by Lisa M Basso
I opened my mouth to demand he tell me everything when he reached over and squeezed my hand. When he looked at me, his eyes were completely black. “Get some rest.”
Against my wishes, I sank into the buttery leather seat, feeling its comfort surround me. He’d used his influence on me. That bastard. I glanced over my shoulder at him, cursing him under my breath. Freaking wonderful. But I couldn’t fight my heavy eyelids any longer, and I found myself relaxing—truly relaxing, my carefully crafted walls melting away for the first time in weeks—and slipping into sleep. With my next deep breath, images came flooding in.
A black-winged creature soared toward me, blocking out the deep-blue sky. The creature stopped, hovering several yards in front of me. I knew he was a Fallen One, yet he looked nothing like Kade. His jaw was too broad for his face, his forehead too narrow. The splash of pale skin and hollow cheeks made him look even more sinister. Blackness coated his eyes, gleaming like a vacuum of hope.
I stepped back, and the fog surrounding him billowed forward.
“I’ve been watching you, human. I know you can see us for who we are.” I recognized his voice as the one from my nightmares.
“What do you want?” I shouted.
“Your gift, seer.”
My gift? What was he talking about? I was no one, nothing. Still, this was a dream. I could control this. I feigned bravery, pulling my shoulders back and raising my chin. “You can’t have it.” He blurred toward me, stopping a foot from me. His icy breath blew against my face. I squeezed my eyes closed and balled my fists to keep my knees from shaking. “You can’t have any more souls, either. Go back to where you came from.”
More wind blew me back as laughter, deeper than his voice, billowed. “And you think you can stop me? Silly girl. You can’t even help yourself.”
His fingers raked my skin. Shards of pain sliced the inside of my forearm. The ache expanded, tearing into the palm of my opposite hand. I looked down. One of his hands rested in my palm, the other draped across my forearm, where the pain emanated from.
The light behind him intensified. “Come with me. Once you sacrifice your pitiful soul to us, we’ll rule this world together—”
Rule the world? I jerked back from him, feeling colder for the experience, the frost of winter on every inch of my exposed skin—which was a lot in this flimsy outfit. “You and I have nothing together!”
“I will have you, one way or another.” His black eyes bore into me. “There are easier ways than this to break you. You’ll see. Very soon.” He flapped his wings and rose high into the air. The force from his take-off knocked me over. His dark, ominous shadow floated like a raincloud over my vision.
Me. He wanted me.
Tires screeched. I slammed against my seatbelt, and the pain broke the dream’s spell.
“Rayna!”
I sucked in sharp breaths until the wooziness subsided. The world outside the car was dark and unmoving. We were parked, not on the highway, but on a city street.
Kade’s face beside me was pale, his deep brown eyes rounded. “Rayna, it’s okay,” he soothed, his gaze jumping from my hands to my face and back again, watching warily, like he was afraid to startle me.
I didn’t understand, until I followed the direction of his gaze, to the large shard of glass I clenched in my hand and the three long gashes that ran down the inside of my forearm. Blood oozed from the cuts. My hands shook, and I dropped the shard into my lap.
Kade moved quickly, snatching it up and throwing it out his half-open window. “What were you thinking?” His voice boomed and quaked at the same time. He tore the sleeve from his shirt, grabbed my hand, and wrapped it in the soft cotton, cinching it tighter than I would have liked. He ripped his second sleeve into strips and tied them together for my forearm.
Tiny glass particles lay over me like a glittery blanket. None of the pieces looked one-twentieth as large as the one I’d sliced myself with.
“How … how did I—the glass … did I do this?”
“Please don’t tell me you really are crazy,” he mumbled while my blood soaked through his black t-shirt.
I pushed his hands away, accidentally slamming them into the steering wheel. Pain throbbed in my hands, up my arms. Still, I shoved him away again. “I’m not crazy!” My voice echoed through the broken window and out into the street. Broken window? When did it break, and how did I get a hold of the glass?
