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Not really sure where to look next, I head out of the library and toward the front entrance. The door is swung wide, almost broken off its hinges, and the echoes of a scream ring from somewhere in the distance.
The area outside the house is a ruin of broken siding and bodies. I check on the wounded, happy to find all of them still alive. When I reach the last body, he croaks out words that are almost unintelligible, but I can make out two of them. “Saved me.” He points somewhere off to the left, and that’s when I see it.
Theo sits on his knees in the grass, practically curled into himself.
After scanning the area for demons and finding none near enough for me to worry about, I race toward him. Given his current predicament, I should probably have approached with a bit more care because when I touch his shoulder, he thrashes and turns to hit me.
“Whoa,” I say gently, as if speaking to a spooked horse. “It’s me. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Theo blinks a few times before his tense shoulders relax beneath the grip of my fingers.
“Raph.”
“You hurt?”
He lets out a long breath. “Not physically.”
His hands are bloody, and my mind immediately goes on high alert, scanning him for injury.
“It’s not mine,” he reassures me. It must be the blood of the student he saved. He has no weapon though, so I don’t know how the fuck he managed that.
“Good. I grabbed this from your room. The entire fucking school needs our help, Theo. Think you can manage it?” I hand over his dagger and watch as his eyes change, shifting into something the demons should be afraid of.
He stands with more confidence than I’ve seen in his movements in a long-ass time, and I know it’s from the dagger he holds. He eyes my weapon skeptically, but this fucking bench leg is nothing to be scoffed at. My trusty sidekick hasn’t let me down yet.
“Let’s make these fuckers pay.”
I nod, eyeing the demons as they swarm the skies. Predators, searching for their next prey. Not fucking today, dickwads.
“Have you heard from Hayliel?” Theo asks.
“No. I saw Dina though. She said they got separated. I came for you and she went in search of Hayliel, but we’re supposed to meet at the fountain. We should head there now.”
His eyes scream with the same distress I feel. We just have to hope to all that’s holy that Dina was able to find her unharmed.
We head toward the fountain, searching the land and sky for any potential attack. As we pass by the door to the main hall, every demon stops what they’re doing, turning all at once to face the front gate. What the …
“Are they retreating?”
“Maybe …” Theo replies, his quiet voice full of skepticism. His demeanor shifts into something I’ve seen more times than I can count. He closes his eyes, focusing hard on forcing the flashbacks away and not letting them take over.
“Hayliel needs you, Theo. We need to find her and protect her. Don’t let those assholes win.” I place my hand on his shoulder, pushing my own strength into him until I feel his muscles relax, and he opens his eyes.
He shoots me a nod before surveying the demons again.
With my mind on high alert, I walk around the side of the main hall and finally catch sight of the fountain, but Dina and Hayliel are nowhere to be found. Fuck!
Propped up against the fountain are two students, each with bloody wounds, but they’ll survive. Theo joins us, tearing off a piece of fabric from the guy’s shirt before pushing it onto the wound and applying pressure.
“Have two angels come this way, one with black wings and one with gray wings?”
“No. Just those monsters,” the more coherent one says. He shudders, then winces as the movement rubs against his wounded shoulder.
Just as I’m about to ask Theo if he has any ideas for another plan, something tugs at my mind. A familiar brightness, one I would recognize anywhere. Hayliel.
Something’s wrong. Spinning frantically, I search the grounds for any sign of my sunshine, or at least something to tell me where her signal came from.
Before I can speak up, Theo says three words that have my fear spiking.
