by Krista Walsh
“I don’t know how clean these sheets are, but it’s all I could find,” Emmett said.
“At the moment, something’s better than nothing. I’m going to need some room. Where’s that water?”
“Coming. The guy lives so far off the grid even I don’t know how to use half this stuff.”
“It’s a gas stove, Emmett,” said Daphne. “Not a rocket ship.”
“Would you like it if I blew the place up by accident? I don’t think so.”
“Will you two knock it off?” Denise snapped. “I’m trying to focus here.”
When Emmett spoke again, he was right beside Molly, his voice touched with fear and awe. “I don’t want to imagine what these demons look like if they did this to someone like him.”
“Stop gawking at his abs and hand me that bottle of alcohol,” Denise directed.
“Will he live?” Molly didn’t want to ask, but she had to know.
Denise rested her hand over Molly’s. “He’s in bad shape. I’m going to do what I can, but I can’t make any guarantees. I’m sorry.”
More tears slid down Molly’s cheeks, and she wiped them away on her shoulder. She didn’t want to think about losing Zach. He had been her doorway into this world. Her guardian. The reason she’d learned about her own otherness. Someone to talk to when the rest of her life had stopped making sense.
A few days of spending time with someone hardly sounded like enough for a stranger to mean so much, but he did.
“Do you know how to make coffee with this thing, Molly?” Emmett asked.
She recognized that he was just trying to give her something to do to get her out of the way, but she appreciated the simple distraction. Keeping busy probably wasn’t the worst idea.
She crossed the room and felt for the coffee tin. The scoop was still inside, and she used it to heap the grounds into the French press. Her elbow nudged the cane in her quiver and, not wanting it to fall out, she removed it and set it next to the crate before returning to her task. A crack in the lip sliced through the pad of her index finger, and she winced.
“Not that one more blood smear on my clothes is going to make much difference,” she said, hissing through the sharp sting.
“Here, I’ll finish with this. I saved some water in case you wanted to clean up. The bucket is about three feet to your left, on the floor.”
“They won’t need it for Zach?”
“I’ve got another bucket on the burner. There’s lots to go around.”
Molly edged her foot over until she came into contact with the plastic. “Thank you.”
“No problem. It might still be hot.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She lowered to her knees and leaned her face over the water to check how much steam billowed up to hit her face. It didn’t seem much hotter than her favorite shower temperature. Carefully, she dipped the tip of her finger into it. It was hot, but not scalding. She rolled her sleeves and plunged her arms in up to her elbows.
Definitely hotter all at once, but it offered more bliss than pain. The heat ate away at the feeling of grunginess that had followed her since she’d left the alley. She scrubbed her arms and dug under her fingernails. No matter how many times she rubbed her hands over her skin, the grit and slickness of the dirt and blood remained.
“Am I making things any better?” she finally asked. Her forearms had begun to chafe.
“You’ve gone from crash victim to murderess, but you’re getting there.”
“My parents are going to freak if they see me like this.”
“Do you…do you want any help?” he asked. Molly appreciated his hesitation.
“Please.”
A soft pressure in the air leaned into Molly as Emmett shifted in front of her, and her skin warmed as he dipped his hands in alongside hers.
On the other side of the room, Denise and Daphne were carrying on a low conversation that Molly couldn’t make out. It worried her that they didn’t want the whole room to hear, but she tried not to think of it.
“Have you known Daphne long?” she asked Emmett.
“A few weeks. She did me a favor, then introduced me to this world of magic and demons, and I didn’t want to leave again. How can you, you know? Once your eyes are opened, it’s not like you can close them again. Shit. Sorry. Figure of speech.”
Molly chuckled. “It’s all right, I don’t offend easily. And I know what you mean. I felt the same when I met her and the others. It’s like waking up on Christmas morning to find out that Santa does, in fact, exist.”
“Wait, Santa doesn’t exist?”
She snorted. “He probably does. The story that he’s the kid’s parents is probably made up so no one guesses the truth.”
“With everything I’ve learned over the last few weeks, that wouldn’t surprise me.”
They shared a laugh, then Emmett’s hands left hers. “There. You don’t look like you shoved your arms into a sacrificial bull anymore.”
“Thanks.”
Molly pulled out her hands and wiped them down on the towel Emmett held out for her. At least part of her felt cleaner. She realized she should have used a cloth to wash her face before she’d bloodied the water, but it was too late now. She did the best she could with the dry corner, but knew she’d have to sneak a shower before her parents saw her.
“I set your bow over here,” Emmett said. “It’s a beautiful piece of equipment. Can I ask — how do you manage to use it?”
“A few weeks ago, I would have told you it was pure skill. I only recently found out it’s because I was born to use a bow. It kind of runs in the family, like my deafblindness. Family curse, it turns out.”
“Whoa. A real live curse?”
At the sincerity of the awe in his voice, Molly wanted to throw her arms around his neck and thank him. That had been the reaction she’d hoped Steve would offer. “Exactly like that.”
