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Her skin was so cold. So pale. The sight of her made Darien sick to his stomach. He missed his lively girl. The one who always blushed when she was around him, whose smile could light up a room. The girl with the ocean eyes and the heart of gold. The one who’d taken his hand and led him to the path of light, after he’d drifted for so many years on dark side streets with no purpose or direction.
Darien turned and walked out of the room.
As he passed Doctor Atlas, who stepped aside to let him through, he slowed. He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “I’ll be back later.”
He knew that Jack and Travis were out in the parking lot; they’d called him to let him know they were here to watch Loren for him for several hours. But they were waiting for him to walk out the front doors, giving him the space they knew he needed.
Darien would be back. He would be back before nightfall. Loren wouldn’t spend a single night in this hospital without him.
He was halfway down the hallway when his phone started buzzing in the pocket of his jacket. The last thing he wanted right now was to talk to anyone, but he took it out as he neared the elevator, not bothering to check the screen as he answered. “Yeah?”
“Roman called.” It was Max.
Darien stopped walking. He hadn’t heard from his cousin in…shit, nearly a year. “What did he say?”
—
Where he stood in the wreckage of Blackbird 88 Above, Darien forced himself to breathe, the smell of smoke and magic singing his nose and throat. A warm wind was tearing through the jagged and empty window frames, stirring up the debris that crunched beneath his boots with the slightest shift of his weight.
There was hardly anything left of the restaurant his mother had loved. It had been so thoroughly destroyed by the hands of magic that what little remained was nothing but rubble. Hunks of stone and charred wood. Shattered wine bottles and champagne flutes. Chewed bits of piping and warped metal. Melted silverware and bits of burnt tablecloths, once white and pristine.
Such a beautiful thing—gone. And for what? A game of hatred and revenge that had nothing to do with the woman who’d loved this place, who used to dine here and get drunk off the sight of all the stars out the wall of windows. A woman who’d died long before this game had begun.
Darien walked across the long room, toward where the bar had once stood, past the area where he and Loren had sat together for dinner, when he’d learned a million things about her and still hadn’t felt like he’d learned enough. The floor was covered with so much debris, it made walking nearly impossible. Or maybe it was the emotion squeezing his lungs in a fist that made staying on his feet difficult.
He paused by the bar, a mess of shattered reflective glass catching his attention. Among the glass was a ring.
Darien stooped and picked it out of the rubble, rolling it around in his palm. With his thumb, he rubbed the black ash off the surface of the stone, revealing the color underneath.
Green. An emerald.
He stared at it for a long time, wind howling through the building.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He retrieved it without taking his eyes off the emerald, rolling it around in his other hand.
Darien swiped his thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear. “Yeah.”
“Darien, it’s me,” Ivy replied. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” He studied the emerald. Thinking. Always thinking. “Why?”
“I saw your car at Blackbird. If you need me, Darien—”
“I’m fine, Ivy. Besides, I have somewhere I need to be.” Someone he needed to visit. Something he needed to try.
“As long as you’re sure,” she pressed.
“I’m positive.”
Yeah, he was positive. Positive he knew exactly who this belonged to, and what he needed to do to settle the score. The game of hatred and revenge would continue for a little while longer. He wasn’t a quitter, nor was he a loser. And when someone fucked with something he cared about, they paid the price.
He ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket, along with the ring.
And then he stood, taking one last look at his mother’s restaurant.
Seeing the debris spread around him, the ruins of a once beautiful place, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of loss. He worried he’d already forgotten all the important details that had made this place unique, and he feared he might never remember them properly again.
This restaurant was now nothing but a memory, and he hadn’t had the time to prepare for it. Like most things in life, he’d taken it for granted, believing it would always be there.
