Chapter 22
Talon, Cassian, and Nathaniel parked their vehicle on the other side of the forest strip. The moment I hear that, everything clicks into place.
“So that’s why you ran from there?” I ask, pointing toward the wide expanse of trees. “How far away is the car?”
Talon shifts under my arm and adjusts his grip to support me better.
He’s helping me walk after the fight, and it’s insane how fast the pain rises to the surface once the adrenaline drains and you finally take inventory.
I’m bruised everywhere, and something in my back hurts badly enough that standing straight feels like punishment.
“Not that far anymore,” he replies.
I glance back over my shoulder at the rest of our group. Nathaniel drags the killer along by the rope like he’s hauling livestock, the man bound and taped up. Cassian walks close at his side, while Hailey and Lila trail behind them.
We told the girls they were free to do whatever they wanted.
If they chose, they could head back to the road and call for help using the killer’s phone.
Instead, they decided to come with us. I think they’re trying to find their footing in the world again, and somehow we feel like the safest option they have right now.
Going back with us means Nathaniel can give them the medical care they actually deserve, and aside from the very real problem of twelve supernatural beings, the place is secluded.
I’ve already made my decision. If they do end up there with us, I’m going to tell them what I am. It isn’t a secret, and they deserve that truth if they’re going to make an informed choice about staying close.
We keep moving for another thirty minutes.
It is the kind of cold day where some blades of grass crunch under our boots, and the air turns my whole face red.
Luckily, the chill dulls the pain a little, and I welcome it.
My cheek still throbs from the malfunctioning gun that nearly burst in my hands, but the cold takes the edge off.
My neck is another story. I do not think there is any helping it. I can feel the violet bruise forming there already, and something tells me it intends to stick around for at least a couple of weeks.
The bright side is that I am still here.
I try to take that as a fact, not as something to celebrate too hard. I know I am supposed to take my predicament as it comes.
When we finally reach the road, I’m caught off guard.
“This is our car?” I ask, staring at a huge black bus.
Talon hoists me up to the entrance and pulls the door open. “It’s a long story,” he mutters. “Let’s get you inside first.”
The moment I step in, I spot two people I can’t decide whether I’m relieved to see or would’ve preferred never to see again. The murderer’s wife is there. The second murderer of the day. And Mark, the third murderer, if we’re keeping score.
A lovely welcoming committee.
They’re tied to their seats in two separate sections, muffles stuffed in their mouths. Mark has a black eye that’s already swelling down his cheek. I meet his gaze and lean against the seat two rows in front of him, not looking away as I lift an eyebrow.
“I’ve had a really shitty twenty four hours, Mark,” I say. “But believe it or not, I actually managed to completely forget you existed.”
He screams something through the muffle. I don’t bother listening. I slide over to the window and let the glass take my attention instead.
In the reflection, I look like shit. Truly. I don’t think I’ve ever looked worse. My hair is greasy, my face is ghostly, and the whole of me looks worn out in a way that isn’t even remotely flattering.
I’m about to turn away when a screamer in the form of Alex pops up behind the window.
“Jesus Christ.” I jolt.
She floats through the glass and sits down next to me. Or, well, pretends to sit. You know how the whole metaphysical thing works.
“So, they’re both here,” she says, just as Nathaniel drags the male murderer inside. He hauls him past me and Alex, forces him into a seat at a safe distance from his wife and Mark, then starts tying him down. “Two disgusting swines.”
“Well, don’t offend the swines,” I mutter.
She looks at me and scoffs. “You’re right.”
Cassian climbs onto the bus in the meantime and drops into the seat directly in front of mine.
He flicks a brief look at Alex, then turns back to me like he has decided that’s where his attention belongs.
He angles his body in a way that cannot possibly be comfortable, pressing his bare back to the cool glass. The honey in his eyes never melts.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I reply.
It goes on for maybe five more minutes, him staring at me like that, before his eyes finally close. His whole body loosens, heavy all at once, and he slides down onto the second seat.
I stand up so fast the bus tilts and the dizziness hits me hard. My first instinct is to catch him, to hold him, or at least shift him onto his side so he doesn’t just fall wrong. Then I remember what I am and what he is, and how laughably outmatched my muscles are against that kind of weight.
