by Tara Fuller
I clutched my blade and gripped the door handle. If Rok or one of his soul-eating minions thought they were going to collect Gwen, they had another think coming. I’d burn before I let that happen. I’d slaughter every demon from here to the portal before I let that happen. Damn the consequences. What were they going to do? Sentence me to Hell? Little late for that.
The next round of pounding began, and I jerked the door open, blade raised and ready. A tall, lanky body topped off with dirty-blond curls barreled into the room and caught himself on the dresser. My eyes widened in shock, and I dropped my blade.
“Jesus…”
“Close.” Scout looked up at me through a swollen eye and managed to smirk. “You want to shut that door? I went through Hell to get up here. Literally. Can’t promise some of it didn’t follow.”
I stepped into the hall and did a quick check before shutting the door behind me. I turned back to Scout, who was watching me with a serious expression. Scout never looked serious. That combined with the fact that he was here didn’t bode well for me. I holstered my blade, refusing to give in to the panic rattling my insides.
“Balthazar sent you,” I said.
He wiped blood from his lip with the back of his wrist and laughed. “No shit, Balthazar sent me. Can you think of another reason I’d haul my ass this deep into Hell?”
I let my head fall back against the door and closed my eyes. I should have been glad he was here. He could take Gwen back to where she belonged. It would be harder to find Tyler without her, but I could do it. At least I had a lead now. It should have felt like a relief. It didn’t. As much as I hated to admit it, walking away from her was going to be a new kind of Hell for me. I knew it’d be difficult, but with the idea staring me in the face, it felt impossible. I’d never had anyone make me feel the way Gwen did. I’d never had anyone make me….feel. Losing her meant going back into the dark, numb place I’d lived in for nearly five hundred years. I fought the urge to rub my chest where it ached.
“What are you even doing down here?” Scout asked. “Do you have any idea the kind of storm you’ve started up there? You vanish into thin air, abandon your duties, and run off with a freaking angel. You and I both know he never expected you to take her this far. He thought she’d be back by the end of the day.”
I opened my eyes and pinned him with a cold glare. “You know exactly what we’re doing down here.”
“The kid?” His brows knitted together. “You are risking everything for that freaking kid?”
“You mean the kid you left down here?” I snapped. “The kid that is going through unimaginable torture as we speak because of a mistake you made? Is that the kid you’re referring to, Scout?”
He swallowed, and his face paled under his bruises. Bruises he’d likely gotten as payment just to find us. Which meant someone else knew where we were, too, and I was guessing it wasn’t Rok. With the promise of me special delivering souls to his doorstep for the foreseeable future in exchange for hiding us out, there was too much for him to lose. Which meant this place wasn’t safe anymore.
“How did you find us?” I finally asked.
“You’ve been dragging an angel through Hell with you,” he said, drily. “You’re not exactly flying under the radar.”
“I was careful.”
“Yeah?” He raised a brow. “Not careful enough. That little succubus downstairs is singing your praises as we speak. Can’t stop talking about the reaper that tastes like an angel. You’re lucky I got up here first, because she’s getting them all riled up down there.”
Guilt and regret were like lead weights piling up inside me.
“She gave me a lead,” I said, not recognizing the sound of my own voice.
“So you let her feed on you?” Scout asked. “Jesus, man, this isn’t you. What is going on with you?”
I ground my teeth together, despising the shame I felt. “I did what I had to do. End of story.”
“You let her feed on you?” a small voice asked from the crumbling bathroom doorway. My stomach dropped, and Scout’s eyes widened as he spun around to get a look at the angel behind him. Gwen stepped into the room when I didn’t answer. She’d know if I lied. My heart gave a hard kick against my ribs, making sure I felt what I was about to do to her. I’d spent days protecting her from a world full of sharp edges and nightmares and none of it mattered. In the end, I was going to be the one to hurt this girl.
“Yes.”
“H-how?” She folded her arms across her chest. “How did she feed on you?”
“You know how they feed, Red,” I combed my hair back off my forehead with my fingers and looked away. “I had to kiss her.”
