Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THANATOS
Blackness swarmed my vision and agony bloomed over half my body.
I was flat on my back. The cool ground was almost a balm to the heat and pain running through me.
I coughed and rolled to my side. Sirens wailed in the distance and people ran toward me on the street.
My head throbbed and I tried to blink away the smoke in my eyes. My body shook as I tried to sit up.
A stranger hurried to my side. He got low to meet my eyes. “Don’t move! Don’t move.”
But I had to move. Where was Anastasia? “What happened?”
“I think . . .” the man hovering over me looked up and down the street, “I think it was a car bomb.”
Screams of bystanders sounded all around me. Car alarms went off, and the guy pressed his hand to my shoulder, trying to keep me from getting up. “Stay down. You’re bleeding.”
“I have to find her.” I sat up on my elbow and looked down the street.
A man dressed in normal street clothing ran away from the scene with the bag I’d been carrying slung over his shoulder.
He glanced back at me, then ran even faster.
The shackles! I needed to go after him, but I couldn’t, not when I knew Anastasia was injured.
A crowd of people gathered around something on the sidewalk, and I forced myself to sit up.
Pain shot through my body, but I couldn’t stop now.
I shoved to my feet and staggered in the direction of the gathering crowd.
The guy tried to hold me back, but I clumsily shoved him away. “Anastasia!”
My steps were halted and sloppy, but I managed to shove my way through the crowd and dropped down next to Anastasia.
Her eyes peeked up at me and a squeaking sound escaped between her cracked lips.
Blood covered the side of her face and matted her hair.
A small pool of crimson spread out from under her.
She lifted her hand. “I’m so sorry, Than . . .”
My name cut off on a rattling cough. “Don’t talk, love. Just breathe. I’m here.”
Police cars and ambulances flooded the street behind us.
They shoved the crowd back and out of the way.
This was all so human . . .the police, the EMTs .
. . I wanted to run back into Evermore Academy and get potions to heal here.
I wanted to force the queens into the street to make this all go away.
But Matteaus had made his stance clear. I was now human and so was she. I would have to . . . pray.
The EMTs wheeled a gurney beside Anastasia.
They hunched over her and placed a neck brace on her.
They checked her eyes, took her vital signs, and pressed gauze over her fragile body.
When they placed her on a stiff backboard and wheeled her toward the ambulance, I fought to stay with her while people put their hands on me and bandages were applied to my wounds.
I couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t even think.
My eyes only remained on Anastasia. When they loaded her into the back of the ambulance, I pushed forward, forcing my way into the back of it.
They put monitors all over Anastasia, but when they tried to put them on me, I knocked their hands away.
The ambulance lurched forward, and everything rocked.
Anastasia’s eyes fluttered shut and the monitors went wild.
The EMTs went to work on her, yelling orders at each other and injecting things into the IV they’d started.
The ambulance moved faster and yet everything felt as though it were going in slow motion.
I couldn’t look away from the rise and fall of her chest. I only heard the beating of her heart.
Nothing else around me mattered other than her.
My insides were frozen with fear. I couldn’t imagine a human life without her.
I inwardly scolded myself. That thought was silly and would never happen for us.
The doors to the ambulance flew wide open and she was being raced from it and into the hospital.
The ER was a buzz with doctors and nurses rushing around.
They wheeled her through the ER and into a room off to the side.
Doctors swarmed around her while nurses cut off her clothing.
The more of her clothing that was torn away, the more her injuries came to light.
Dark bruising spread over her side and her heartbeats were erratic.
They tried to drag me into a separate room, but I fought to stand at the foot of her bed. I tried to keep up with everything they were saying but I had no idea what any of them were saying. “What is happening?”
When no one answered me, I raised my voice. “Someone tell me what’s happening!”
A nurse hurried toward me and put her arm over my chest. “Come with me, sir. We need to let them work. Let’s have someone look at your head.”
I pressed my hand to the side of my head, and when I brought it back it was covered in blood. “I don’t care about my head.”
