17. Never
We hit the ground hard. A teeth-cracking, wind-knocking, not entirely sure I remained fully conscious kind of hard. It was only by the miracle of the stubborn demigod who’d made himself my cushion that nothing felt broken.
Correction: nothing in my body felt broken.
Hook was a different story.
I eased off him, biting back a wince at the unnatural way his bones shifted under my weight. He was perfectly silent, eyes closed, and the world around us fell away. I reached an unsteady hand up to cup his cheek, trying like hell not to see the pool of thick red blood growing beneath his head.
“Hook?” I whispered. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Seeing him like that made everything inside me try to lock up.
When I didn’t get a response, I grabbed him by the jaw. “Goddammit, pirate. Open your fucking eyes.”
That fall with me on top of him would have killed a normal person. There was some consolation in the knowledge that he wasn’t actually a person, but only a little. He’d said magic worked differently in the human realm. Did that mean his own immortality might not function the same way?
Most of the crowd had scattered with the explosion, but it was only a matter of time before the first responders who were already on scene for the shadow’s bloody attack started closing in on us.
Under no circumstance could I let them get their hands on him.
It was bad enough that I didn’t know whether he would heal. What if he did heal but did it while he was in police custody? Or at a hospital? What would they do with him if he was miraculously okay in a couple of hours?
If I remembered right, that was how long it’d taken when the sirens attacked his ship.
I dragged myself to my feet, ignoring the stench of singed hair and the pulse of heat inside my chest, and looked for a way out of our current nightmare.
The man/demigod was too heavy for me to carry. So, what are my options?
We were inside the barrier the police had set up, right in the middle of the carnage left behind by Petra’s shadow and my brother—blood and gore that was now littered with more shattered glass, broken brick, and the fine coating of dust and ash that was still falling.
Maybe I can drag him to some sequestered corner away from prying eyes?I crouched at his side, gently lifting his head to get an idea of how bad the damage there might be. My fingers touched something soft and slimy, and my gag reflex kicked in. Violently. It was all I could do to ease his head back down.
Tears stung my eyes, and for one brief moment, I considered letting them fall.
“You’re tougher than this,” I hissed at myself, shuffling back a few inches. Everything from my stomach to teeth was caught in a tightening vice, but I could do this. I just had to—
“Never!” Lily yelled.
I yanked my head around, blinking furiously, to find her stumbling through the black door with Leo in tow. They looked rough, covered in dust and soot with their hair in tangles. When the big guy’s gaze fell on me and then Hook, everything about him hardened.
He charged forward, pushing past the approaching first responders as though they were nothing. “Are you okay?” he bit out.
I nodded. “But Hook...”
He stared down at him for half a second before hauling the other man’s body up and over his shoulder, and not gently. Then he took off running, ignoring the shouts and warnings of police as he broke through the tape line. I followed, racing after him until strong fingers clamped around my upper arm, wrenching me in another direction.
“Not that way,” Lily snapped. “We need to split up.”
Instead of arguing or questioning, I did as she said, following her quick footsteps away from the carnage. My heart wanted to go wherever Leo was taking Hook, but Lily was right.
Throwing a glance over my shoulder, I checked the scene behind us. “We’re not alone,” I said, turning forward and putting on a burst of speed to keep up with her.
“Good.”
We’d split up to give us all a better chance of getting away. Given the number of uniformed officers I’d seen trailing after us instead of them, their odds had just gotten a whole lot better.
We ran until every step made my legs shake and every breath felt like shards of glass scraping down my throat. When we came to the fourth—or maybe it was the fifth—locked metal gate meant to keep people out of the narrow walkways between the old buildings, I almost didn’t make it over. The sharp finials along the top caught on my jeans, and I lost my balance, hitting the ground on the other side with an indelicate groan.
I rolled into a loose fetal position and laid there for a second, dragging in breaths that felt like a special kind of torture.
“Get up,” Lily said, her voice commanding.
