He crosses his arms over his chest. “I won’t let you come to harm. Ican’t. I failed you once. I failed you so utterly that you still bear the scars of it.” He glances at my wrists. “I won’t do it again.”
“I’m not a puppet you can control. Not anymore. I say where I go and when.”
He presses his lips into a line; a multitude of words locked behind his teeth. There’s so much between us that needs to be said. Like an ocean separating us, and I wonder if we can ever cross it. Have we floated too far away from each other?
My thoughts, my emotions—it’s all disjointed, like I’ve been plucked from the flow of time, then unceremoniously dropped back into it. But David was right. I can see that even through thefog. I have to do something. To fight back. The ghost of an idea forms, a shadowy outline. “The lab in DC, what’s left of it?”
“It’s gone.”
“I need specifics. Is there still power at all? If there are still?—”
“Leveled, Georgia. The White House, the Capitol, everything there is destroyed. Smoking craters and crumbled buildings. Death. That’s all.”
I swallow hard. “What about the scientists I was working with? Gretchen, Evie, Wyatt? You said their convoy was hit, but are you certain?”
He shakes his head slightly. “Their convoy made it until night fell. After that …”
“After that you killed them all?” My chest aches, memories clogging my throat. The faces I couldn’t name, each one an icy thorn in my heart. “Did you?” I ask sharply, meeting his eyes.
“Tantun soldiers attacked them.” He says it so simply. Like a weather report. “Your friends were massacred. High of seventy, light wind from the south.”
The cure died with them. The formula for the vampire poison, too. Those three were the future of humanity. Slaughtered. It happened months ago, but the wound is fresh for me. The grief almost overwhelming. I clutch my legs tighter and clench my eyes shut, as if I could somehow ward off the pain. I can’t.
“Georgia.” His voice is softer now.
My gorge rises at the thought of them being killed, at the realization that the only reason they were in danger was because of me, because of what I did. I killed Theo, and now all of humanity will suffer for it. I can see him turning to ash, his eyes going from outraged to terrified in the space of a moment. His death at my hands. And then my friends, their bodies being ripped apart by Tantuns, poison oozing through their veins. Dead. All dead. All my fault.
In through my nose, out through my mouth. I focus on my breathing, on something that Icancontrol. But I fail. Tears run and I can’t seem to tame my breath, to hold it. I gasp in air with panicked inhales.
“Georgia.” Valen is beside me.
I look at him through watery eyes.
“Breathe.” He reaches for me.
I flinch.
He pauses, then presses his palm to my cheek. “Please,kedves verem. Breathe.”
His voice is so gentle, his touch warm. “Deeper breath.” He presses his other palm to my chest, his fingers splayed over my sternum. “In.” He slowly inhales.
I try to match him, but I can’t. Then he does it again. Again. More and more until Idomatch him, the whistling terror in my mind slowing, fading, then falling to a low background whine.
He brings his other palm to my cheek and thumbs away my tears.
“His touch is comfort. Safety.” My mind whispers lies. Even so, the tightness in my chest is gone, my heart no longer pounding.
One more easy breath in, and Valen’s touch disappears.
He’s standing in the doorway again, hands at his sides. “I have to go. While I?—”
“Where?”
“Back to Gregor. Word will spread soon enough that several high-ranking Tantuns are missing. I need to get to Gregor before the rumors.”
My skin goes cold. “What will you tell him?”
“That Carlotta and her minions were plotting against him and tried to assassinate me before going for his throat. Their attempt failed, but there was a casualty in the fight.” He gives me a pointed look.
