a good track record. I’m afraid I’m going to kill you.”
Now he wanted to tell me he was inept? Now? “You won’t kill me.”
He was still sweating. “You don’t understand. I might’ve been more talk than action.”
“Then why do you go after all the Shadow Walkers?” I took a deep breath and dug in. He could be scared. I could be terrified. Didn’t change anything.
“It’s more for show these days. I’ve killed all of the others.” He spoke so softly that I almost didn’t make out the words.
Shit, so that was true. I’d really hoped it wasn’t, but there you go.
My choices sucked. I could walk away, wait it out for a couple of days, hoping Kane might show up, and basically do nothing. Or I could go in anyway and hope for the best. “Listen to me. I’ve been informed that I’m the strongest Shadow Walker in decades. That means you aren’t going to kill me.” I waited for my words to work some sort of magic on his confidence, unlike what they were doing for me.
He was nearly dripping in sweat, and I saw him visibly swallow. “You’re positive we can do this?”
“Yes.” I sounded confident, although it was forced bluster on my part.
I turned and looked to Butch and Leon, giving them a small nod. I was going in.
I grabbed hold of Collin’s hand. “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” He nodded rapidly.
Stupid or not, I believed he would try.
I scanned the area, found the largest crawler I could, and called it over to me. I knew right away that even they sensed a big difference between Kane and Collin, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.
“Let me in.”
There was no hesitation as it opened up a doorway for me and I stepped inside.
The second I went in, I felt the difference. Whenever I’d gone in with Kane, I felt his hand firm around mine. I hadn’t taken more than one step, and it felt like Collin’s hand was a mere feather brushing against mine.
A smart person would’ve turned around and left right then. I’d always been more stubborn than smart. As long as I sensed some form of bond, I’d get back. Time was of the essence, though. I found the first crawler inside. It was about three feet tall and stood on its hind legs, and there was no animal equivalent to it.
“I’m looking for a human in here.”
Its head tilted sideways as if it was not sure what to do with my request. It walked away, as if it didn’t care to hear anything else.
After only a couple more steps, I tried gripping my fist around where Collin’s hand had been, but there was nothing there. It was like trying to hold water. I kept clinging anyway. I knew where the exit was. It was a simple matter of keeping track of where I went, and I’d be able to get back. The logic made me feel better, even if it might’ve been my own made-up bull.
I needed to find Kane. If that meant lying to myself, then I’d lie with the best of them.
I called over every crawler I saw as I walked further from the exit. I tried a larger one next. It reminded me of a grizzly, from what I’d seen in pictures.
I got the same non-response before it headed off.
I’d been walking for a little while, and had tried crawlers in every shape, when I turned a corner and saw Asher standing there. “You came.”
I took a step back. I’d known I might see him in here. Figured I would, but it was a chance I’d had to take.
I tamped down all the anger that wanted to erupt from me. Kane was the priority right now, and I’d do whatever was needed. “Is Kane in here? Did you lead him here?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, as if I were asking what the score of a game had been.
“I knew you’d come back.”
“Of course I would. Is Kane alive?” I’d tell Asher whatever he wanted to hear.
His eyes went to my hand. He wanted me. I wanted Kane.
“Come with me and I’ll take you to him.”
Whoa, this was too easy. He wouldn’t just hand over Kane. He hated him. Why would he offer to lead me to him with nothing in return?
Then he held out his right hand to me, and I understood the cost, what he was asking. I looked down at my own hand, where I was still gripping air, hoping that when I turned around and got close to the exit again, I’d feel Collin’s hand.
I reached out my left to Asher, hoping I’d misunderstood.
He shook his head.
If I let go, I might be giving up any chance of getting out again. If I didn’t let go, Kane would be stuck here forever.
I let go.
Asher smiled slowly as he took my free hand. “You made the right choice, Ollie.”
I nodded, while wishing he’d shut up. I didn’t want to hear him talking. I wanted him dead for forcing me to make a choice. For doing this after I’d tried to save him. I didn’t want to hold his hand. I wanted to rip his head from his shoulders.
He rattled on about how I’d made the right choice, but I tuned him out. If I didn’t, I would’ve tried to kill him then and there.
I didn’t know how long we walked. It felt like a couple of hours, but I was losing my sense of time in this place of perpetual gloom.
He stopped in front of a small house that looked like it could only hold one room. It was rustic, and the door and single window showed nothing but blackness.
“Is Kane in there?” If he was, he was being eerily quiet.
“No. This is for you. I built it after I first met you.” He watched me as if waiting for some sign of approval. As if he actually believed I was going to be pleased he’d done this for me.
“You’re not leading me to Kane, are you?”
“Kane isn’t here.” There was no doubt in his voice. He was absolutely certain of it.
I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. Kane wasn’t in the Shadowlands. But if he wasn’t here, then why hadn’t I felt him when I cast the locating spell in my world?
I’d come here for nothing. Kane might be lying hurt and trapped somewhere, but not here. I pulled on Asher’s grip on my hand. I had to get back.