“Trying,” I breathed.
But I wasn’t. I needed a minute to make sure my heart wouldn’t explode and my lungs wouldn’t collapse. Just the thought reminded me of the way Hook’s bones had moved and shifted under my weight, and I turned my face into the filthy pavement so Lily couldn’t see my pinched expression.
She crouched beside me, breathing heavily but nowhere near as desperate for air as I sounded to my own ears. Not that I could hear a whole hell of a lot over the whomp-whomp-whomp of blood rushing through my veins.
Lily didn’t say anything as she waited. She just rested at my side, watching the world beyond the metal gate. I have no idea how long I laid there like that trying to get my shit together, but when I finally dragged myself to my hands and knees, I could actually breathe again.
It hurt. Everything the cool air touched on its way down seemed to burn, but it was better than it had been.
“I don’t know how much more I can run,” I confessed.
She stood, holding out a hand to help me up. “Then we walk. It looks like we lost them anyway.”
I rolled back onto my heels and took her offered hand. “Thanks.”
She tipped her head back a little as she pulled me up. Over the last three weeks, I’d come to learn that was her way of saying I was welcome.
* * *
I paced a line across the living room. Hours had passed since we’d made it back to the apartment, but Leo and Hook were still nowhere to be seen.
“What if they got caught?” I asked.
Lily shot me a look before shaking her head. “Leo wouldn’t let that happen.”
Not intentionally, but even he could only fight off so many people alone. Add in the guns police officers carried, and the odds weren’t exactly in his favor.
Why the hell did it have to be like this? Nothing I tried to do went right. No matter what I did, I couldn’t even get close enough to my brother to have any hope of saving him. Hook was here, that was something, but helping me had gotten him blown out a window.
“I’m cursed,” I muttered, not realizing I’d said it out loud.
“So?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.
“So, everything I touch turns to shit. Maybe you three should just, I don’t know.” Leave. Go home. That was what I meant to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to give voice to the words.
“Being cursed isn’t the end of the world.”
I shot her a sardonic look. “Right, and how did my great-grandma’s curse work out for you?”
Low blow, Never. Why couldn’t I just keep my damned mouth shut?
To my surprise, Lily laughed. “I’m still here. I reunited with my cousin, and I’m still hanging out with my favorite human, even if she has become a little more neurotic over the past few weeks.”
“Your favorite? Really?” She might have meant it as a joke, but it tugged at my heart strings.
Lily’s expression melted from sarcastic to genuine as she twisted on the couch, throwing her arm over the back of it to get a better look at me. “You heard me.”
Huh. “I always assumed Matty was your favorite.” The two had certainly spent more time together than she and I had over the last few years.
Her fingers drummed slowly against the worn upholstery, running from pinky to index and back again. “He always needed more companionship than you did.”
Meaning he was lonely. I winced. “I know I was gone a lot.” But I had bills to pay. Food to buy. It took two jobs to keep us above water.
She shifted to her knees, resting her elbows on the back of the couch. “He knew why. The kid might make some questionable teenage choices, but he’s no dummy.”
The handle to the front door rattled, and just like that, I was ten kinds of tense again. Lily got up off the couch quietly, coming to my side. Leo and Hook could be out there, but it could just as easily be the shadow trying to find its way in. If it succeeded in overpowering my brother for good, our apartment would be that thing’s first stop.
The handle rattled again before a loud knock just about made me jump out of my skin. “A little help?”
My heart twisted and soared as I tripped over myself to get to the door and let Leo in. When it swung open, I was greeted with the sight of a very tired looking Leo supporting a barely conscious Hook. The second they were through the door, I snuck under Hook’s other arm and helped move him to the couch.
We set him down as gently as we could, but when he started to fall back, his head lolling, Leo caught him gently by the back of the neck and guided him down onto his side.
“His head is still healing,” he said quietly.