“Ray—”
I shook. Every part of me shook. “I’m not! I never was.”
“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” Kade reached for my arm, slowing halfway to make sure I wasn’t going to hit him again. I thought about it, I did. It would have been so satisfying after he’d called me crazy, but my arm hurt so much. He held it above and below my cuts. “Shit. This isn’t good.”
My head felt light, like the injection was still in my system. “I—I saw him.”
He looked up from my arm. “Who did you see?”
“He demanded my gift. Called me a seer.”
“Who?” His fingers tensed.
I glanced down at my arms. “His touch burned, like ice.”
He squeezed harder and shook, his voice turning hostile. “Rayna, who?”
“The one killing them!”
“What did he look like?”
“Pale, gaunt, huge jaw, completely black eyes.” The tension in his fingers made me exhale in pain. “Could you …?”
“That’s Az.” Disgust wrinkled his nose. “And you actually saw him?”
“He … came to me, in my dream.”
He released me. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t influenced you to sleep, he wouldn’t have found you. My head wasn’t in the right place. I shouldn’t have done it.” He shook his head and started the car. “We have to get you out of here.”
“No! I need to see Lee. Take me to North Beach.”
His gaze shifted, its intensity sharp. “Az marked you.” He cupped beneath my arm, and moved the blood-soaked cloth aside. Blood welled in the deep gashes, flooding over to drip down my arms. “Three scratches. Three is demonic.” His breath quickened.
“Demonic?”
“This is bad news. It means Az has been stepping up, moving through the ranks in the circles of hell.” He tightened the makeshift bandage and ran a hand over his forehead. “Do you have any idea why he’s interested in you?”
My vision spotted, and a cold sweat flooded my body. I bit my lip and steeled myself. “He knows I can see him. He wants me to sacrifice myself so we can work together for … something. I don’t know.”
“Az is a piece of work. When he goes after something—and as long as I’ve known him, he’s always been after something—I doubt sucking an entire soul would ever be good enough for him. He’ll play with his prey. Feed on their fear. But he must want something else from you. We have to get you somewhere safe.” His voice took on a false bravado as he switched off the engine. He opened the door and walked around the car. After he pulled me from the car, he dusted the window glass off me, and towed me down the sidewalk.
The towering heels that were half-a-size too big made me stumble. I pulled him back. “He’s in my dreams! Where the hell do you think we can go where he can’t find me?”
“We can try,” he growled.
I wrapped my arms around myself, that familiar numbing of insanity creeping up on me.
“It sounded like you were having nightmares,” he said. “I figured even nightmares would be better than what you had to look forward to here, so I let you sleep. You punched your fist right through the window.”
I touched the gashes through the strips of Kade’s shirt. My fist, palm, and entire forearm pulsed. “How could I even do that? I thought car windows were made to break in small pieces, in case of accidents.”
“They are.”
I checked my hand again, remembering the sheer size of the shard I was holding when I awoke. “Then how did I get a hold of such a big piece?” The mist in the air intens
ified into larger drops of water, each coming stronger, faster than the ones before.
“I don’t know, Ray. I just—I don’t know. This is serious, but I don’t think he wants you dead.” I watched as he searched the face of each person who passed us.
I swallowed, trying not to let it all overwhelm me. “He said there were easier ways to get to me. That he was going to do it soon.” He wanted my ability to see angels and the Fallen. Kade had said Az could go after my loved ones. The drawing. The blood drained from my face. “He’s going after Lee.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Retracing our steps, we piled back into the car. I directed Kade to Lee’s address from the back seat, to avoid the shattered glass on the passenger side. The night’s mist intensified into rain as we drove, the drops splashing into my face from the broken window.
I recognized the street. “This is it,” I called up to Kade as we approached Lee’s house. I scrambled out of the car.
“Rayna,” Kade called, but I ignored him. He could catch up if he wanted to, though I doubted he’d try.
