Ronan met his eyes, nodding once.
I pulled him in for one last hug, then left them alone, heading into my bedroom to gather up a few things.
When I returned, Darius was sweeping up the broken glass while Ronan taped cardboard over the windowpanes.
“Pack your shit, boys,” I said, dropping an empty duffel bag on the kitchen counter. “We’re going to Raven’s Cape.”
“You think he’s still there?” Ronan asked.
“Absolutely. He could’ve killed us last night, but he didn’t. He left us alive for a reason.” I grabbed a bunch of waters and some fruit from the fridge, shoving it all into the bag. “It’s a game to him, remember? Killing us would’ve end it. Hewantsus to go after him. He left the amulet on William Landes so when the time came, we’d know right where to look.”
“I suppose the time has come,” Darius said. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes.
“You’re saying he wants a face-to-face?” Ronan said.
Another cough roared its way out of my chest. When I caught my breath again, I said, “No two ways about it.”
He scratched his thin beard, his eyes lost in thought.
When he looked up at me again, they were black as night.
“Then I say we give this motherfuckerexactlywhat he wants.” Ronan’s wave of sadness and unchecked rage had receded, replaced now by an unwavering determination. The malevolent glint in those demon-black eyes set my teeth on edge, making me grateful we were on the same side. “Andexactlywhat he deserves.”
Thirty
GRAY
“She’s probably dead,” a woman’s voice said, flat and defeated.
Panic shot through my limbs, making my hands and feet tingle.Dead?Was she talking aboutme?
I tried to open my eyes, to open my mouth to talk, to flex my fingers and toes, but I was completely paralyzed. The only thing I could feel other than the tingling in my limbs was the raw burn in my chest.
I wanted to cough, but I couldn’t get my lungs to work.
“You probably killed her,” she went on. “Just like you killed the other ones.”
Her voice seemed vaguely familiar. Where the hellwasI?
“No.”
Rough hands gripped my shoulders, hauling me into a sitting position and shaking me hard.
Pain rushed at me all at once, forcing my eyelids open. I had just enough time to suck in a gasp of air before the grip released, dropping me on my back. I was lying on some kind of table, but everything was still blurry, the two figures before me no more than smudges.
Am I in a hospital? How long have I been unconscious?
“See?” the man said. “Not dead.”
He leaned down close, his head hovering over my face like a balloon as I tried to blink him into focus.
“Ronan?” I mumbled, though I already knew it couldn’t have been him. Ronan never would’ve touched me that way.
The cough finally worked its way out of my chest, leaving me breathless and sore.
When I finally stopped hacking, I looked at the man again, slowly bringing him into focus.
Dark red hair. Eyes the color of new spring grass.