“Ollie, I’m doing this so we can be together. I can give you everything here. It’s better for you. I know what’s right. Kane doesn’t. You need to stay here where I can protect you and take care of you. You’ll get used to being here. You’ll learn to love it.” He was dragging me toward the door.
I feared if he got me in that house, I’d never leave it again. There was a pulse of magic coming from the place that felt enormous. He was leading me into a jail.
“Wait…wait! Give me a minute here. Just tell me why you’re doing this.” I was stalling for time to think, to come up with an escape. And if this was going to be my end, why he was doing this to me.
He didn’t release my hand, but he stopped pulling me toward the house. “Because from the moment you walked into my world, I knew we were meant to be together. Look around you, Ollie. There’s nothing but grey and shadows wherever you look. Then one day you walk in to my world and it’s like you brought the sunshine with you. You were light and warmth and I’d never seen anything like you before. I helped you to survive my world. Helped you find the magic you wanted, but you always left. So I went to your world.
“But I didn’t belong there. I was a burden. I knew this. My body didn’t work right in your world. I went looking for more magic, but even that wasn’t helping. I couldn’t be what you needed me to be, so I had to bring you back to my world. Here, we can b
e the way we should be. You see that, right? This is how it has to be.”
He turned away from me and began to again pull me toward what would be my prison.
“Asher, you need to let go of me.” I dug in with my heels, but he was overwhelming me. “I don’t belong here. If you make me stay, I’ll fade away like you were beginning to in my world. There won’t be any light or warmth from me, because I’ll die.”
“We’re meant to be together.”
He kept pulling me, no matter what I said. His mind was made up and he would keep me here if it destroyed the very thing about me he was seeking.
I knew it was useless, but I didn’t care. I’d try anything. I grabbed for the most potent spell I could find in my mind, and started forming the words.
The magic buzzed around me, through me, tingling in every part of my body. Something was happening. I focused on where he was gripping me, and he suddenly yelped.
Asher dropped my hand. The magic was working on him. It had to be because I was here, in the Shadowlands. That was the only thing that had changed since I’d last used my magic against him. He was vulnerable here.
His mouth opened, and I knew he wanted to speak, could see the thoughts in his eyes, but nothing came out. His face scrunched as if in agony, his eyes growing watery. Violent tremors racked his body, and I could feel the magic seeping deep into him, twisting at his insides. The magic felt like an extension of me as it wreaked havoc on what he was made of. I wanted to pull back, remove myself from the dark and slimy feel of him, but I couldn’t. He was an abomination, even in this dark place.
I finally stopped chanting when I knew the damage was too much to repair. He crumpled to the ground, and then he was changing into a crawler, a large one, with two horns. A shell of a body lay beside it.
He was Crem. His eyes squeezed shut, a shudder went through his body, and a rattling sound came from his chest.
He was dead.
I knelt beside what was once Asher. I realized I didn’t know how I felt anymore as sadness warred with relief. He’d saved me more than once, but then he’d used my gratitude to bind me to him.
When it had all started falling apart, he’d tried to trap me. What hurt the most was Asher might have succeeded with at least part of his plan. I might be trapped in the Shadowlands.
A movement off to the side pulled me out of my thoughts. The small bunny crawler that had given me the shadow kiss hopped over. It must’ve been following us.
“He wasn’t allowed to leave, was he?”
It chirped back. I didn’t know what it said, but it didn’t matter. I knew I was right.
“That’s why you gave me this?” I held up my hand, noticing that the skin had started to change colors where it had bitten me. “You knew he was going to lure me back.”
It didn’t pay me any attention now as it sniffed the clothing that had shredded when Asher shifted to Crem. Fabric flopped to the side, and I saw the corner of a piece of parchment.
I pulled it out and opened it up, hoping it would tell me how to get out of here. It didn’t. It was the leprechaun map. I lifted the shredded shirt, and the vampire pendant fell to the ground. The blood was probably long gone, but I didn’t think that mattered anymore. The creature that had drunk it was dead.
“Wait, can you help me go home?” I yelled as the bunny left.
It didn’t stop or acknowledge me. It had gotten what it wanted. I pocketed the map and threw the pendant around my neck. If I ever got back, these things might come in handy.
I’d get back to the exit and I’d find Collin.
Then I’d find Kane.
It took me a few hours to find the place I’d entered. It was right beside a boulder I’d mentally marked. I flexed the fingers on my right hand, but felt nothing.
There weren’t any crawlers trying to block the exit on me, either. Maybe that had been more of a Kane thing? As if they knew he was there holding the exit open for me?
I walked the few steps to where I’d entered and then kept walking, right through where I should be able to get out. It was gone, or shut, I didn’t know, but I was stuck. I was never getting out of here.
No. Screw that. I’d given up on life before, but I wouldn’t again. My tagline was not going to end up being “still quitting.” I’d keep going until I couldn’t. I’d find another way out.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. The sun didn’t rise or set here. It was like perpetual dusk.