So I settle for what I can do. I lower him as gently as possible and ease him into a safer position.
“Um, Nathaniel?” I call. “Cassian just passed out.”
“Yeah, let him be,” Nathaniel calls back. “It was just a matter of time before it happened. I’m just glad he made it to the bus.”
“Could you help me lay him down better?”
“Let me,” Talon says, already moving. He tucks Cassian’s shoulder into a better position, adjusts his legs, and settles him so he’s not folded awkwardly against the seat.
I watch the whole thing, a little stunned by how effortless Talon makes it look.
“You make it look easy,” I say.
He snorts.
“I handled lots of drunk people back in the day. This is pretty similar.”
Not long after, Hailey and Lila climb onto the bus, and suddenly we’re basically good to go.
I still have no idea where the hell this bus came from, or why all three of my men look like they’ve been dragged through literal hell, but for the next couple of hours, nobody asks questions. Nobody even tries.
We’re too exhausted.
Nathaniel passes out blankets to everyone except the killers. I take mine and curl in without thinking. The last thing I register is Cassian’s slow, heavy breathing in front of me. Then sleep takes me, and I drift out.
I wake up when it’s dark again.
Talon is asleep beside me, slumped in the seat where Alex used to be. Cassian is still in the exact same position Talon left him in, which can only mean Nathaniel is behind the wheel. I move my neck carefully, already bracing for the kind of pain that makes the room tilt and my stomach drop.
But surprisingly, nothing happens.
I lift my hand and press my fingers to my throat anyway, checking for the sting I’m expecting. Imagine my surprise when there’s no swelling under my touch, and the contact doesn’t hurt at all.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
The inside of the bus is dark. Not a single lamp is lit, and the only illumination comes from the moon and the passing highway lights that slide in and out through the windows.
I turn toward the glass and try to catch my reflection, but everything outside is moving too fast, the view smearing and shifting, and I can’t make out anything clearly.
“Talon,” I whisper, laying a hand on his shoulder. He is wrapped in the blanket, but beneath it he is burning to the touch. “Hey, Talon…”
He doesn’t wake up. I try to shake him, but I can’t. It isn’t that he’s heavy or unresponsive in the way a sleeping person is. It’s me. I can’t put any pressure on him at all, as if my strength just refuses to transfer.
My hand doesn’t pass through him either. It simply stays there, suspended, like I can neither touch him fully nor slip through him. My eyebrows draw together.
What is going on?
Before panic can take root in my chest, a voice calls to me from the back of the bus.
“Come here, Skye,” it says.
I stand and peer into the darkness, trying to see who’s speaking, but it’s too dark to make out anything beyond the shapes of seats and shadow.
The sound of it is so familiar that fear doesn’t even occur to me. It feels like something I should know, like it belongs to me the way my own hands do.
And yet I still can’t place it.
Something prickles at the base of my skull. Before I can think better of it, my body is already moving. I slide through the narrow gap between Talon’s legs and the seat in front of him, then step into the bus aisle.
“Is this a dream?” I ask, though I do not really know why.
It is not in my nature to throw my doubts into the open like that. Usually, I keep them close to my chest. They stay within me, where they are safe, where other people cannot use them against me. This time, though, the question spills out anyway, as if I have no say in it.
“Not quite,” the voice replies. “But it’s not the waking world either.”
“Is that so?” I reply.
My legs carry me toward the back of the bus, one step at a time. I pass the sleeping girls, Mark, and the two killers without slowing.
As soon as I move beyond them, the aisle seems to stretch into something longer than it has any right to be, and the row of seats that should mark the very end of the vehicle sinks into a darkness deeper than the rest of the space.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“I’m here,” it replies, as if nothing has changed at all.
I take a few more steps, and my destination finally emerges from the shadows.
It looks like a bench with someone sitting on it, a bench that has no business being inside a bus.
Made of natural wood, it stands with its back to me.
The person on it sits the same way, shoulders turned away, offering me nothing but the line of their spine.
“Come sit here with me,” the person says.