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Colton met her gaze. “Gavil injected him with reaper venom. He will die or transition. You know the odds of a successful transition aren’t good.”
Dannika grabbed Colton’s arm. “He’s dying. Please help him. Give him your blood.”
Raine pointed at Dannika’s arm as her flesh knit together. “Did your blood mix with Gavil’s?”
She nodded. “I think so. Why?”
Colton kept his hands around Stern’s neck. “Then you’re the only one who can donate blood. A second donor will kill him before he enters transition.”
Dannika grabbed her reaper blade and sliced open her palm before she closed her fist and squeezed hard.
Crimson blood dripped from her hand into Stern’s mouth. He fought Colton’s grasp until the dark nectar reached the back of his throat. Then he began licking his lips, looking for more liquid life.
Stern groaned before his chocolate, pain-filled eyes locked on Dannika. “Who are you?”
CHAPTER26
Raine carried the unconscious reaper as Colton did the same for Stern. The human groaned as they sprinted home. Dannika ran to keep up with them, as they couldn’t enter the shadows with the mortally wounded man. Her face was a mask of pain and betrayal as her eyes remained on Stern. He wished there was some way he could calm her fears, but her actions had ended in an innocent man’s death. There was no coming back from this, and she knew it. Even if Stern transitioned, his human life was over.
Gavil groaned as he slapped Raine’s back, but he didn’t wake.
Raine adjusted the large man on his shoulder before continuing up the mountainside. “He won’t be unconscious much longer. We need to get him to a secure location.”
While Gavil had been slung over Raine’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Colton cradled Stern in a secure embrace. “The cave entrance is behind the cluster of bushes. There’s a light box inside.”
They navigated the carefully planted shrubs and entered the man-made cave. Inside was a single large room with a generator and a shelf. In the middle of the room was a metal box with fluorescent lights embedded beneath thick sheets of glass.
Raine dropped the reaper in the middle of the box before closing the door.
Colton nodded. “Let me get Stern situated. I will have Steele watch him until we can return to my home.”
He sprinted out of the cave mouth with Stern.
Dannika walked around the cell as Raine fired up the generator. The box ignited with white fluorescent light. She held up her hand, blocking her eyes as she peered between the beams. “I thought this would be similar to a light circle. This isn’t what I was expecting. How does this keep a reaper trapped?”
Raine grabbed a red plastic container from a wall mounted shelf before unscrewing the cap. “A shadow can’t travel in the light.”
Her eyes roamed over the light box. “We have traveled during the day. I didn’t realize florescent light could trap a shadow. How does this work?”
He affixed the nozzle before pouring gas into the generator’s tank. “Even in the day, there are shadows. A single blade of grass creates a small pathway. We pull from the darkness to create momentum when we enter a stream. If there’s no darkness, no shadow, then the door is closed. There’s no pathway for us to travel.”
She touched the exterior of the metal box. “He’s stuck in there. He can’t dematerialize.”
Raine replaced the cap on the gas container. “He can shift to a shadow form, but there’s nowhere for him to go. No pathway to enter. He will bounce around within the light cell.”
“That’s impressive,” she whispered.
Though her curiosity was genuine, her sadness cut through his soul deeper than any reaper blade. “It’s a shadow version of a Faraday cage. A human invention.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, making her petite frame appear even smaller. “I saw one once. At the Science Center when I was a kid. Our school had a field trip. I remember looking at all the kids at various stations, watching experiments take place and feeling for one moment that I was normal.”
His heart stuttered. “Dannika.”
She shook her head. “Soon after, my foster parents died, and it reminded me that field trips were for other children. Not the ones that destroyed everyone around them.”
Raine walked up to her and tipped up her chin. “Nothing that happened in the past was your fault.”
Tears dusted her lashes. “Maybe not the past, but today is on me.”
