Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Riley
I don’t know how long I was out for, but it couldn’t have been long since the dust is still settling. I can hear screaming and crying, but as Kit looks around, I don’t see the horseman or the Door.
“Did he leave?” I ask Kit.
She can’t answer, of course, but looks toward the spot they’d stood as if to tell me they’re no longer there. I don’t know whether that means he went back through the Door or he’s roaming our world, bringing it to ruin.
My hands are shaking so badly that when I put them on the ground to help push myself up, I fall forward, unable to support my weight. And just as I nearly land on my face, I see Torin leaning against the side of a building, eyes fixed on me.
“Torin?” I call, trying again to push myself up. I struggle to my feet and discover that even my feet hurt. The ache is deep inside me, but I push through it while I hurry toward Torin. “Torin, are you okay?”
He’s standing, so he must be okay. I mean… he’s a god, after all.
“Torin, is he gone?”
I step up to him as Kit looks down and I take in the blood running from his wounds.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispers before he begins to slide down the wall. I reach out to catch him, but I can’t hold his weight with my shaking hands, and he pulls me straight to the ground with him.
“Torin?” I call, clutching him. “Torin, please.” My words get lost in the screams for help as I hold the heavy man against me and look around at the destruction—at the bodies, the wounded, the people begging for help.
The horseman was here for mere minutes, and this is the devastation he caused.
And we were only able to hold him off because of the god who currently lies in my arms, bleeding to death.
My hands slide into his hair while I look around anxiously for Vinny, Imani, and Mickey, who I haven’t seen in so long.
“Kit, find the others.”
Kit jumps off and rushes to find them as I lower Torin to the ground.
My hands slide down his body while I blindly try to find his wounds then fumble to tear cloth, winding it in balls to staunch his bleeding.
Finally, I do my best to wrap his injuries tightly with Torin’s clothes that I’ve cut with his scythe.
“Please heal. You’re going to heal, right?” I beg. “You’re a god… you have to heal.”
I check what Kit is looking at and see that she’s found Mickey, who is being rescued by his undead. He was pinned under some debris but seems okay. And Vinny is helping a woman who is screaming in pain.
Emergency vehicles and healers descend on the scene while I compress Torin’s wounds.
“You’re a god, aren’t you? Wake up,” I say as I gently smack his cheek in the hope of startling him awake. “Wake your ass up or I’m going to make you ride all the escalators and… you know what? I haven’t put you in an elevator yet. That’s next.”
Still, he doesn’t wake, though I at least feel relief when Kit finds Imani. She’s bleeding but she’s rushing this way. Imani nearly slams into me when she reaches me, grabbing me in a hug while she pulls my head back to look me over.
“Fucking hell. Are you okay?” she asks.
“Torin’s not. He… without his people, he has no power…
I don’t know if he can even heal himself.
He needs help. If that Door opens again, we can’t stop it without him,” I say, knowing very well that’s not the reason I’m concerned.
I need him unlike anything I’ve ever needed, and I don’t even know why.
He crashed into my life, and I’ve been unable to get him out of my mind ever since.
“It’s okay, it’ll be okay.”
“This went so poorly. I couldn’t do anything,” I whisper.
“You… whatever you did with that magic drove him back, Riley. That man might not have left if it weren’t for you,” she says. “Your magic weakened him… whatever it was.”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Please, get a healer over here.” I know I’m being selfish—there are hundreds of people here who need healers, and the healers are going to exhaust themselves before they even get close to helping everyone—but I need them to help Torin.
Imani nods and hurries off to find someone. She returns with a fae woman who kneels down and holds her hands over Torin. A pale light glows just below her hands, but when it reaches Torin, it bounces right off him. The woman looks startled and presses a hand down on his chest.
“I… I’m sorry, my magic can’t penetrate his. He’s… unlike anything I’ve ever felt,” she says.
“Find someone else to do it,” I plead.
The fae hesitates before shaking her head. “I’m very sorry, honey. I’m the strongest of the healers here. His magic is very different, and it’s stopping me from healing him. I’m sorry.”
“No… no, fuck,” I say.
The healer stands and waves down a paramedic. “Let’s get him to the hospital quickly.”
I’m torn between going with them and helping here. What if he wakes up and is confused… or what if he dies alone?