Light beamed from the front-room window. That was a good sign, right? With newly restored hope, I gathered up my nerve and splashed up the front stairs. The doorbell chimed against the sound of the rain.
“Yes?” Lee’s mom peeked through the window on the door, squinting without her glasses.
“Oh, thank God. Mrs. Kyon, it’s Lee’s friend, Rayna. I know it’s late.” Actually, I had no idea what time it was, but the night sky meant it had to be after six. “But I need to talk to Lee.”
“I’m so glad to see you.” She opened the door and waved me in. Dad obviously hadn’t told her where I’d been these last few weeks, otherwise she’d be pulling the shades and calling the mental hospital. Which gave me hope that he hadn’t told Lee either. “Lee hasn’t been doing well.”
Not doing well? How? I stepped over the threshold, wiping my ridiculous shoes on the doormat in the foyer. “I would’ve been here sooner but there was a … family emergency. Where is he?”
“In his room.”
I glanced down the first-floor hallway, spotting four doors and a grand staircase. “Which room is his?”
“Upstairs. Third door on the left.” I took off up the stairs and heard her add, “That’s quite a costume.”
I followed Mrs. Kyon’s directions to Lee’s room and opened the door, not bothering to knock. “Lee?” I was almost afraid of what I would find, but pushed down the coward in me and stepped forward into the dark room, feeling blindly for a light switch.
A lamp flicked on in the corner of the room before I found the switch. A soft, yellow haze washed over my best friend. He looked so pale, sitting up in that big bed, a fog clouding his usually bright, brown eyes. A pained smile tugged up the corners of his lips.
He was alive, but definitely not well.
I raced to his side, leaning forward to take his face in my hands. His glasses slumped off his nose and fell into his lap. “Lee, are you okay?”
“I … I did something bad, Ray.” Even his voice was weak. I didn’t breathe until he spoke again. “I took some pills.” He reached behind his pillow and shook an empty prescription bottle.
I sank to my knees. “No.” It left my lips in a whisper. “What were they?”
He shrugged with more of a smile than I liked. “I dunno.” His words slurred together. “Something of my mom’s.”
Damn you, Az. I’ll kill you for this.
I glanced at the nightstand for a phone, but found none. “Mrs. Kyon! Call nine-one-one!”
I took the bottle from him. Sleeping pills. “How many?” The date on the bottle was less than a week ago, which meant he’d probably taken at least twenty. Lee’s eyes drooped closed. “Where’s the bathroom?” I shot up and threw the covers off him. “Show me.”
He pointed a weak finger to the door on his left.
“All right.” I tugged him up. He wobbled, but I managed to get his arm around my neck and pull him into the bathroom. I lifted up the toilet seat. “I need you to stick your finger down your throat.”
“But why?” he asked, still dazed.
My voice roared inside the tiny space. “Damn it, Lee! Do you wanna die?”
He looked up, heavy eyelids fluttering, and dropped his mouth open. He slouched against the white-and-black tiled wall behind him, and for a moment, I thought he was going to pass out. “Um. I … thought I already did.”
“Mrs. Kyon!”
Where the hell was she? I lowered my voice, trying to stay calm for Lee. His eyes rolled back in his head.
I crouched in front of him and slapped his cheek as hard as I could. His eyes snapped open, only to roll around his head wildly. “Listen to me, if you don’t get those pills out of your system right now, that’s what’s gonna happen!”
Mrs. Kyon ran into the bathroom, phone in hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Call nine-one-one. He took a bottle of pills.” She didn’t move, but the horror that reached her face would never leave my memory. “Now!”
I heard the echo of the phone buttons and turned back to Lee, who was slouched over the toilet. His breathing had slowed. “Lee!” I grabbed a spiky tuft of his black hair. His eyes were closed. “Wake up, Lee. I need you to do this for me. You’re my best friend, and I love you.” The salty taste of tears touched my lips. “I can’t do this without you. He can’t have you. C’mon Lee, please!” I kissed his cheek, and his eyes fluttered opened.
