Chapter 12
Iwake in a different set of clothes, my hair being gently fussed with. Someone is combing fingers through it.
My eyes crack open.
Nathaniel sits beside me on the bed, his knees touching the mattress. He gently brushes the strands away from my face.
Cassian is by the door finishing the last loops of some tactical knot in his boots. Talon’s in the bathroom. Mark is tied on the floor, glaring at the ceiling.
The beds are put together, and it’s clearly bright outside.
“What… are you doing?” My voice is a rasp.
Nathaniel’s thumb sweeps across my scalp, smoothing hair away from my forehead.
“Taking care of you,” he says. “We need to go soon.”
“What?” I blink. “What time is it?”
“Six.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I ask.
“You were exhausted. You didn’t even stir when I cleaned you up.”
“Cleaned me up?” I echo.
He nods.
“With a warm cloth,” Nathaniel says quietly. “You were a mess. Everywhere. And you were shaking in your sleep.”
I move my legs. There’s no wetness there anymore. Heat floods my face.
Of all the things to wake up to, this is somehow the gentlest and the most mortifying.
Nathaniel reaches for something on the nightstand.
A small foil packet.
He holds it delicately between two fingers.
“Good that you’re awake,” he says, tone shifting into something much more focused. “I wanted you conscious before we handle the last part.”
“…The what?” I croak.
He taps the packet lightly.
“I need you to put this inside your vagina,” he says.
My soul briefly leaves my body.
“Excuse me—“
“It’s a probiotic suppository,” he continues. “You had a lot going on in there yesterday, and I don’t want you dealing with a pH imbalance on top of everything else. This will help prevent infection.”
From the floor, Mark makes a muffled, utterly disgusted noise, like someone just described open-heart surgery.
Cassian doesn’t even look up as he leans down and smacks the back of Mark’s head.
“Don’t make that fucking noise,” Cassian mutters. “It’s basic anatomy, you absolute manchild.”
Nathaniel presses the pill gently into my palm. “Go put it in. Then come back. We need to leave in five minutes.”
My blush reaches my spine.
But I take it. Because of course I do.
This body has needs. Consequences. And apparently, even when I forget that, Nathaniel doesn’t.
I push myself up, blanket slipping, and grab it with one hand. I head for the bathroom just as Talon steps out, toothbrush in his mouth, cheeks puffed with foam. He leans against the doorframe.
“Hey there, sleeping beauty,” he purrs around the toothbrush. “Sleep well?”
I ignore him and storm inside, shutting the door with more force than necessary.
There, I do what Nathaniel told me to do. Fast.
Then I brush my teeth with a toothbrush that’s already waiting for me.
I stare at myself in the mirror and exhale.
The person looking back blinks like she’s still not sure she exists.
My hair is smoother. My skin looks less dead. My eyes look… wildly alive, in the worst way.
I’m really living the reckless life here, aren’t I?
Let’s see how far that will get me.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if all those wraiths came to life while we’re out here?” Talon asks as we climb back into the car.
Funny isn’t the word I’d use. Tragic, maybe. Predictable, considering the trajectory of our lives. But not funny.
Cassian doesn’t say anything. He just turns the key.
The engine rumbles to life.
The sky is bluer today. Almost like it could be a nice, pleasant day. That is, until it hits me: today we’ll reach the murderers, and we still don’t know exactly where or when.
Somewhere far ahead on this ugly road, a white van cuts through the same air with two girls in the back.
Somewhere around it—or above it—other crows are watching.
And soon, when she decides the timing is perfect, Alex will deign to appear and tell us every detail of our mission right down to the dot.
Guess what, though?
Rhea still hasn’t shown.
You’d think the woman who strong-armed me into this whole “kill them for us” situation would at least make an appearance before the main event. But no. Just crows and cold and the feeling of walking into something blindfolded.
Just great, right?
Talon twists in his seat and rummages through a plastic bag he grabbed from the trunk.
“All right, children,” he announces. “Breakfast of champions.”
He tosses something at us without looking.
A protein bar hits Nathaniel in the shoulder.
Two hit me square in the thigh.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“You’re welcome,” Talon says, far too pleased with himself. “Eat up so you don’t faint from low blood sugar when we go risk our lives again.”
Nathaniel picks his bar up from the floor, while I unwrap mine and take a bite. The cardboard texture is immediate.
Cassian adjusts his seat slightly. He doesn’t look at me, but his hand is still resting on his thigh, palm up. Waiting.
I unwrap his and place it in his hand.