“We’re fine here, go,” Imani says.
I look around at the massacre that happened here. “No… there’s so much to do.”
“Riley, you’re obviously hurt yourself. Go, get looked at,” she insists as she looks down at my shaking hands. When she reaches for one, I pull it back and turn to the ambulance loading Torin.
“They’re not dead,” Vinny calls after he rolls over the first man that the horseman shot. “They’re still alive, just unconscious.”
Imani rushes over and checks the pulse of another person. “Good. That’s so good.”
There are medical personnel flooding the scene, so I try to hurry toward the ambulance that Torin is in. I’m unsteady and struggling to move faster than a shuffle, just barely making it as the doors close.
“Can I go with him?” I ask.
“You look like you need to get looked at yourself,” the paramedic says.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Get in the passenger seat,” she instructs as she opens the door, and when I try to climb in, my hands are so bad that she has to help me.
The paramedic starts driving while she eyes me. “Besides the bruising and wounds I can see, where else are you hurt?”
“Nowhere. My hands are unsteady after using magic, that’s all. It’s just from the magic.”
“It goes away?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she says, and the rest of the ride passes in silence as my mind spirals.
When we reach the hospital, Torin is escorted inside, still unconscious.
The wounds he has are so grave that I know the only reason he’s still alive is because he’s a god, but then why isn’t he healing?
The second he’s out of the ambulance, people are already standing by, likely aware of what happened at the fair and ready to take people in as they arrive.
I want to follow him, but I’m pulled to the side before I can.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” the paramedic says as Torin’s rushed off to the OR, leaving me behind.
I debate telling her no, but I’m well aware there’s nothing more I can do until they’re finished.
She sits me down on a gurney in the hallway where she cleans up my forehead and stitches it back together while I keep my hands tucked in my shirt, hoping she won’t see how badly they’re shaking.
When she’s done, she insists on seeing them, but I give her the same excuse and she eventually gives up.
Besides some stitches here and there and plenty of bruises, I’m deemed fine to leave.
After I make it to the waiting room, it’s still another hour before a nurse tells me Torin’s out of surgery and a doctor takes me back to talk to me.
A god needing to be cared for like a human… how little power does he have left? And what happens when it’s completely gone?
My stomach tightens at that thought.
It’s over an hour before I’m allowed in his room where he’s still not awake. There’s no one but Torin in the room when I slowly walk in. Kit leaps from my shoulder and onto the bed as she makes anxious noises at Torin.
“He’s just resting after surgery,” I assure her, but my mind is spinning out of control.
The doctor who talked to me after he was out of surgery was explicitly clear about how serious many of his wounds are.
He talked about his grave condition and how Torin’s magic is likely the only thing keeping him alive.
It basically summarized to: they did what they could, but it’s in Torin’s hands now.
But then why is he not healing?
“Come on, Torin. You’re a stubborn man; show it,” I say, grabbing a chair and dragging it over to the bed. “How are you going to fuck your way through the city as the god of love if you don’t?”
I’m well aware that what I’m spouting is shit, but I’m too afraid and too obstinate to admit that. My hand is shaking so much that I can’t grab Torin’s. I just want to touch his hand and I can’t even do that.
Sitting here, it occurs to me that if this is how we end up after facing that horseman once…
how the hell are we ever going to get rid of the man for good?
If he attacked again right now, there would be nothing we could do without Torin.
And my magic is out of control and so damn temperamental that I’m not even sure what I could do.
I force my hand under Torin’s as I close my eyes. “Thank you… thank you for saving my life. I feel like if he’d kept me inside that Door, I was never going to come back.”
I set my head on the bed, my shaking hand under his, and lie like that for a long time. Long after the adrenaline from the fight has left me. Long after that ball of tightness in my stomach has disappeared.
Now I just feel… hopeless.
When the nurse comes in, I draw back to give her space.
She smiles at me and tells me I’m not in the way, but I still feel awkward about it and scoot back.
Once she’s gone, I push my sleeve up and observe the way the black ink is trailing up my wrist, stretching across my forearm.
Slowly, I reach down and pull my shoe off before staring at my sock for a long moment.
Then I take a deep breath and slide the sock down to look at the blackness that is dyeing the tips of my toes.