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Darien’s hands curled into fists again. “Atlas—”
“Don’t tell me to go away,” Tanner said, though he stopped several feet from him. “You want us to keep our distance, I’m fine with that. I’ll stand right here and we’ll talk.”
“I got nothing to say.”
“I know this is hard—”
“I finally get her back and she can’t even remember me.” Alright, so maybe he did have things he wanted to say. “I finally get her back and I can’t even kiss her. I finally get her back and I can’t even touch her because she doesn’t know who I am and would probably push me the fuck away if I tried.”
He started pacing again. Bandit sat down, head hanging low. Silver crept toward him and sat down too, the wolf leaning his head against the dog’s shoulder.
Tanner gave Darien a couple minutes before speaking. “You know this is normal, right?”
“What’s normal?”
“Not being able to remember anything after being in a coma.”
Darien stopped pacing. “What’s the…the likelihood that her memories will come back?”
Tanner hummed. “Depends on the person. But usually memories return slowly over the course of a couple, few weeks. You need to give her time. And support. Patience—all things you’re good at.”
Darien took out a smoke and lit it. “Did she say anything else? After I left?” He took a drag.
“She asked what she did wrong.” Darien was pretty sure she’d said that while he was still in the room, but he wasn’t sure.
“She never does anything wrong. She does everything right, and life just hands it to her all the damn time.” He’d always believed he had some of the worst luck in the world, but Loren? Loren had been through it these past six months—more shit than most people saw in a lifetime. And it killed him that he’d been unable to stop so much of it.
“Look,” Tanner began. “I know you prefer to barricade yourself in a corner and fight your way out without accepting anyone’s help, but we came to Yveswich to help you, Darien. And we’re going to help you with Loren. Her memories are going to come back—you just gotta trust it.”
Darien walked up to the ledge, stopping when the toe of his boots just about went over. He’d stood on buildings like this one countless times—mostly in the months after Elsie Cassel had passed away. After she’d fallen to her death from the roof of the apartment building where the broken Slade family had once lived. In the months afterward, he’d stood on ledges high up and tried to imagine how she had felt in her final moments. The moments before she’d supposedly jumped.
Maybe she had jumped. Maybe she’d been pushed. Either way, she’d died by falling from a great height. No matter how it’d happened, she’d died a brutal death.
There weren’t many buildings tall enough to kill a hellseher, but there were plenty tall enough to take the life of a mortal.
This one, though… This was tall enough for anyone.
“Dare?” Tanner called. Boots scuffed as he approached.
Darien took one last drag on the cigarette, and then he held it out before him and dropped it. Down it fell, to the road below. He watched as the glowing red end faded with distance. Heard the sickening sound of his mother’s body smacking against cement. Felt his lungs ache as his teenaged self screamed his bloody heart out. Saw the oscillating red and blue lights of the cop cars when they’d finally pulled up, too late to do anything.
Darien blinked. He turned, every trace of the Surge and the many emotions that were ripping him apart now gone, and made for the elevator. Tanner, Bandit, and Silver were all watching him with emotions that ranged from fear to alarm.
“Are you…” Tanner cleared his throat. “…okay?”
“I’m fine.” For many years, Darien had said those two words, but seldom had they ever been true. “Let’s go. It’s fucking cold out here.”
45
Caliginous On Silverway
YVESWICH, STATE OF KER
Loren Elizabeth Calla—that was her name.
Loren Elizabeth Calla.
Bits and pieces of her life had returned to her in the time since the dark-haired male Devil had left, but everything that’d happened since last Septem was still…gone. As if she had dropped off the planet for the past six months. It both infuriated and scared her.
