CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CADI
The door to the office bounced off the wall with a bang that echoed down the hallway.
Cadi leaned against Sera, letting her friend support her weight as she guided her into the room.
Sera lowered her down onto the thin cushion of the threadbare armchair pressed against the wall, while Cadi still clutched her bleeding hand against her chest. The front of her t-shirt was completely saturated, the crimson soaking into the blue fabric and turning it a sinister shade of deep maroon.
“I don’t know what happened,” Sera snapped into her phone, holding the device between her ear and shoulder as she tugged Cadi’s injured hand over her head. “But it’s bad. Cadi is hurt. You need to get to The Crow, now.”
She ended the call and tossed the phone onto the desk with a loud thunk before turning back to Cadi. “Hang tight, I’ll be right back.”
Without another word, she darted out into the hall, leaving Cadi alone in the silence of the office.
She shuddered as a trail of blood slid down her arm, the feeling like a spider crawling over her skin.
Looking around, she found a box of tissues on the table beside her and gathered up a handful, pressing the soft paper against her arm to stop the flow as best she could until Sera returned.
Pain ignited behind her ribs, and the feeling of her heart being yanked forward stole the air from her lungs. She pressed her palm against her sternum and winced at the mocking reminder of Oneirios’s claim.
This had to be a dream, or a nightmare. Anything but real. If she had just stayed at Sera’s, none of this would have—
Everyone had warned her, told her to stay put, but she hadn’t listened. She’d thought her friend was in trouble, that she could help. Instead, she’d walked right into Oneirios’s waiting jaws.
She needed something familiar, something she could feel to assure her that not everything was lost. Squeezing her eyes shut, she searched for any remnant of the gentle flutter.
The soft, ever-present sensation of comfort that had once been a strange, random nuisance was now possibly the only thing keeping her tethered to sanity.
A quiet sob broke from her lips when she felt the tiniest ripple behind the place where Oneirios’s hook now sat.
It was faint, but it was there, raging against the forced binding that seemed bent on smothering it.
Fresh tears began to trace down her cheeks, and she fisted the sopping fabric of her shirt, determined to hold on to that feeling as long as she could.
Hurried footsteps in the hall broke through the quiet, drawing her attention to the door, where Sera reappeared with a stack of towels, a bottle of clear liquor, and a long metal tin.
She rushed to crouch down in front of where Cadi sat and placed the bottle next to them on the floor.
After laying one of the towels across Cadi’s lap, she gently guided her injured hand down to get a better look.
The tin popped open with a metallic snap to reveal an at-home suture kit complete with rows of needles, thread, scissors, and forceps.
“I always gave Elias so much shit for keeping these things around,” Sera said, her voice tight as she readied her supplies for the unpleasant task ahead of them. “I told him that if anyone got hurt on the job we’d just go to the doctor … I’m glad he didn’t listen to me.”
She looked up and fixed Cadi with a steady stare that made her stomach go tight. “This is gonna suck.”
That was the only warning she gave before pouring a stream of alcohol over Cadi’s hand.
Cadi cried out at the searing pain that lanced up her arm when the liquid coated her exposed nerves, trying to yank her hand away on reflex. Sera’s grip on her arm tightened, holding her in place and muttering soft reassurances. “I know, sweetie, I’m sorry.”
She pressed the soft fibers of a towel against Cadi’s palm, clearing away as much of the blood and booze as possible before it pooled fresh against her skin.
“It won’t get much better when I start stitching, and I don’t have anything to numb you, so …” She handed Cadi the bottle. “This is the next best thing, I guess.”
Cadi wrapped her fingers around the neck, pressed the bottle to her lips, and took a deep pull. She coughed, grimacing as the liquid burned down her throat and slid into her stomach, warming her instantly. It was better than nothing.
A sharp pinch beneath her fingers made her hiss through her teeth.
She looked down and saw Sera threading a silver needle through her skin, pulling the nylon taut to draw the wound closed.
The room spun, and Cadi’s stomach churned, threatening to deposit its contents all over the floor of Elias’s office.
Leaning against the armrest, Cadi squeezed her temples and pressed her eyes shut to keep from blacking out through the sickening sensation of her skin being pulled in all manner of unnatural directions. She drew a deep breath in through her nose, then pushed it out through pursed lips.
“I know,” Sera repeated, “just a few more.”
