Chapter 7 The Present
This time, I don’t wake gently.
I jolt awake like I’ve been yanked straight out of the grave.
My breath rips in. My eyes snap open. My whole body jerks upright, like someone just dumped me into a bucket of ice water, and for one disorienting second, I think I’ve died. Again.
The room spins. My pulse pounds like a war drum in my throat.
My body feels like it’s been hit by a truck, dragged six blocks, and then set on fire for good measure.
Every muscle is screaming. My spine is stiff.
My thighs ache. And something deep inside me—something I didn’t even know could ache—definitely does.
Then it hits me.
Oh.
Right.
Talon.
I groan and collapse back onto the mattress, wincing like my soul just flinched.
And that’s when I realize… I’m in bed.
The hospital bed.
Did Talon carry me here? He must have.
He’s sprawled across the bed next to mine, the same one Cassian was in when I woke up last night.
Half his gear is gone. His hair is even more tousled than before, and his limbs are flung out like someone ragdolled him and left him there.
One of his arms dangles off the bed, while the other is bent at a weird angle, hanging off the mattress like it forgot how elbows work.
I stare at him for a long moment, blinking through the fog of soreness and disbelief.
Then I see Nathaniel.
He’s sitting at the table. That table.
The one Talon and I had sex on.
Cassian’s in the kitchenette, holding a book.
And both of them are looking at me.
Nathaniel lifts a brow and his hands are white-knuckled around a mug he hasn’t sipped from. Cassian doesn’t say anything either, but the way his jaw tightens says everything for him.
There’s no hiding what happened. Not when I can barely sit up without wincing. Not with Talon half-naked and obviously wrecked. Not with the table.
That goddamn table.
I can see my scratch marks even from here. Long, jagged trails carved into the wood like made by an animal, not by me.
God.
I swallow hard, throat tight. My voice scrapes out rough, like it barely made it through the night.
“Morning.”
Nathaniel doesn’t move at first. He just watches me over the rim of his mug like he’s checking out some invisible lines on it. Then, slowly, he sets the mug down with a quiet click.
“You okay?” he asks.
Just that. No judgment. No edge. Just calm. Measured. Maddening.
But I catch it: the flicker in his eyes, the quick glance at my wrist. At the faint red mark where the strap had held me. His lips twitch. Not a smile. Something meaner. Darker.
I stay frozen in bed, unsure how to respond.
“I could, uh… use some coffee,” I manage.
Nathaniel nods.
Cassian’s leaning against the counter now, arms crossed, the book still in his hand. I meet his gaze.
“So… what are you guys doing?” I ask.
His stare is volcanic. Cold and burning all at once. He inhales slowly, then does something I don’t expect.
“Cover your ears, Skye,” he says.
“What?”
“Cover your ears.”
I hesitate, but do it.
When he moves, it’s sudden. Too sudden. The book slams against the counter with a crack that shakes the room. Even with my ears covered, it reverberates through my bones.
It only takes a second to realize who it was for. Talon.
But Talon just groans and rolls over, rubbing his face like a hungover cat.
“Did someone die?” he mutters without opening his eyes. “Wait. No. That’s your line, Little Grim.”
“Shut up,” I hiss at him.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, completely unfazed.
Cassian turns, face unreadable, but it’s the kind of neutral that could curdle milk.
“Next time, keep it off the table.”
“Duly noted,” I rasp.
He doesn’t look away.
“I was talking to Talon, not you,” he adds.
“Uh-uh,” Talon only mutters, which makes Cassian’s already tense shoulders get even tenser. I brace for impact. A chair thrown. A fist slammed. Something. But before the tension can boil over, Nathaniel moves.
He stands up, takes a second mug, pours something dark and fragrant into it, and hands it to me without a word.
The air shifts instantly. The violence in the room just… dissipates, like he flipped a switch.
“Get up,” Nathaniel says. “We’ve got things to do.”
I look at him, and I mean to be grateful, I really do, but the expression I manage probably lands somewhere between sheepish and mortified. He doesn’t make a big deal of it. Just gives me a small nod. Just enough to say we’re fine, even if… I don’t think we are.
Nathaniel’s hard to read in a way that’s more dangerous than Cassian’s stone mask.
Cassian wears his threat like armor. You can see it coming.
But Nathaniel’s restraint? That’s the real weapon.
I know he wants me. He hasn’t exactly been subtle about it.
But when it comes to the lines between protection and possession, affection and jealousy, I don’t know where he stands.
