“Why?” I push back. “Because you know you’ll lose? You did everything possible to protect us back then. Why won’t you let yourself move past this?”
“Because." He turns on me, fast. He’s in my face, so close the minty, pine scent of him fills my nostrils, and it’s all I can do to not lean in and kiss him. There’s a fire in his eyes I haven’t seen in ages, and as much as it pains me to not touch him, I know he needs this. “You were too strung out to remember any of it clearly. You don’t have to live with those memories.Ido. So you don’t get to stand here and tell me whose fault it was. You don’t get to stand there and tell me to get over it or to move on, or that it’s time for me to find happiness with whatever fucked up version of family you’ve found here. Not when I’m the one incapable of sleep, plagued with visions of you under their control.”
“Zeke—”
“No." He retreats a step when I move in, shattering my heart. “I fixed the girl. I did my part. Now it’s time for you to do yours.” He turns away from me, looking out the window and raising a hand to point me back towards her bedroom. I want to argue, want to push him to keep talking. But he’s shut down once again, retreated into whatever distant place he locks his true self away.
I sigh, turning to take my leave. I pause at the far end of the common space, looking back at him over my shoulder. “Where did you get it?” I ask. He's still looking out the window, his back to me with arms crossed stiffly over his chest.
“You know where,” he says at last.
I do. Because there’s only one place he could have gotten pure, wild Angel’s Trumpet like that.
The WildLands.
Any within the city’s borders is locked down by Raziel. Our kind isn’t even capable of crossing over to the city center without permission. And after Andras ordered us to take out the ungoverned district’s one connection to such a substance, there would have been no other options.
Afterall, we came across it often enough during our time there.
But the thought of him out there on his own racks me with guilt. A chill slithers up my spine and over my skin, the nausea returning. He was foolish to try and face the WildLands on his own. It could've hurt him—killed him, even. But I can’t even be mad at him, because this may be exactly what ends up saving Evangeline. And it’s more than I was able to do for her.
“Thank you,” I say again. But the words feel hollow this time. I cannot pick one of them over the other. I want Evangeline safe, whole. But I need Zeke to be the same. And for quite possibly the first time ever, I worry for Zeke’swell-being. Truly worry. I’m so used to being the problematic one between the two of us. He’s always been the one to take care of me. The one to make sureI’mokay. And as I make my way back to Evangeline’s room, I can’t help but feel useless.
Because even now, as I’m watching Zeke waver in his strength—as I’m watching Evangeline slip from this world. I’m incapable of controlling the torment of emotion pulling me under.
It’s silent in Evangeline’s room as Laurel sets up whatever machinery she deems necessary to administer the Angel’s trumpet. She hooks an IV up to Evangeline’s arm, hanging a bag of clear liquid on a pole beside the bed, then moves to her chest, cutting away the fabric of her shirt and placing some sort of sticky monitors against her exposed skin. Last, she attaches a complex web of wires, running them over to a machine on the other side of the bed.
It makes me sick to my stomach. It all serves as a very real reminder of how ill she is. “How long will it take?” I ask.
“Could be a few minutes. Could be a few hours.” Laurel flicks a switch on the machine, the screen whirring to life and loading a collection of data I don’t know how to interpret.
I take to pacing, running a hand through my hair, though the strands fall futilely in my face.
“Cut that shit out, you’re making me restless,” Aamon says over his shoulder. He hasn’t taken his eyes off Evangeline since I entered the room. His knuckles are white where they grip the bedpost.
“I could say the same thing to you,” I shoot back. But the jab falls on deaf ears.
“It’s time.” Laurel straightens, turning to the dresser where she’s set out her potions and plucking an amber bottle out of the collection.
Sterling slips into the room, making eye contact with me and nodding before taking his usual seat beside Evangeline, even with the machine now crowding the bedside.
“What should we expect?” Aamon asks.
Laurel gives him an incredulous look. “Have you not been listening? Expect nothing. Or everything. There’s no way to know. This is completely experimental, at this point. Our best educated guess on what may help heal her.”
“Fuck,” Aamon exhales.
I plant my feet beside him, shoulder to shoulder at the foot of Evangeline’s bed. “Whatever is about to happen, we face it together. Okay?” I say it low, for his ears only. A gentle reminder that I’ve got him. He hesitates a moment, peeling his gaze away from Evangeline just long enough to look at me, nod once, and turn right back to her.
“Alright, everybody ready?” Laurel asks, poised on the opposite side of Sterling beside the bed. I nod, along with Sterling and Aamon. Sterling leans in, taking Evangeline’s hand and I reach forward almost absent-mindedly to rest my own hand against her ankle.
Laurel leans in, unscrewing the bottle and letting the dropper hover over Evangeline’s face. One, two, three drops land against the soft, velvet skin of her lips, disappearing behind the pink curve as they seep into her mouth and against her tongue.
We wait, the silence so strong it’s practically a sixth entity in the room with us. For a long time, nothing happens. Evangeline lies there, unchanged. Laurel walks back and forth, checking her monitors and IV, prodding various parts of her body—for what, I’m not sure. Sterling leans against the edge of the bed, Evangeline’s hand pressed tightly against his lips. As if his grip is the only thing keeping her here with us.
Aamon’s face grows tighter and tighter the longer we wait, and I’m about to tell him to relax, to take a walk, to go fuckingeatbecause he looks as pale as death and I can practically smell the bloodlust rolling off of him. But then Laurel’s machine beeps. Then beeps again. And suddenly all of the lines on the screen are going crazy as alarms ring through the room.
“What’s happening?” I ask as Laurel struggles with the machine. Evangeline’s body starts convulsing against thebed, her skin turning an ashen gray. My stomach drops when I notice how blue her lips have turned, how cold her skin is becoming under my hand.
