Ruby bent to kiss her daughter’s forehead, then her nose. As her lips settled against her daughter’s, Scarlet’s hand twitched. Tucker’s grip tightened on my shoulder.
“Did you see that?” I cried.
I restrained myself from grasping Ruby’s shoulders and shoving her back, but I had to get her out of the way. Had I imagined that? Was I just hoping for a miracle, or had her fingers really moved?
“I saw it,” Tucker said as he released my shoulder and knelt beside me.
Ianto grasped Ruby’s shoulder to pull her away, but her grief was so intense that she didn’t hear our words. When she tried to fight him, the giant knelt beside her.
“She moved,” he whispered. “Ruby, she moved.”
“Let her go, Mother. Let her go,” Billy encouraged.
It took a few seconds for Ruby to release her death grip on her daughter. Unwilling to trust my ability to find a pulse, I bent forward and rested my hands over Scarlet’s heart. There, deep in her chest cavity, I detected the faintest beat.
My gaze flew up to Ruby’s. “She’s alive. She has a heartbeat, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”
The sound Ruby made next was so joyful that it brought fresh tears to my eyes, but it would never erase my memory of the other one. Still, I was exuberant as Ianto yelled for a stretcher. Ruby and Billy went with Scarlet as the amsirah carried her away.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Ellery
I’d hoped to find Ryker next, but instead I found more soldiers. Many of them were nothing but body parts torn apart by my blast, but two still lived.
Then I found Samael. He was conscious and in pretty good shape when we pulled him from the hole.
“Ryker’s nearby,” he said as he wiped away the debris clinging to his mouth. “I was talking to him, but then he stopped speaking, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
His words lurched my heart into my throat.
“What do we do with him?” one of the amsirah asked. “Forest or jail?”
I knew what they wanted to do with him, but I looked at Tucker, who stared back at me with the same uncertainty I felt. Samael had helped us; without him, all of this might not have happened, but we didn’t trust him.
When I shifted my attention back to the sheriff, his eyes burned into mine as he awaited his fate. Indon tilted his head as he looked on in curiosity. I explained to him who Samael was, what he’d done before Ryker’s imprisonment, and what he did to free Ryker and Tucker from the dungeon.
The gargoyle studied me for a minute before shifting his attention back to Samael. “It is an interesting conundrum.”
I was glad he thought so, because I certainly didn’t. I wanted Samael imprisoned for all he’d done, but he’d proven to be an ally in the end. However, there were many in Tempest whom he’d hurt.
“For now, he stays here,” I said. “He can’t escape Tempest, and he did help us. The amsirah will decide his fate.”
Samael studied me before bowing his head; I had no idea what he’d expected me to say or do, and I didn’t care. “Keep him nearby,” I instructed before turning away.
I didn’t have time for the sheriff right now. I had to find Ryker. Samael had been speaking to him, which meant he was close by, but then he’d gone silent.
He went silent. Those words kept running on a panic-inducing loop through my head. He went silent.
My hands shook as I worked to pull more of the wreckage out of the pit. He went silent.
When I lifted a large stone from the pile, I discovered the dark brown hair covering the back of a dented head. Falling to my knees, I pulled the rubble away from him as Tucker and Ianto rushed to help, along with some of the other amsirah.
Ryker had fallen face down, and his back was bent at an unnatural angle. A strangled cry escaped me as Tucker removed a broken piece of a bed from his legs, uncovering Ryker completely.
“We have to turn him over,” Tucker said.
I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t get my trembling hands under Ryker. A hand on my shoulder gently pulled me back a little before Ianto bent to help Tucker.