Still, I’ve seen inside him. I know what’s under the mask.
There’s fire there. Not the kind that warms. The kind that razes cities.
If Nathaniel were a social construct, he’d be purge day: calm every day of the year, until the one where he wipes out half a village.
Maybe that’s why I squirm a little under his gaze.
“What things?” I ask, clutching the mug.
“We might’ve found a way to get rid of the wraith,” he says, heading to the kitchenette again. Cassian steps aside without comment, letting him retrieve the book he’d just tried to murder a minute ago.
Only now I can see that it’s not really a book. It’s a journal. Old, weathered, leather-bound.
Nathaniel exhales through his nose, like he’s already exhausted by whatever comes next, and tosses it onto my bed.
“Here,” he says.
I eye it warily. “What is it?”
“A log. From someone who claimed they fought a wraith and lived.”
That gets everyone’s attention. Even Talon cracks one eye open and glances at the journal.
“We had something like that?” he mutters. “Could’ve sworn I went through everything last night.”
“This morning, I found a stash we left in the lockers a few years back,” Nathaniel replies. “Didn’t think I’d ever need to dig it up, but... here we are.”
“Huh,” Talon says, mostly to himself. And for a moment, it almost feels like things are okay between all of them. Even Cassian isn’t brooding, just staring daggers at the journal. Which only makes what Nathaniel said hit harder.
A few years back?
How long have they been doing this—this whole homicidal vigilante crusade against the world’s worst people? Long enough to have old supplies hidden in an abandoned hospital?
I look at the three of them again. I never thought they were exactly young; at least not so young that my attraction to them should be a problem. I died at twenty-five, which technically makes me around thirty now, even if my body’s still the same as the day I died.
They’ve got to be in their early thirties too, right?
Damn. They really started the killing gig young.
“How long did you say you’d been living in this hospital?” I ask, raising a brow, fishing for lore.
Nathaniel looks at me, completely deadpan. “We didn’t.”
And just like that, the quiet, unnerving stare is back.
“Oh. Okay.” I look away.
Talon groans into the pillow. “We squatted here for a while. On and off. This is just the longest we’ve stayed.”
Nathaniel doesn’t argue.
Cassian does. “It was never meant to be permanent. It still isn’t.”
He doesn’t explain further, which only makes my imagination spiral. Where were they the rest of the time? Living like nomads? Drifting from place to place, clinging to their messed-up little code? Is that what they plan to do next? Just vanish and start over somewhere else?
That doesn’t seem fair, does it?
Nothing about them seems fair, except their own warped and highly unhealthy perception of justice.
All the more reason to own the mission Death gave me. Maybe once it’s done, I’ll earn back a little control over my own existence.
My gaze drops to the journal now sitting on my lap. The leather is cracked, the spine barely holding together with a binding that looks like it might crumble if I breathe too hard.
I reach for the mug beside me, take a sip, and immediately gag.
It’s coffee. I think. Technically. But it tastes like scorched dirt filtered through a burnt engine. Bitter doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s apocalyptic.
“What the hell is this?” I croak, blinking away tears.
Nathaniel doesn’t answer. Just leans against the frame of the bed with that same expression. His mouth twitches, barely.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Just tell me if you’re mad at me.”
He lifts a brow, tongue flicking against his piercing for a single, pointed second before he shrugs.
“Why would I be angry with you?” he says, voice so smooth it’s clear he’s putting up a front.
Talon sits up in Cassian’s bed, still rubbing sleep from his face. Then he zeroes in on my mug.
“If he gave you that as coffee, he’s pissed,” he rasps. “Might swear up and down it’s just how he’s always taken it since med school, but trust me. He’s mad.”
Nathaniel doesn't flinch. “I do drink my coffee strong. Always have.”
I stare down at the cup like it personally betrayed me. “Strong?” I echo. “This tastes like shit.” Still no apology. No flicker of guilt. Just quiet amusement curling at the corners of his mouth. I take another sip out of pure spite. “Med school must’ve incinerated your taste buds, man.”
Nathaniel gives a noncommittal shrug, eyes tracking. Meanwhile, Talon takes the mug right out of my hands. He sips, makes a face, then, astonishingly, goes back for another.
“You’re both sick,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” Talon says, not even denying it.
At last, I turn back to the journal.
The first page is crammed with frantic handwriting. The lines are shaky, like they were written by someone whose hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Some are violently crossed out. Others underlined three times. There’s a smear in the top corner that looks far too much like dried blood.