He takes it, but before he brings it to his mouth, he shifts closer and looks at me.
A silent question.
He wants me to feed him.
God help me.
My pulse skitters. I break off a small piece of the bar and lift it toward him.
He doesn’t move, so I have to lean in and press it to his lips.
He parts them and takes the bite straight from my fingers. His mouth brushes my skin, and he closes his eyes for a second, like the simple act rewires something inside him.
When he finishes chewing, he licks a crumb from the pad of my fingertip.
I break off another piece. This time he leans in and takes it from my hand himself, lips dragging across my knuckles, tongue flicking briefly against the side of my finger in a way that absolutely should not feel as obscene as it does.
“You must be very hungry,” I murmur.
“You can say that.”
He opens his hand again, palm up, like he’s asking for more.
“It looks like it,” I say.
“I suppose I was thinking about something last night,” he replies. “Must’ve spiked my hunger.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I turn around to look at the others.
Nathaniel pretends not to listen from the passenger seat.
Talon is absolutely listening and doesn’t even pretend otherwise.
“This is going to be my last job,” Cassian says.
I nearly choke.
“What?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me. He stares straight ahead, jaw locked, knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
“I’m done,” he says. “After we catch them.”
The engine hums. The road stretches out empty ahead of us. The sky looks harmless. Everything inside me tilts sideways anyway.
I wait for him to elaborate, because this can’t mean what it sounds like.
But he does.
“This is the last time I hunt anyone,” Cassian continues. “The last time I put you in danger. The last time I put any of us in danger.”
And I… I…
I don’t know what to say.
Because ever since I met him, he’s been the hunt. Like it runs so deep in him I’m pretty sure there are little hunting particles in his blood.
Behind me, Talon stops chewing. Nathaniel’s head snaps around.
They weren’t expecting this.
That’s even more shocking. Cassian didn’t even discuss it with them.
“Cassian,” I whisper, “what are you talking about?”
“You heard me,” he says, finally looking at me. “It’s who I was. I’m not the same person anymore.”
Talon leans forward between the seats. “You wanna run that by us again, Captain? Because this feels like a conversation you maybe should’ve included your mates in.”
Nathaniel says nothing, but his silence is loud.
Cassian’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine.
“I’ve made up my mind,” he says.
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
Talon sits back slowly, staring at Cassian through the mirror.
“So what—after this, you retire?” Talon scoffs. “Do what, exactly? Teach self-defense to stressed suburban moms? Open a gym with money you don’t have? What are we talking about here?”
Cassian keeps staring at me.
“After this is over,” he says quietly, “I’m going to move somewhere no one recognizes me. Somewhere small and forgettable. I’ll find a shitty job. I’ll disappear.” He looks back at the road and swallows, then his eyes drift to the mirror. “And if you want to join me… I’d be honored. All of you.”
The car goes silent.
Even Mark seems frozen.
It’s not every day Cassian uses a word like honored. I think it hits all of us somewhere deep.
Talon’s the first to respond.
“Huh,” he muses. “Nothing stays the same forever, am I right?”
Nathaniel exhales.
“I don’t hate the idea,” he admits.
Talon tilts his head. “You serious?”
Nathaniel nods once. “We can always break the system once we’re dead.”
“I mean, yeah…” Talon huffs a laugh. “That shit’s eternal, right? What’s a couple decades’ delay?”
“Skye could forget all about this jackass, her ex,” Cassian adds.
“Live some quiet life, huh?” Nathaniel supplies. “At least for a while.”
“We could buy new identities… I know a guy who could help,” Talon says. Then he glances at Nathaniel. “Hey, man, maybe you could start practicing again? You’re, like… the most qualified among us. That’s gotta pay decent.”
I swallow hard, because none of this is funny.
And all of it is overwhelming.
A future?
I told Nathaniel last night that it wasn’t meant for us. Now I turn and look at him. He just shrugs.
“One could always try,” he says.
It sounds like he’s replying to Talon, but it’s for me.
Try.
Try.
I… I want to. Of course I want to. But… how?
I turn my face toward the window, needing the cool glass, needing something that isn’t the suffocating weight of hope suddenly foisted into my hands.
Outside, the world slides by in strips of muted blue and gray. Low stretches of highway. The shadows of clouds skimming across the asphalt.
When I don’t reply, the conversation dies. They don’t push it, even though Talon’s leg has started bouncing and hasn’t stopped once. Still, time tilts sideways after that.
I stay quiet for the most part.
Worry and hope tangle together in my head until I can’t tell which is which.