I didn’t need to eat or drink. It was as if all bodily functions had ceased to exist as I wandered. The crawlers paid me no heed anymore, and that was the scariest part of it all. It was as if they’d accepted my being here, as if I were part of this place now.
I slumped, not knowing where to go or turn. I’d already found myself walking in circles. Maybe if I found the little bunny crawler again, I could force it to help me this time? But that had been hours ago.
I looked at the notches I’d made in the ground, looking for a direction I hadn’t gone yet. There was only one. I’d only walked a few hundred feet when I felt a breeze flow over my hand, and nowhere else. I froze, gripping my hand. Nothing.
I took a few more steps, and invisible fingers feathered across my skin. It was Kane. He was on the other side somewhere, reaching out to me. It had to be him. I stood, not sure which way to go. I grasped the hand that was barely there, and it was like a fist around water.
I didn’t know which way to go, but I could do this. I’d get out of here. I dug into the ground with my foot, marking my spot with a 1 before I took a few steps. Concentrating on the slightest change of feeling in my hand, I rushed back to my starting point when I realized it was fading. If that way lost him, it had to be the other way.
I took a few steps in the opposite direction. The change was so slight that it was hard to tell if it was stronger, but I knew it was there. I dragged my heel into the ground until I’d carved a 2.
I took a few more steps, retreated to my starting point, and did it again in each direction until I was sure which way to go and marked a 3 into the ground.
What felt like a day later, I dragged my foot, marking the ground with four hundred and fifty-two. I took another few steps and fell through an exit that I hadn’t known was there.
Chapter 37
Kane was there, scooping me into his arms as soon as I crossed over. He shifted me until I was against his chest, my head in the crook of his neck. His arms wrapped around me. I was cocooned by his heat, the smell of him. When he held me like this, I almost believed nothing could ever hurt me again. He must’ve held me like that for five minutes, and I didn’t complain.
“Where were you?” I asked, my arm wrapped around his neck.
“I’m so sorry.” His arms tensed around me.
He placed me down on a nearby rock, leaving his arm around my waist to steady me as his other ran over my limbs. Butch and Leon huddled nearby. Butch handed me a water bottle, and I guzzled it down, all my thirst coming back with a vengeance.
“How long have I been gone?” I asked between gulps, noticing the way they were staring at me. It had to have been a while.
“Two days,” Kane said, and then motioned for Leon to hand me some protein bars.
Kane, having done a full perusal of my body, asked, “What happened in there? How did you end up so far from the exit? I could barely feel you.”
I gave them a rundown as I chewed my way through three protein bars and chugged another bottle of water. The three of them nodded as the story unfolded.
“So Asher was Crem?” Leon asked. “How was that possible?”
“It was just a shell he used. He was probably leaving it behind in the apartment when he slipped out.”
Kane had an I told you he was bad news expression on.
“You’re going to gloat now?”
“Why not? You’re okay,” he teased.
I forgave him when his arm tightened around my waist, and I saw him watching my chest to see how well I was breathing.
<
br /> I knew that was what he was doing because I was doing the same to him. I thought I’d never see him again, and now I was having a hard time dragging my eyes from him.
“What happened to you?” He looked okay, but that didn’t mean anything.
He was still smiling, but a hardness was in his voice when he spoke. “I think there may be some people that wanted me away from you. I was lured into a trap.”
I lifted a hand to his arm, barely holding back the urge to check him for wounds. “Is that why I couldn’t find you? I tried every spell I could.” I had some good spells up my sleeve, but that locator was a real dud.
“I was lured into a building by a creature I thought was Crem. It took me a long time to get out, but I wasn’t harmed.”
“Who?” My mind ran through the possible suspects, but I couldn’t fathom who would go after Kane.
“There was no one there. It was a magical barricade. Doesn’t matter. I’ll find them.” He didn’t need to add what would happen then.
I looked about the clearing and didn’t see anyone else. “Where’s Collin?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Kane said, smiling because he was crazy enough to think me accusing him of murder was funny. “I honored your agreement.”
Kane didn’t have to tell me how hard that had to have been. “Thank you.”
“Come on, let’s go home.”
I got up on shaky legs, feeling almost as bad as when I’d left the leprechauns.
Kane’s arm still around my waist as I walked toward the car, I watched as Butch and Leon hesitated a moment before going over to the Caddy. They both smiled.
I didn’t have to ask why. I smiled back.
“You really earned it this time,” Butch said.
Butch, Leon, and I all looked at each other and said in unison, “Still alive.”
I woke up, the sole inhabitant of the bed, and I hated it. Why wasn’t he in bed with me? He said he slept here. It was the middle of the night, and I was flopping around alone. Now I couldn’t sleep. Definitely his fault. If I hadn’t unknowingly gotten used to him being here, then I wouldn’t be having trouble now. He’d started this whole mess and left me holding the bag.
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