He stared blankly at me, a sliver of himself peeking through the empty shell that his body was fast becoming. I grimaced and shoved two of my fingers down his throat. He emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.
“Lee, I know you’re sad and you feel like it’s all a waste, but it’s not.” My voice shook, and I didn’t know why I was talking while he threw up. But I felt like I had to say this, had to tell him. “There’s so much out there to live for, so much more to life than this. I want you to experience everything this life has to offer, all the good things and all the wonders.” Tears poured from my eyes.
He gripped the edges of the toilet bowl.
“Nothing would ever be the same without you. This world doesn’t deserve to lose you, and neither does your mom.”
Mrs. Kyon collapsed to the floor beside Lee and gathered him close. “The ambulance is on its way.”
Fissures of relief ran through me. I pulled myself up and washed my hands, locking my knees so I wouldn’t go down. I pressed my back against the wall beside the bathroom door and rallied to hold myself together.
A glimpse of shadow skulked across the wall in Lee’s room.
I blinked and it came again, circling the walls like a vulture overhead.
The menacing voice from my dream chuckled, and wings flapped in the shadows.
The room was fully lit now, with one bedside lamp on as well as the overhead fixture. There wasn’t a corner to hide in. But Az was here. I could feel him in the chill that raised the hair on my arms.
The trail of tears on my face suddenly felt like ice. Fury cut the fear in my gut with a hot knife.
“You snake,” I said before thinking to whisper so Lee and his mom wouldn’t hear me. “You stay away from him.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Mrs. Kyon wasn’t watching me, too busy comforting Lee to worry about me. I moved deeper into Lee’s bedroom and farther from her panicked stare.
That menacing laughter swept across me again. His shadow draped the wall beside the window, narrowing for a split moment. It took me a moment to realize it was glancing outside.
“I have a different game in mind, seer.” A short movie clip of Luke dancing among other students flickered on the walls of Lee’s bedroom, as if played by an old movie projector.
“Why Luke? Why now?”
“He’s in the right place for our conversation. Why not come along? There could be more surprises.” I had no idea what he was talking about. Come along to where? Az’s shadow landed in the bedroom, his larg
er-than-life wings projected on the gray walls. His mouth and eyes were hollow, the gray paint shining right through them, moving when he spoke.
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll take his soul and never stop coming for the ones you love most.” The shadow grew, stretching across the length of the room before it disappeared.
My shoulders touched the wall, and I slid to the floor. A wild wanting split through me, one that sought to end all of this, to ignore the way Azriel used Luke as bait and stay with Lee instead, to pretend none of this was happening and angels didn’t exist.
I paced the room to ward off my bone-chattering fear. My stilettos sank into the plush carpet. I concentrated on it, relishing the feel of soft fibers bowing beneath my shoes, and watched Lee and his mom huddle together on the bathroom floor. Voices sounded from downstairs. Authoritative voices.
“We’re up here!” Mrs. Kyon shouted, rocking Lee in her lap. He was clinging to her, watching me pace.
Two uniformed EMTs pounded up the stairs and stormed through the room, medical supplies in hand. I waited until they announced they’d be taking Lee to the nearest hospital before I left.
Deserting Lee was the last thing I wanted to do. I would’ve loved nothing more than to ride in the ambulance and sit by his side at the hospital, but I couldn’t, not with Azriel’s sights set on Luke and him threatening my family.
Kade leaned against the purple car, still double-parked in front of Lee’s house. “Your friend?”
I motioned to the ambulance. “Hospital.” I nudged him aside to open the door, and slid into the back seat.
He followed my lead by getting in and starting the car. “Is he gonna be okay?”
As we pulled away, I turned to watch the EMTs remove a gurney from the back of the ambulance. “I hope so.”
“Where to?”
I thought back to the picture Az had shown me. It was dark, but lights swirled all around. The way the bodies in the background swayed, it could only have meant one of two things: a party or a dance. “My school. There’s a dance tonight.”