“That’s cool. I mean, shitty for you with the whole not seeing and hearing thing, because that must be hard, but what a story.”
Molly smiled. Never in her life had she met someone who thought her situation was cool. She set Emmett’s reaction aside as another perk of moving deeper into the otherworld. It would be nice to have other humans to talk about these things with and not have them think she was crazy.
The moment would have been perfect except for her gnawing worry as the silence on the other side of the room grew deeper.
“Molly, you’ll want to come over here,” Denise called. “Your friend is waking up.”
19
Pain dragged Zach’s consciousness back toward the living. A deep, burning agony in the muscles of his chest spread out along each individual vein, growing into sunbursts at every artery. Heat seared through him as though he’d been thrust into a fire.
A moment ago, he’d been drifting in a blissful numbness, fading further away from this world to find out what was waiting for him in the next. He’d been sure of it. It had called to him like a siren’s song, luring him to come closer and end the misery that had been his thirty-seven years on earth.
Now he was caught between coming and going, the same way he’d been stuck between demon and angel ever since his mother had explained to him what he was.
No, lied to him about what he was.
He wasn’t angry with her, he understood why she’d spun the story she had, but she could have saved him so many years of hating himself if she’d explained that he’d been designed to sit across this boundary. He’d been meant to embody the best of both species and instead had been placed on a knife-edge between them.
Only neither side had come in to save him during that fight. Even now, he reached into himself and came up with nothing. He felt weak. Empty.
Voices called his name. He ignored them. He didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. But the louder they called, the deeper the fire burned in his bones. He strained to escape from it, but each subtle movement made it worse.
He felt as though someone ha
d slammed his head into a brick wall.
Flashes of the large demon’s fist flying toward his face passed through his mind, and at the moment of impact, his eyes flew open, pain jumping through his skull like needles in his brain. His stomach churned, and he braced himself to be sick.
A woman he didn’t know leaned over him, her kind brown eyes framed by dark brown skin under curly dark brown hair. It took him a moment to place her as the nurse who had stood by while he and the sorceress had burned the demon corpses.
She turned away from him and called something, but he couldn’t make out the words. They were muffled, as though someone had stuffed his ears with cotton.
He couldn’t move. His arms weighed too much to lift, and even his fingers seemed to be bound down. He swallowed, but his throat ached too much to finish, and for a moment he worried he was choking.
“Breathe,” the nurse told him, her voice reaching him through the thick waves of his pulse. “Stay calm.”
He dragged in a deep breath through his nose, but that hurt, so he opened his mouth and sucked in air. It traveled past the obstruction in his throat and relaxed the muscles around his esophagus, allowing a little less discomfort. Only a hair’s worth, but at this moment that was everything. He glanced down and found a cloth balled tightly against his chest, two pairs of hands pressing down. That explained part of the fire.
A small hand wound through his, and he tilted his head as far as he could before fresh pain exploded behind his eyes. Molly knelt at his side, opposite Daphne and Denise, concern written into every line on her young face. It was obvious she had been crying. Blood smeared her cheek and her neck, and he suspected most, if not all, of it was his.
A sharp crash sounded across the room. Had the demons come back? The thought sent a surge of panic through him, and he attempted to lurch up.
“It’s all right,” Daphne said, her gaze shifting from the room back to him. “It was just Emmett kicking over a bucket. You’re safe for now. We’re going to have to move you soon to make sure your friends don’t find you, but they haven’t come back yet.”
“I’m going to need more water over here,” Denise said, staring down at his chest.
“Coming right now,” said an unfamiliar voice that Zach guessed was Emmett.
“Was it demons?” Molly asked him, ignoring the others. “Or was it the women I heard talking when I got here? Did they send the demons after you?”
The Collegiate had still been here when Molly had arrived? His heart climbed into his throat as he realized how close she had come to running into Borl and the other big demon. The tall one. The one that had almost killed him.
“All right, I’m ready for round two,” Denise said. “The gash to the chest has slowed, but there’s still blood pooling underneath you from the gouges in your back. Can you two help me roll him?”
Zach tensed as Molly held her hands out and Denise rested them on his shoulder. More hands slipped under his back and eased him onto his side. Every small movement tore through him, and sweat tickled his forehead.
“I really wish I had some anesthetic for you, but we’re forced to do this the old-fashioned way,” the nurse said. “It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry.”
That was all the warning she gave him before something pressed against his back. Fire cut through him, and he hissed out a breath. He tried to speak, but the words weren’t coming. He felt as though he were still slipping away. Life clung to him by a thread, and he suspected that only his desire to make sure the others knew the truth about the situation was keeping him awake.
Once they know, he thought. Once they know, I can get some sleep.
He knew he didn’t mean a temporary rest, but at the moment, death and sleep were the same thing. An escape from pain — not just the physical pain he was feeling now, but the mental exhaustion he had suffered through dealing with his life day after day. Through keeping his demon in check and not letting the judgments of his angel come out too far. Through keeping himself secret while keeping his body alive.
