A castle, crumbling.
Eight thousand tons of stone, tumbling down.
Smoke and rubble.
Rubble and smoke.
And sometimes, when the world was ending, the only thing you got to decide was who to spend the apocalypse with.
“Don’t hang up,” Gigi told Knox, and then she went to wake her sister. “Savannah?”
Chapter 93
LYRA
From the helicopter, Lyra had a bird’s-eye view of the destruction. She stared at the crater that now occupied three-fourths of what had once been an isle connected to the mainland by a long, thin isthmus. Vantage wasgone. Lyra couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t force a single sound past her lips, couldn’t even think anything other than:Ten days.
It had only been ten days, but Lyraknew. With Grayson Hawthorne, she could dance—becauseof him, she could dance, and what they had, it wasn’t a disaster or a curse. No matter how wild the ride, some loves were steady and sure, the kind of love meant for day in and day out and growing old, made for ordinary moments as much as the extraordinary ones. And Lyra, she hadn’t gotten nearly enoughordinarywith Grayson yet—rainy days and family dinners and brushing her teeth while he shaved beside her, because when love was real, it was simply a fact of life.
The chopper circled again, a sharper circle this time, but Lyra barely even felt the way the shoulder straps of her harness bit into her skin. She finally managed to turn her head away from the window, to look at the man piloting the chopper, and she succeeded only because she knewheloved Grayson, too. There was a bone-deep similarity between Grayson and Nash, even if neither one of them saw it. Libby had been the one to tell Nash hehadto go, and when Nash had responded by pressing a kiss to her forehead and a second one to her stomach, everything in Lyra had said:that.
Love could be the most ordinary, extraordinary thing, and Graysoncouldn’t be dead.
Nothing but rubble.Lyra wanted to throw up. There wasn’t even a place for the helicopter to land on what was left of the isle, but Nash—steady, unshakable, far-too-much-like-GraysonNash—somehow managed to land it anyway.
The authorities swarmed them the moment they touched down. Lyra heard shouting but couldn’t make out a damn word of what was being said. Her own voice was too loud in her head.
No good-byes.
No regrets.
I do fall, Grayson—I do.
They were threatened with arrest, shoved outside a barricade, onto the isthmus, and even Alisa Ortega couldn’t talk their way into the hot zone. The second that became apparent, Nash cocked his head to the side, and Alisa put a hand on his chest, putting herself between him and the authorities.
“I know you,” Alisa said, and Lyra took the lawyer’s tone to mean that AlisaknewNash was getting ready to start swinging. “I know what you’re thinking, and now is not the time, Nash.”
Grayson’s brother looked down at the hand on his chest. “I raised them, Lee-Lee. As much or more than anyone else, as much or more than the old man did. Me.”
“I know.” Alisa’s voice broke, and Lyra did her best not to break, too.
“You know,” Nash agreed. “So you know there’s nothing on this planet that’s gonna keep me on this side of that barricade.”
“Think of Libby.” Alisa was absolutely merciless. “Think of your daughters. Youaregoing to let me handle this, Nash. I’ll make some calls.”
“Will you?” a British voice said, a male voice that somehow managed to sound slightly threatening and slightly… amused.
Lyra whirled, her body looking for a fight and her soul screaming that anyone who could be even the least bitamusedright now was not an ally of any sort.
A balding man with hair cut very close to his scalp glanced at her only briefly. He was dressed far too poshly for the occasion, and as he made his way toward them and the barricade, the crowd that had gathered in front of it—onlookers, press—parted for the gentleman, like room-temperature butter sliced in two with a scalpel.
“Who the hell are you?” Nash demanded.
“Jameson’s uncle,” Alisa answered. “Bowen Johnstone-Jameson.”
“Charmed,” the man told Alisa with a nod, and then he crossed the barricade, and not a single person stopped him.
Nash surged forward.“Son of a—”
