I shake my head violently from side to side. “No. No! Absolutely not. I won’t let you.”
As if it takes too much effort to argue with me, Nolan sighs and slides to the floor, his bound hands braced against the wall.
Good. Then maybe he’ll listen.
“Donovan, will you please take him home?” I ask, tears burning my eyes. “Connor, can you make sure he gets out without knocking anyone over?”
“You sure?” Connor asks, carefully touching my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I answer as my heart cracks in two from a sorrow I didn’t know I could possess. Before he argues, I add, “I’m fine to do the rest of the plan.”
“Thank you for doing this,” Donovan says while hauling Nolan to his feet.
I shrug, now blessed with a numbing emptiness from despair so deep that I have to shut myself off from it or be swallowed into oblivion.
With a morbid smile, I respond, “What’s a little felony accessory after the fact between friends?”
Donovan gives me an equally grim smile in return and begins following Connor toward the front door. Nolan doesn’t meet my eyes as he’s dragged along with them.
Now essentially alone, I tie my soiled sweater around my waist—grateful that I decided to layer today and am still semi-decent in my thin camisole—and take three careful breaths through my mouth.
“I can do this,” I say while trying to chafe some heat back into my fingers by rubbing my hands together. “It’s just a little blood. Okay, a lot of blood. But none of it is mine, so it’s all cool. Yup. So cool.”
Better prepared for what I’m going to see, I peer into the room and again have to fight against vomiting. It looks as bad as it smells, like Freddy Krueger decided he wanted to make his own Jackson Pollock using people as paint. No matter how shallow I breathe, I can still taste the carnage in the air.
“Donovan certainly didn’t lie,” I observe, reluctant to leave the safety of the hallway. “I wonder if anyone would notice if I just pitched this whole room into a pocket dimension.”
The idea is extremely appealing, considering I’d be able to chuck Gina in there too, but I have no idea of the ramifications of doing such a thing. Some poor nephilim might summon their wings and find a dead body dropping on top of them. I was lucky enough to find my and Nolan’s clothes. Best not to test fate.
I sigh. “I guess I have to clean it up.”
Groaning, I carefully step inside, look around, and cringe when my boots sink into the carpet. I immediately notice Anastasia standing in the corner and Gina frozen on the bed, barely breathing and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. This part of my brilliant plan was under the bullet point “clean up mess,” figuring I’d know what to do once I got here. Turns out, I don’t.
“Where do I even start?” I ponder out loud, my arms crossed over my chest.
“The wounded,” Connor supplies, shocking the crap out of me.
“You seriously need a bell or something,” I grumble and then sigh. “Also, I was afraid you’d say that.”
“What do you need?” he asks, his voice low and calm while his eyes seem to be hunting for any sign that I’m ready to fall apart again.
Tiptoeing to the side of the bed, I examine Gina more closely, and all I see are bite marks and blood. So much blood. “Hold me steady. I’m going in, and I really don’t want to kneel in all this blood.”
Connor’s nose twitches as he enters the room, his increased sense of smell probably doing him no favors. Once he has me wrapped in his arms, I delicately reach for Gina’s well-manicured hand—a stark contrast to the chipped, highlighter blue polish on my nails that Mei talked me into.
“Okay.” I sigh, closing my eyes and leaning into Connor’s safe warmth. “Let’s save her stupid, bitchy life.”
Using the piece of Connor’s spirit that lives inside me as an anchor, I let go of my earthly form and slip into Gina’s. At first all I can sense is the rot of her own creation that consumes her soul. There is no light. No joy. Just a seething mass of jealousy and narcissism. If I didn’t hate her so much, I would almost pity her. This is a soul that will never find contentment or peace, and it will be her damnation.
Wanting to leave this place as soon as possible, I focus on the flesh, taking her pain as my own so that I can heal it. It’s pure agony, and every nerve ending burns in a way that I’ve never experienced before. It’s as if I’m simultaneously in a blazing fire and submerged in the icy blackness of the Arctic Ocean. Trapped under a tidal wave of pain, I’m lost within Gina’s body. There is no sense of the outside world, no sense of self. I want to scream, but I have no voice. I want to rip the flesh from my bones, but I can’t move. The very air burns as it’s forced to enter my lungs.
Make it stop. Make it stop. Please, make it stop!my mind shrieks, and I’d gladly welcome death if only to escape this torment.
Like a mother saving her drowning child, my magic floods Gina’s body to save me. It coats my skin like a soothing balm, numbing the pain as it knits the flesh back together. It fills my veins, acting like the blood that’s needed until the body can replenish its own. An exhale of relief passes through Gina’s lips.
We can’t create something from nothing, so this will have to do. All physical wounds are healed, and my magic will keep the body alive and functioning. As new blood is produced, the vampire venom will work its way out of her system.
It’s time to get back to my body.