It was too much. After this, he was okay to let go.
“Not the women,” he said to Molly, his words coming out raspy and thin. The air coursing along the back of his throat made him cough.
“Roll him back,” the nurse said, and as Zach rolled, a hand caught the back of his neck, tilting his head up. “Drink this. It’s not water, which I would prefer, but at least it’s something to soothe your throat.”
The taste of coffee drizzled over his tongue. It was bitter and sharp and not nearly satisfying enough to quench his growing thirst. His writhing stomach threatened to bring it back up, but he sucked in a few deep breaths to keep it down.
“All right, brace yourself again,” Denise said after he’d relaxed into her hold.
She moved as though to roll him, but with a weak burst of energy, Zach grabbed her wrist.
“No. You have to know. The women are the Collegiate,” he got out. “The creators of the guardians. They came to warn — warn me.” The effort of speaking hurt, and he couldn’t seem to keep enough air in his lungs to get more than a few words out at a time, but he’d already started. It was only a little further now.
“They want me. The demons need my blood to try to make new guardians. Ones they can control. You can’t let them have me.” He locked gazes with Daphne. “You can’t let them get me.”
There was so much more that needed to be said and explained, but he couldn’t manage it. At least he’d passed along the important part.
“Wait. Guardians — I know about them!” the nurse exclaimed. “I thought you said they were extinct. Daphne, are you all right?”
The sorceress had turned deathly pale, her thin lips disappearing into her narrow face and her green eyes growing wide.
She understood. Relief soaked into Zach’s bones that at least someone did.
“What’s going on?” Molly asked. “What does that mean?”
Before anyone could explain, Zach caught a shadow in the corner of his eye as something passed in front of the window. No one else seemed to notice anything happening except Molly, who stiffened.
“I hear something,” she said.
A man around Molly’s age appeared at her side, his hair shaved close to his scalp, a gray sweater hanging loose over a tall, thin frame. “I think someone just went by outside.”
Daphne tensed. “Did they see you?”
He opened his hands. “I don’t think so, I was down by the stove, and they were close enough I only saw legs. But maybe?”
“They’re inside,” Molly said, stepping away from him. “I heard the door slam.”
“Then we’d better get moving, hadn’t we,” Daphne said. “Emmett, come over here and help Denise.”
The young man’s shoulders slumped. “I’m on it.”
Zach watched Molly cross the room toward the stove and ready her bow. He grunted as Daphne’s gentle grip was replaced with Emmett’s awkward fumbling one.
“I think you’re going to have to speed it up, D,” Daphne said.
The nurse scowled. “There’s no point bandaging him if I can’t stop the bleeding. Emmett, hold him on his side.”
Zach groaned as they shifted him once more. He hated being stuck here having his wounds cleaned, leaving Molly to go out to fight his battle for him. That wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. Their debt was clear. She should have been at home doing homework and growing up however human girls did, surrounded by family and friends. Not preparing for war.
In a last-ditch effort, he reached within himself to find a spark of his strength, but even that effort left him exhausted. He was dying. If he ever made it off these blankets, it would be a miracle.
He grabbed Molly’s hand. “Be safe.”
She nodded, but fresh tears slid over her cheeks.
“Daphne,” he called, and the sorceress glanced at him over her shoulder. Her hands were out in front of her, her fingers touched with the golden glow of her magic. “Don’t let them get me. Prom
ise me. If they get through, you need to kill me. Drain my body dry.”
The sorceress’s expression contracted with pain, then hardened. “I promise.”
“What?” Molly demanded. “No! I won’t stand by and let that happen.”
Daphne grabbed her by the arm and tugged her forward. “We won’t have a say in the matter if we don’t hold these demons back. Come on. Denise, you should look at getting out of here. Once it’s safe, take Emmett, get to your cars, and go.”
Denise’s brow furrowed, beads of sweat forming along her hairline. “Damned if I’m going to let a patient of mine bleed to death while I cut and run. I’ll leave if I have to, but not yet.”
The last sight Zach had of Molly as she left the room was her grief-stricken face smoothing into a mask of determined anger. He crossed his fingers her stubbornness would be enough to see her through whatever was waiting for her in the corridor.
He clenched his teeth as another wave of agony contracted his muscles. Denise’s fingers seemed to be pressing into the holes in his back, and he smelled burning skin and the sharp reek of alcohol.
“He’s still losing so much blood,” said Emmett.
“Thank you for helping my patient stay calm,” Denise replied.
Zach couldn’t hold back a growl as she poured the alcohol over his back. He bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood. His head swam. Consciousness waned, and he started following it down the path toward nothing.
Death was good. It was a relief. Karl would have no reason to come after his friends if he was no longer around to tempt him.
He rolled his head toward Denise. “If I die, burn my body.”
She sat back on her heels. “What?”
“Do it.” His fingers twitched toward her, and every breath was a struggle. “They can’t…get my blood. You have to bu—burn it all. Take any chance of…victory away from them.”
