My fucking heart hurt for him. For both of them. Hell, for all of us.
“How did you finally manage to escape?” Darius asked.
“I waited,” she said. “Days, maybe? My body went into survival mode. I rationed out the water and food, not sure how long I’d be down there. It was Thanksgiving break—no one would even miss me until school started again on Monday. I had no idea if anyone had seen the smoke—we lived out in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know if the man who’d knocked on the door to warn us would come back.”
Emilio shook his head, shock and disbelief written all over his face. “You must have been terrified.”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “I think I was more numb than anything else. I just knew that she’d ordered me to survive, so that’s what was in my head. Survive. I kept repeating it, over and over, even though my voice was shot and my throat burned.”
Ronan disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a bottled water for her. She twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.
“Eventually,” she continued, “the fire died. The cellar door had finally collapsed, but when I got out of there, I realized most of the stairs were gone, too. I found some metal shelving in the basement and used it climb up to the first floor. When I got outside, it was night time, and so, so quiet. Everything was blanketed with snow, and the moon made it sparkle like diamonds. I remember being angry—like, how could anything have the nerve to be so beautiful just then? It was, though. I stood there for a moment, and I felt Calla’s presence move through me.”
Gray wiped away a tear, then leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. Emilio sat down next to her, taking her hand in his.
“After that, I just… I ran,” she said. “I made it into town, got on a bus to New York City with the cash I’d taken from Calla’s room—less than two hundred bucks, but I stretched it as far as I could, taking on odd jobs until I could afford to hop on another bus, then another, never staying in one place more than a month or two. I stopped using my magic. I learned how to make myself look younger or older, to become whatever I needed to become in order to get fed at night, or find a warm place to crash. For two years, I just kept running.”
“And you keptsurviving,” Darius said. “Through all of it, love. Do you know how amazing that is? How amazingyouare?”
Gray lifted her head off the couch, those crazy blond curls brushing her shoulders. I fought not to reach for her, to wrap my hands in her hair and pull her to my mouth again.
“I keptrunning,” she said. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Running,” Darius said, “was the means to averyimportant end. Your mother told you to survive, love. She didn’t tell you how. You figured that part out on your own.”
“And now you're here,” I blurted out. I hadn’t meant to, and the words came out brash and clipped. Ronan glared at me, and Gray…
Damn. Her eyes flashed with anger, even as her face crumpled in pain.
“Sorry to inconvenience you,demon,” she snapped. “Sometimes life doesn’t go according to plan.”
Fuck.
I opened my mouth to explain, to apologize, to promise her that I’d spend the rest of my damn existence tracking down the monsters who’d done this. But unlike the vampire, I’d never had a way with words.
“So are we getting out of here,” I said, “or what?”
Forty-Nine
Gray
You’d think ignoring Asher would’ve been second nature by now, but he had an uncanny ability to push every one of my buttons, including some I didn’t even know I had.
I just saved his life. Just shared an explosive kiss. Just…
It didn’t matter.
Shoving aside that memory for now, I finished my water and thought again about the amulet. About what it meant. About the past.
There were things about that night I’d never forget—the fierce protectiveness in Calla’s eyes. The Hunter’s cruel words. But there were other details, long since lost in the recesses of time, sharpening as I told the story as an adult, out loud for the first time, start to finish.
I knew now that my magic hadn’t failed me. Calla had temporarily bound my powers to keep me safe. She must’ve known I would’ve tried to save her magically, and I probably would’ve died in the process.
She’d also cast a very potent protective spell over me.
And someone had warned her that the Hunters were coming. Calla seemed to be expecting it.
At the end, the final piece clicked into place, and I snapped my gaze to Ronan, my eyes wide with sudden shock. “It was you.”
