“He hasn’t though—not really. The dreamers he drank from…” I closed my eyes, swallowing back the bile in my throat as the smell of all those fresh corpses rose anew, mingling with the sickly-sweet smell of the drugs. “Their blood is full of Dream. It’s not enough to nourish him, Jax. It’s only going to keep amplifying the effect of the pills. We need to flush it out of his system with fresh blood. It’s the only way I can think of to reset him.”
“I can get him another donor,” Gem said, chewing her thumbnail in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. She was still pacing, but when Elian had lunged for me, she hadn’t moved to stop him.
Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly team Gem at the moment.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“There’s a place a few blocks over where humans like to hang out, and—”
“No.” I glared at her, barely keeping my simmering rage in check. “Why are you even still here, Gem? Waiting for another chance to betray your so-called friends? Or are you just following orders like a good little soldier, keeping watch over the lowly prisoners?”
Her eyes hardened. She spat out a jagged bit of thumbnail and gritted her teeth. “Better a soldier than a prisoner, witch.”
“In Midnight?” I laughed. “It’s cute that you believe there’s a difference.” I took a step toward her, refusing to fall victim to her latest little power trip. If she’d wanted to shoot me full of magic or steel bolts from her damn crossbow, she would’ve done it by now.
“Back off, Barnes.” She lifted a hand, as if that would stop me, but I ignored the gesture and took a step closer, getting so far up in her business I could count her fucking eyelashes.
“You know, Gem,” I said, my voice low and menacing. She tried to take a step back, but I followed her, backing her up to the wall where moments earlier, Hudson had throttled Elian. “Where I come from, friendship is something to be cherished. Honored. Whatever fucked-up shit you went through in this realm? Elian—Saint—he was your friend. And he believed you were his—enough to trust you with our lives.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, witch.”
“The fact that you so carelessly pitched that friendship into the trash for a shot at your own glory tells meeverythingI need to know.”
“Haley,” Jax warned from behind me, his hand curling over my shoulder.
But I wasn’t done yet. Not even close.
“You take a good look at him, Gem. A good look at the man who trusted you, becausethat’swhat your so-called friendship got him. And if you think we need your help saving him now, then you must be hopped up on the Black too, because bitch? You are fuckinghallucinating. So do us all a favor and stop pretending like you give a shit whether he lives or dies, because whatever happens to him tonight?That’son you. All of it.”
Gem lifted her crossbow. Shoved it right into my sternum. “Keep pushing me, witch.”
Tough talk, but she wasn’t going to shoot me. Not tonight, anyway. The thing wasn’t even loaded.
“Leave,” I demanded. “Run back to your master and give him the full report. Unlessyou’revolunteering to donate blood tonight, in which case…” I thumbed over my shoulder toward Elian, still lying limp in Hudson’s arms. “By all means, Gem. Offer up the vein. Prove my ass wrong. Show us what a good friend you really are.”
Something dark and broken flashed behind her eyes, but before I could even guess at her thoughts, she lowered the crossbow, turned, and stalked right out of the warehouse.
She hadn’t even looked at Elian once.
Fucking coward.
“Angel,” Jax said softly, and I turned to face him, blowing out a pent-up breath as he tucked a lock of blood-matted hair behind my ears. “I understand why you don’t want Gem to drag in some poor human to feed him. But why does it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you?”
I glanced back at Elian. He was still breathing—barely—but his eyes had fallen closed, his mouth hanging slack. He was trembling again, his body twitching even as Hudson tried to hold him steady.
I had no idea whether he was reacting to the drugs in his system, the tainted blood, the trauma of what he’d done, or something else entirely. I just knew that we were his only chance right now.
ThatIwas his chance.
“Because he’s drowning, Jax. He’s fucking drowning. And no matter what he’s done, no matter what he deserves, no matter what it might cost me in the end, I can’t just stand by and watch him suffer. Not when I’m holding a possible lifeline.” Cupping his face, I said softly, “You wouldn’t have called me here if you wanted me to sit on the sidelines.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have.” Jax touched his forehead to mine and gripped my arms. “But now that you’re actually standing here covered in all this blood, I just…” His warm sigh ghosted across my mouth, fingers tightening possessively. “If he hurts you, Haley, I’ll—”
“He won’t.” I pulled back so I could look into his face again. He wasn’t wearing the eye patch—I hadn’t seen it since that night in the bathtub—and looking at him now, I finally felt like I was seeing the real Jax. The man behind the demon, the person he was at his very core.
And that person wanted to end Elian’s suffering as much as I did.
“You and Hudson will make sure I’m safe,” I continued. “We just… we have to try, Jax. I don’t care how badly he’s fucked up or how many second chances he’s already burned through. It’s like you said the other night—when you call someone your family, when youchoosethem? It’s not just for the easy stuff. So yeah, this is me, choosing to stay. Choosing Elian even when he’s at his absolute rock-bottom worst.”