“We’re losing her!” someone bellowed from Anastasia’s bedside.
I pushed past the nurse as one of the doctors pounded on her chest.
“Charging to 200!”
Time stopped and the humans froze while trying to treat her. Hades stood at the head of her bed. He smirked up at me. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Fuck off.” Anger shot through my body and my hands curled into fists.
“To be human . . .” He lowered his voice. “. . . to be helpless.”
“They aren’t helpless. They have medicine.” Silent prayers filled my mind.
I’d never felt so useless in my entire existence. Hades scoffed and the scene around me started to slowly move. Her heart rate went flat and long beeping sounds rang in my ears. Hades stood even closer to her. “You’re going to let her die.”
“I don’t want her to die!” I bellowed at him, and a ball formed in my throat.
“Then do what you must.” Hades raised his hand, and her body began to glow with that ghostly white. “Or I will take her here and now.”
“But the humans—”
“Will not save her.” Hades turned and met my eye.
“She is too far gone.” He waved his hand, and her lifeline became visible to me.
Dark crimson. There was no stopping this now.
She was going to die and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do, not like this.
Hades walked through the doctors to stand by my side.
“We are gods. We are not human. To be human is to live a short life and pray for more in death. Our eternity is unfathomable to humans, but to us it is how it must be.”
“Don’t take her,” I begged.
He pressed his lips into a hard line. “If you don’t want her to die, then do something about it.”
“Even as a god I couldn’t stop death.” My heart hammered in my chest, and I sucked in a deeper breath, trying for calm, but I couldn’t stop the adrenaline from rushing through my body.
“I will grant you a favor in this one instance.” Hades motioned to her. “Reclaim your powers and I will stop this.”
“You can’t stop death.” They pressed the paddles to her chest and shocked her body. Her body jerked and her chest lifted off the gurney . . . Still a flat heartbeat.
“Can’t I?” Hades chuckled. “I have ways.”
“CLEAR!” They shocked her again and she jerked even harder.
Hades snapped his fingers and Nova appeared at his side. Her dark eyes went round, and she took a small step back. “What the hell?”
“Stop her from dying,” Hades commanded.
Nova crossed her arms. “You’re asking a lot.”
“Do it.”
“Nova.” My voice came out weaker than I’d ever heard it.
Her head snapped around, and she hurried toward me, easily dodging the slow-moving doctors and nurses. She threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her head to my chest. “I’ve missed you.”
“You could miss me like that.” Liesin appeared on the other side of the bed.
Nova pulled back and jabbed a finger in his direction. “Why don’t you leave and we’ll see if I miss you?”
“Ah, young love.” Hades purred, then turned toward me. “Are you going to save your love? She is so young.”
She was going to die. The doctors pounded on her chest even harder, forcing the blood to move through her body. I glanced down at Nova. “Please help me.”
“I’m not sure I have the power to do this. But I’ll try.” She stepped up to the bed and purple sparks fired around her fingers.
“Not until he stops this forsaken charade,” Hades snapped.
Nova glanced over her shoulder at me. “I can’t do this alone. I do need your power too.”
Hades lowered his voice to a purr. “Come now, friend. You can ju—”
I leapt at Hades, my temper getting the better of me.
I tried to tackle him, but he batted me away, easily overpowering me.
Helplessness and rage warred within my chest, and something snapped in me.
I threw my arms out, bellowing to the heavens.
Why did it have to be like this? Why did I have to love her so much only to forever lose her?
To forever be denied the connection, the need, the love?
I would forever lose her, which meant I would forever be empty inside.
I wanted her, wanted so much more, but I was forever denied.
I turned my anger outward, searching for the power I needed to save her.
It lingered around my body. I could feel it tingling against my skin.
I only needed to open up and let it back in.
I should’ve known the fates couldn’t have taken my power permanently.
This was a punishment to make me see that what I’d lied and cheated to have could never be.
I should’ve known power like mine needed a home and I was that home.
No one else could become death. I tugged at the strands of power surrounding me.
One by one, I plucked at them, pulling them closer to me.