Page 120 of Dark Surrender

“Where’s Sunshine and Dark?” Kali asks as we step over a support beam.

Not saying a word, Angel massages his nape and stares up at the massive hole in the ceiling.

I dunno why, but my stomach drops. He’s avoiding something. I can tell.

Kali must notice his brush-off the same as I do when she glances my way, concern etched across her face. “Angel?” she addresses him, wanting an answer.

“Let’s talk outside.” He backs away, and Kali takes my hand and holds on tight. Without a word, I understand her perfectly. Something’s not right, and I don’t mean the fact that we’re walking through a dark room with charred walls, lit only by beams of headlights outside and whatever backup lights this place had installed that survived whatever went down.

It’s creepy. Like the set of a horror movie.

Like a nightmare.

We take it one step at a time.

Out front, vans are parked along the perimeter. There’s an ambulance with the med bay open, and a bald man helping a line of patients seated on folding chairs. Most of them are children of varying ages. My heart aches at the sight. This is what I miss every time Dee and I run our jobs and leave the children to be found by the Sacred Sinners. This is what they do—help. They have an entire crew dedicated to this. I’m in awe as Kali tugs me along, avoiding the central chaos, to the fringe, where we approach Angel, sitting on the tailgate of an old pickup truck, smoking a joint.

“Talk,” Kali demands, crossing her arms over her chest.

Angel exhales a cloud of smoke and sighs. His throat bobs as he swallows hard, and tears well in his eyes when he looks at us. First Kali, then me, where his gaze lingers, and those tears fall, one by one, down his cheek.

“Dark’s dead,” he croaks and takes a long drag.

“What?!” Kali screeches, taking the words out of my mouth, words that are stuck as my stomach drops to my feet.

“He got shot, then Monster set off his explosions. We didn’t know where they were, but shit went sideways, and Dark covered Sunshine.”

“Where is he?” Kali demands.

“At the hospital.”

I inhale.

“So, he’s not dead?” Hope imbues Kali’s question.

Exhale.

“Yes. He is. There was too much blood,” Angel rasps, clears his throat, and rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. “And he had no pulse. None.”

No. Pulse.

“I don’t understand,” I add, my voice a mere whisper as the woman beside me sobs quietly. Kali wraps an arm around her middle.

“Sunshine wouldn’t let him go.” Angel drops ashes onto the ground.

I…

My bottom lip trembles. “What… what do you mean? Wouldn’t let him go?”

“His son died in his arms. He wouldn’t let him go. So they took him to the hospital. For Sunshine.”

Oh.

“So he could get closure,” Kali sobs, staring past Angel in shock, her face etched with anguish.

I… I feel nothing.

Numb.