I glanced at the clock, then at Hook, dread bleeding through my initial sense of relief. “It’s been four hours. When he was injured on his ship, he was considerably better in just two or three.”
Leo took the oversized chair next to the couch, letting out an exhausted sigh as he sank into its softness. “That was there. This is here. Besides, he’ll heal faster with rest.” He laid his head back, then rolled it to look at Hook. “And now that he’s closer to you.”
“What does that mean?” I had no magical abilities. Unless sarcasm, snark, and cussing like a sailor counted.
“I tried to get him to rest longer before we came here, but once he was conscious, getting to you was all that mattered.”
Hook’s eyes were closed, his face slack. I wasn’t sure he could even hear us. Still, I sank down on the floor beside him and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. His chest hitched for one brief moment, but that was the only sign he gave that he’d felt anything.
Turning my attention back to Leo, I eyed the full length of him slouched in the chair. “Are you okay?”
He looked at me for several seconds, his expression filled with conflict. “I’ll live.”
“Thank you for getting him out of there. I couldn’t have done it—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I didn’t do it for you. Atlas and I have been friends for longer than you’ve been alive. Generations longer. We might not see eye to eye on things all the time, but I wouldn’t have left him there whether you were involved or not.”
As cutting as those words came out, it was a relief to hear them. The last thing I wanted was to come between friends, and I knew some of the earlier tension between them had to do with me. But the other thing, about just how long they’d known each other, was a vivid reminder of how my time in Hook’s life would never meet that measure.
So, I didn’t respond, other than to give him a brief nod.
Lily moved to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. By the time she brought me a mug, Leo was out cold in the chair.
“I should be telling you to get some rest too,” she whispered.
I took the steaming mug with a grateful smile. “But you know me better than that.”
“Yep. Just like I know you’re going to camp out right there until he wakes up.”
“That’s the plan.” I took a sip of the coffee, hissing as it burned my tongue. “Can’t sleep anyway. Not with everything that’s happened.”
She came back with her own mug and sat down on the coffee table. Then her gaze shifted slowly from Hook to Leo. “He never had a chance with you, did he?”
Guilt slithered through me, hot and embarrassing. “No,” I whispered.
“Did he? Before?” She motioned to Hook.
I took a minute to really think it through before I responded. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to Leo physically. The guy looked like a bronze god. He was also sweet and thoughtful and patient. He was everything a woman should want.
But he wasn’t Hook.
My broody pirate had ruined me.
I shook my head, giving her the silent truth.
Reaching up, I took Hook’s hand, lacing our fingers together. He skin had a worrisome ashen tint, but his skin was surprisingly warm. “I wish there was something more I could do,” I said, more to myself than to Lily.
“You have the pendant. You could try using it to help him heal faster.”
Great idea, in theory.
“Except I don’t know how to make it work.” I was pretty sure the thing helped me heal faster after catching my own dagger in my back, but it had done it without any input from me and mostly while I was sleeping.
But hey, it wasn’t like it could do any more damage. Right?
I thought about that long and hard before I slipped the chain over my head. Loosening my grip on his hand, I dropped the small, precious pendant between our palms before squeezing my fingers tight.
“Has he really only been here a day?” I asked.
She smirked over the rim of her coffee cup. “Feels like forever, doesn’t it?”
It really did. “What are we going to do?” I meant it in the grander sense.
How would we capture the shadow? How would we separate it from my brother? What would we do with it then?
And what would happen to Hook, Lily, and Leo if we succeeded in those things?
I was so caught up in my spiraling thoughts that I didn’t feel the pendant growing warm in my hand or notice the faint glow slipping out from between our intertwined fingers.
“We’re going to get him back.”
My head snapped around at the sound of Hook’s raspy voice, relief and joy and fear all warring for dominance in my battered chest. He squeezed my hand gently but didn’t give me that trademark smile I was longing to see.
Was he thinking the same thing? Were all the what ifs threatening to drive him mad, too?