Cadi tried to focus on anything other than what was happening to her hand: beaches, mountain streams, puppies. Nothing worked. She needed something else to distract her.
“Was that Elias?” she asked through clenched teeth. “On the phone?”
Sera shook her head, not breaking her focus from her work. “Kai. He and the others are on their way.” She paused for a moment, placing a hand against Cadi’s knee. “Elias will be here soon, babe.”
Cadi gave a tight nod, then turned away again as Sera moved on to the next suture.
After countless minutes and several swigs from the bottle at her feet, the nauseating pressure in Cadi’s palm disappeared. A dull throb remained in its place as Sera pressed a strip of gauze to the wound, then covered it with a tan bandage.
Sera’s hands shook as she started to clean, repeatedly dropping scissors and towels until she finally stopped and gripped the end table so hard her knuckles blanched.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Cadi felt something inside her crack at the pain in her friend’s voice, but she didn’t understand. Sera had gotten her out, stitched her up, taken care of her. If it hadn’t been for her, Cadi may very well still be sitting on the temple floor, bleeding onto the stone.
Sera met her gaze, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I couldn’t get to you. I should have tried harder, should have pushed more, but I—”
Her voice cracked, and she dropped her eyes to the floor between them. With her uninjured hand, Cadi reached out to grip Sera’s shoulder with a strength that felt foreign and wrong.
“This wasn’t your fault.”
She felt herself say the words, heard her voice, but all of it was hollow. As if it no longer belonged to her, but to someone else who didn’t exist anymore. Sera gave her a shallow nod and drew the back of her hand beneath her nose as she sniffled.
A crash from the hall made them both jump. Cadi let out a grunt of pain when her fingers squeezed the armrest of the chair and the fresh stitches in her hand strained against the movement. Then a familiar voice screamed her name.
“Cadi!”
A second later, Elias burst through the door, freezing at the threshold when his eyes found her. His wild panic dissolved into devastation as he took in the blood that soaked her clothes, her tear-stained cheeks, and the fresh bandage covering the hand that had sealed her fate.
“No …” he whispered. His voice broke against the word as he stepped toward her, and she pushed up from the chair, ignoring the painful protest in her hand.
“Elias,” she started, but no other words had a chance to break free before her knees buckled, and the weight of everything crashed through her to pull her down.
It was as if her body had been holding itself together by the thinnest thread, waiting for him, refusing to let her crumble until he was there to put her back together.
Elias rushed forward, winding his arms around her to stop her fall. He guided her to the couch on the opposite side of the room and lowered them both down before he pulled her tight against him.
She broke. Sobs tore through her, tears stained the fabric of his t-shirt as she cried, clinging to him like a lifeline.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed between tattered breaths, “I tried to get out. I couldn’t. I promised. I’m so sorry.”
Elias’s arms tightened around her, gripping her with a strength that almost hurt. His chest shook like he was barely holding himself together as he pulled back and took her face in his hands.
“Why were you there, Cadi? You were safe at Sera’s, why did you—” The fracture in his voice was reflected in his eyes as he looked at her.
Cadi shook her head, confusion and despair tangling her words. “The text.”
Elias’s face pinched, and he brushed his hand against her cheek. “What text?”
“She said she got a text that I was in trouble,” Sera chimed in from her spot by the door. “A text from you.”
Elias let out a breath. “But I—”
Cadi watched the bewilderment on his face shift to bleak comprehension as he dragged a hand over his mouth.
“My phone …” he muttered.
“What?” Sera asked.
Elias turned to look at her, the lines of his face hardening. “They took my phone.”
“Fuck,” Sera cursed, threading her fingers behind her head as she started to pace. Cadi’s eyes flicked between them, the fragmented pieces of what they were saying refusing to fit together in her mind.
“What do you mean? Who took your phone?” she asked.
Elias shifted to face her, opening his mouth to speak, but his reply was cut off when the edge of panicked voices drifted from the hall, pulling their attention to the door just as Kai and Seth barged into the room.
Cadi stared at them in shock as she took in the torn fabric of their tactical clothing, the red and brown caked to their boots. Kai slumped against the wall, his head tilted back as he gasped for air as if they had run there from the hangar.
“Where are the others?” Sera demanded, her eyes wide as she stepped forward to push the door closed behind them.