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Too tired to stand but too amped to sleep, she remains on that stool, creating image after image filled with nightmares. Her paintings blend abstract splashes of color with the realism of portraits. When she does talk, she tells me what they mean—which herald of death they portray. But as the days pass, each painting becomes more and more haunting.
Each death more chilling than the last.
Her hand moves blindingly fast as the black and grey and deep purple meld together to make a horrified face. The picture is a close-up of a woman’s eyes, the expression in them pleading. The eyes are tearing with purple blood instead of saline. But the blood isn’t blood at all. It appears to be morphing into the reflection of the person that killed her.
Honestly, she’s scaring the shit out of me.
When she does manage to nod off, she startles awake, screaming, and the longer we’re here, the less she sleeps. But the lack of sleep is not the only toll Iva’s machinations are taking on her body.
In just a few short days, Aurelia has practically withered under the strain—her cheekbones sharp, her face creased with exhaustion and worry. I can’t get her to eat, and her body is shrinking by the minute, dropping weight she can’t afford to lose. Purple shadows have taken up residence under her eyes, and her voice has gone from lively and sarcastic to a half-dead monotone.
So here I sit, watching my woman waste away as I try to come up with another way to help.
Problem is, I’ve called in every favor I have stocked up from every witch, wraith, and warlock I know. No one can help us.
Her Aegis protected her—and now?
I worry there isn’t anything anyone can do.
Chapter Seventeen
AURELIA
Ayoung man and woman are driving a vehicle on a dark road. It isn’t a new car. Duct tape fails to hold the stuffing inside the driver’s headrest, errant fluffs of foam spill from a rip in the tape. A faint knocking comes from the weakly chugging engine. The windows are down, most likely because the AC no longer works, the wind from the summer night whipping their hair to and fro.
The young man is thin to the point of starvation with dark blue-black circles under his eyes and a wary, haunted look on his face. He couldn’t be more than fifteen at a push, but the few years he’s spent on this earth have not been kind. His joints are knobby and pointed, his chin sharp and dotted with acne and scars of abuse. His lip is split, and he has a blooming purple bruise on his left cheek.
The woman is crying, clutching the boy’s hand in a vise grip. Her hands are raw, the fingernails bloody and jagged, some even ripped from the nail beds. Her dark hair is matted against her skull—greasy and filthy, clumped with blood and dirt.
Someone has beaten her severely—her left eye black and closing, her nose bloody, swollen and crooked from an obvious break. She is also hugely pregnant—the thinness of her limbs making her burgeoning womb appear larger than it is. Ridges of her ribs peak through the tear at the breast of her dirty blouse.
They erratically drive down a mountain—the switchbacks making the tires skid from the speed. The tires slide over the road, over the double-yellow lines, and into the oncoming lane. The young man overcorrects the trajectory of the puttering car, sliding once again into the gravel of the shoulder. They pass a well-lit diner, the light of the sign casting a yellow, sickly glow upon the woman’s face. She cries out in horror, clutching her belly with her mangled fingers.
And then the blood comes.
Gushes of scarlet pour from between her legs, soaking through her tattered skirt and the battered seat below her. Her face goes gray from the blood loss—even the bruises leaching of color—and she loses consciousness within a few seconds.
The boy slams the accelerator down, desperately trying to make it to their destination. His eyes leak frustrated tears, and he begs the woman to wake up, his screams and pleas growing louder and louder as the minutes pass.
He pushes the poor car as fast as it can go, but he’s too late. By the time the bright hospital lights have cast their glow on the beat-up rattrap of a car, she’s stopped breathing.
He screeches into the emergency bay, the car skidding sideways as it grinds to a stop. He screams for help as he flies out his door, hobbling to the passenger side. He yanks open the door, shaking the woman by the shoulders, before unbuckling her seatbelt and attempting to pull her from the car.
Doctors and nurses flood from the doors, pulling the woman from her seat, shoving her on a gurney, and rushing her inside.
But they are all too late.
No matter how hard the doctors work, they can't save them.
I’m shaken awake for the fourth time tonight. Rhys engulfs my sweaty, shaking body into a giant bear hug, his warm skin on mine easing me until I notice red on the sheets. Immediately, I jump up to check myself and the bed for blood. There is nothing on my belly or underwear, but my hands are bloody from my fingernails ripping into my palms in my sleep.
Dammit.
Well, at least I’m not screaming this time. I wish I could call that a win, but I can’t. I plop back down on the mattress.
“This shit has got to stop. I want you to take the sleeping pills, Gorgeous,” he pleads with me as he grabs the full glass I neglected after the second wake-up call tonight.
“I don’t want to,” I say in a small, feeble voice.
