24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hector
He's drenched in blood.
Crimson stains his hands and arms, soaking into the fabric that clings to his frame like a second skin. A guard at his feet isn’t moving, head separated from the body. The Ferryman stands over it like a god of death, shoulders heaving and eyes wild.
But I’m not afraid.
My instincts don't scream run . My heart doesn’t twist in fear. If anything, it slows, because despite the carnage unfolding around us, I’ve never felt safer than I do at this moment. Even standing before him after he just murdered someone in cold blood .
“Charon,” I whisper, barely able to get his name past the rawness in my throat.
He takes a step forward, and another, eyes never leaving my face. When he finally draws near, he picks me up, strong arms wrapping around my waist so tight I can barely breathe.
“You came for me,” I choke, touching my forehead to his.
Charon’s breath shudders against my face, body trembling as guttural sobs claw at his throat.
I press my lips to his cheek, threading my fingers through his blood-matted strands. “It's okay. I'm here now, we're okay.”
He simply nods, kissing each of my eyelids as his grip on me tightens, and my heart breaks at the anguish on his face.
His nose brushes mine before he leans in, resting his cheek against my shoulder with ragged, uneven breaths.
We stay suspended in time until the sirens outside the corridor yank us back to reality.
“Charon, we have to move.”
He huffs against my shoulder, but when he pulls back, he doesn’t let me go.
“I can walk—” I protest, even as my ruined leg throbs.
He only taps his forehead to mine for a fleeting second before stepping forward, my weight nothing in his arms.
So I rest my head against his neck, inhaling the sweat and blood as he carries me back toward the scorched hallway where my sister just died and everything changed.
The air is thick with smoke, walls black and bleeding ash. Charon’s steps slow as we pass the door still hanging off its hinges. Heat pulses out in suffocating waves when we stop to peer inside the obliterated room .
Shrapnel embeds the walls, concrete floor cracked. What’s left of my sister is unrecognizable, just scraps of fabric and silver glinting amid the debris.
I wish I could feel something.
Grief. Anger. Closure.
But all I feel is numb.
“You knew she was the Judge,” I whisper.
He pauses, then lifts one hand to cup the back of my head, turning my face to his. Those blue eyes bore into mine sadly, his lips parting as he mouths an apology.
I'm sorry.
“You don't need to be,” I murmur, turning back to gaze at her blackened corpse. “She made her choice.”
So did I.
The Ferryman carries me past it all, into whatever future we’re bleeding toward, the fire behind us casting long shadows on the path ahead. Sirens keep blaring, but no echo of gunshots trail us.
Up ahead, Nyx seems to lead the way, banking around a corner toward Lena’s office, where the door still stands open from when she marched me out at gunpoint.
We step through the threshold, ducking slightly so I don’t knock into the frame. He sets me down gently on the edge of the desk before kneeling between my knees, his eyes and hands roaming my body for signs of damage.
“What now?” I ask, the sirens muffled this far into the building.
He just continues his assessment with a shake of his head, not meeting my gaze.
Nyx flutters onto the windowsill, tapping her beak against the glass with a pointed look in our direction. Beyond it, all I see is miles of polluted water.
“Do you know a way out?”
Again, just a shake of the head. When his touch runs across my thighs, I shiver, instinctively grabbing his wrists to keep his palms in place.
He goes still, gaze finally meeting mine. I run my fingers up his bloody arms, tracing old bite marks along his flesh. “Did she do this to you?”
He doesn't shake his head this time, but he doesn't nod, either. His throat bobs with a hard swallow as I ghost my lips over the jagged scar on his neck.
“It's okay,” I murmur, even though it isn’t. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Charon shifts a hand to my hip, the other curling around the back of my neck. We move in tandem, both leaning in to press our mouths together in the softest kiss, and it's like a dam breaks inside of me.
After everything that has happened, the stories I've heard and the brutality I’ve witnessed, the tenderness in his touch is enough to shatter my thundering heart.
Grabbing his torn shirt, I pull him closer to deepen the kiss as my legs wrap around his waist. A slight breath leaves his lungs, and when his tongue traces the seam of my lips, I open for him, too far gone to care about the blood still coating his skin.
The warmth of his body between my legs is overwhelming, the desperate tremble in his hands as they cradle my face.
I claw at his shirt in a frenzy to rip it off, the fabric tearing easily.
My palms run down the hair dusting his chest, sweeping over his abs to the hem of his pants while I suck on his tongue, my cock growing heavy and stiff.
In the back of my mind, something screams at me to slow down, that we're in danger and covered in blood, but it only makes me hungrier for him. Judging by how hard he is when I slip my hand beneath his waistband, I'd say the Ferryman feels the same.
Charon breaks our kiss first, leaning his forehead against mine with a shaky exhale as he thrusts into my palm, eyes closed and lips swollen. He looks so damn beautiful that I don't look away, wanting to remember this moment in case we don't make it until morning.
I wish I'd met him sooner.
“Let go,” I say quietly, stroking his cock with the rhythm of my pulse, savoring the way his fingers tighten in my curls. “It's okay. Let go for me.”
His whole body tenses, muscles pulled taut as a bowstring, and I feel the moment right before he falls over the edge. His hips stutter, breath catching, shaft throbbing against my palm—
Then the click of a gun being readied echoes through the room like a death toll.
“Well, shit,” comes a mocking voice from the doorway. “You two started without me.”
Charon moves so fast I barely register it, whipping around to shield me with his body.
Jonas just laughs, stepping inside with a pistol trained at our heads.
“Ah, ah. Don’t bother. You wouldn’t get far before I put a hole in your freaky little head.
” His eye flicks to me with a sickening gleam that makes my stomach churn.
“You see, I called dibs on that one, and I've come to claim my prize. Miss me, sweetheart?”