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Drake was back to barking out orders.
“Wait, where are you going?” I demanded as I turned to face him. “You can’t go out there.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said without looking back, walking out of the room. My heart stopped as the door shut behind him.
“He will be, he’s the only one of us who can still make it around the halls. We need supplies and he’s not the type to back down from a challenge.” Roman’s reassurance was nice, but it did little to help calm my nerves.
“We need wea—” I started to say but my words were cut off as the library faded around me. A throne room was now in its place and the woman I recognized as Hel sitting on the throne. Her human face was tipped up in a smile, the skeletal side indifferent. “Well, this is certainly a way to say hello.”
She chuckled. “I was strong enough to manipulate your world this time, so I didn’t have to appear to you, instead I brought you to me.” She paused, her face hardening. “Something’s wrong with the gargoyles. You need to wake them. They’re the ones who can stop this madness.”
My eyebrows rose at her insane expectations of me. Not only did I know nothing about her gargoyles, other than the strange vision of one coming to life on the roof, but I also didn’t know how to wake them.
“You didn’t know they were trying to open the portal?” I asked. She glared at my suspicion, but I had more than a little right to be.
“Of course not,” she dismissed. “Just do as you’re told.”
I couldn’t tell the goddess of Helheim to fuck off, but in that moment, I sure as fuck wanted to. Instead, I stuck with facts. Like how I was not fit for this role.
“I don’t know how to wake a gargoyle, I don’t even know how to save my friends from your demons,” I countered.
“With this. For both counts,” she said as she snapped her fingers.
A dagger appeared in front of me. It looked as if it was carved from stone and Helheim’s embers, a soft blue glow sparkling on the surface. It was carved to a thin point and the base was polished to a shine.
“Thank you?” I said. “What does this have to do with the gar—” my words cut out as the throne room faded back to the library “—goyles. Dammit. She has to stop doing that.”
“What happened?” Crew asked, all three of them in front of me. Layne looked ready to cry or yell at me, and Roman’s panic hadn’t faded yet.
“Hel gave me this.” They all jumped back and gasped at the dagger. “She said this is the answer to the demons and supposedly it will allow me to wake the gargoyles. No big deal, right?” I laughed humorlessly.
“You were just standing there, not saying a word, it was weird,” Crew explained as he stepped back and shook his head. “This is all too much.”
“We also found something,” Layne said as she turned and ran off, coming back with files, handing one to each of us. “Found our files.”
“Did you look?” I asked as I stared down at the thick file now in my hands.
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “I’m shameless but even I have standards. It’s all for you to browse. They never tell us what’s in these. I’m going to find out the mysteries of Layne.”
“Be careful,” Roman warned her. “It’s not always good news. Don’t let it make you vulnerable.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
Layne and Crew took a couch near the records, and I noticed Roman sat his file down next to mine before dropping onto the couch nearby.
“I’m not sure I want to look,” I admitted as I put my dagger by our folders and sat down with him. “None of the things said in there are likely true.”
“I’m more interested to read about our other alters,” Roman said. His nerves were clear in the way he was clenching and unclenching his fists over and over. “But it feels wrong without Hiro. Sometimes I wish we could communicate in our head like others can.”
“It’s got to be disorienting,” I said. “Switching and losing time.”
“It is, it’s been easier lately,” he said with a small smile. “We’ve been more thorough in our journal. We have had a lot more interesting things to write about.” The teasing in his tone had a smile breaking out.
“I’m glad I came here,” I offered. “I might not have thought so that first night. But meeting you, Hiro, and Drake. It’s changed me. And Layne and Crew... I’ve never had real friends.”
“Same for us. After Hiro’s brother died protecting him, I was created. We spent years bouncing around foster homes, then facilities, and none of them are like Dark Haven. This place is awful in some areas and amazing in others.”
“Yet all the patients paid the price for Vane,” I said with a sigh. “I can’t stop imagining the demons feeding on you all. It’s an awful feeling awake, I can’t imagine the nightmares.”
