But something’swrong. Did I bash my head? Break my fucking neck somehow?
I have no clue and it scares me more than the prospect of dying.
My gloved hand finds Vinnie’s arm. Myshakingfucking hand. “I?—”
But a roar from Moth drowns me out, a warning shout that reaches Vinnie too late.
He wrenches his gaze from mine in the same moment a single shot blasts from a hidden hatch in the floor behind him. Claret blooms across his chest and he lurches forward, toppling us both to the floor.
I scramble to escape his weight, panic obliterating whatever fuckery sent me to my knees.
No.
No.
This can’t be happening. More fire explodes around us, more bodies fall, too rapid and violent for me to keep track of as I find the space to grip Vinnie’s shoulders and shove his weight hard enough to put some space between us.
His vest is obliterated, blood pouring from a gnarly wound too close to his heart for me to contemplate. I rip off my gloves and press a hand to it, fumbling for the medi-kit in my belt.
Morphine.
Bandages.
It’s not enough.
Blood saturates my fingers and Vinnie coughs, life draining from his face, his eyes absent and staring. Vacant, like he’s already gone.
I grip his vest and shake him. “Stay with me.”
Vinnie blinks.
And then he’s gone and the burn in my chest has nothing to do with the fucked-up beat still lashing my heart. The fight’s still raging, but all I hear is silence—a yawning, endless cavern of it where Vinnie once stood.
He’s dead.
I press my forehead to his, consciousness fading fast enough that I hope I’m dying too, but the universe has other plans.
The ground beneath me trembles. Dead air punches a hole in my brain with a muffled roar and the shockwave of a vicious explosion tears through the building. The walls groan, or maybe it’s me. Or Vinnie and he’s not really gone.
None of it matters as sudden, blistering heat blasts our tiny fragment of space in the world, lifting me—liftingus—and hurling us farther into hell.
Fire blooms.
I think.
But it’s brief, before darkness rallies to meet it and takes me down whole.
2SKYLAR
Cornwall - England
One. Two. Three. Four. I count the seconds between each breath for something to do. Something to focus on that isn’t the chair at my back and the table in front of me. The too-bright florescent lights, the sharp voices, and the curdling stench of stale coffee. None of it usually bothers me. Not when I’m working, when I’mbusy. But meetings like this do my head in. It’s hard to remember that sitting around a table and talking aboutimportant shitwas once my greatest ambition.
When you were twelve. When you didn’t know better.
My fingers twitch. I fight the urge to curl them into a fist and zero in on who’s talking right now.
Dr. Ramsey.