“When?” Her voice quivered, giving away the hurt inside. The hurt I caused. I fought the urge to fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me. Her hating me would be better. Loving me…it would be her end if I let it go on.
“Last night.”
There. It was out there. I was an asshole. I’d kissed someone else. Let Gwen suffer to give me an ember of her light…and then gave it away. I allowed that cold, dead leech of a creature to suck it right out of me. Gwen’s eyes flashed with pain, and she took a rough step back.
“After…” She closed her eyes, and a tear trickled past her lashes and down her cheek. “After we…you…”
After her very first kiss…
“After you what?” Scout looked back and forth between us. “Oh, holy fu—”
“Shut up, Scout!” I kept my gaze on Gwen. She flinched at the sound of my voice, driving a new needle of pain through my heart.
“Look…I’m all for you pulling the stick out of your ass and finding a girl, but…” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Balthazar’s daughter? If he finds out about this…if he doesn’t already know…you’re finished. You get that, right?”
I met his gaze head-on, and something in my eyes made him back away. “You think I don’t know that?”
Gwen rushed forward, stopping herself before she touched me. “No! You don’t understand. It was all me. I kissed him. He didn’t want to. He doesn’t even like me. He doesn’t like anyone. You of all people should know that.”
“Normally, I’d believe you, but the fact that he’s here with you speaks volumes.” His gaze raked over Gwen, taking in the black leather, her glowing skin, and the brilliant red hair falling loose around her face. His gaze dropped to the shard of glass in her hand, and he smirked. “Can’t say that I blame him. Good girls gone bad are pretty hot.”
When her cheeks flushed, an involuntary growling sound erupted from me. Before I could rein in the sudden flash of anger, I shoved Scout across the room and stabbed my finger in his chest.
“Don’t ever talk about her like that. Ever.”
Scout looked at me with wary eyes and slowly held his palms up in surrender.
“Jesus, man… I’m sorry. Okay.” He looked at Gwen. “I’m sorry.”
“What does Balthazar want?” I asked.
“What do you think he wants, Einstein? He wants both of you. Like yesterday. You were supposed to scare her into running home. Not kidnap her.”
Gwen looked up at me, eyes pleading. “What about Tyler? We can’t just leave him. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
She was right. Neither of us would ever be at peace if we gave up on him when we were this close. I returned my attention to Scout.
“Take her back,” I said. “Tell Balthazar I’ll report for punishment after I’ve gotten the kid and taken him back to where he belongs.”
Scout shook his head. “It’s not going to be just a punishment. Not this time. You brought his daughter this far in, Easton. What did you expect?”
“I know.”
“No!” Gwen grabbed my arm, and my eyes shut as a jolt of relief washed over me, quenching my thirst, healing me. “I’m not leaving. I won’t leave here without Tyler. And there is no way you are facing Father without me. He has to understand that I forced you into this. That it’s all m
y fault. If I had never interfered in the first place, kept Tyler in that café, none of us would be here.”
I opened my eyes and reached up to stroke the soft curve of her face. The memory was all I was going to get when this was done. I had a feeling it wouldn’t do the real Gwen justice.
“I could have said no, Red,” I said. “I could have walked away.”
She narrowed her gaze on me. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I wanted…” I raked my fingers through my hair, then linked them behind my neck, trying to find the words. Why hadn’t I walked away when I had the chance? Because deep down…I wanted her. I wanted her from the first moment I laid eyes on her.
“You wanted what?” she prodded.
I dropped my hands to my sides. “You. I think I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you, out there on the street. You didn’t look at me like I was a monster. Like I was death. You looked at me like I was…more. How the hell was I not supposed to want you?”
I finally stopped the spill of words from my mouth. They weren’t things I ever would have admitted out loud under normal circumstances, but if this was the final good-bye, what did I have to lose? When I got back to Balthazar, there wouldn’t be a chance for any of this.
“You are more,” she whispered.
I pulled Gwen against me and pressed my lips to her hair. This girl who made me want so much. This girl who had managed to break through the wall I’d spent the last five hundred years constructing around my heart. I had to let her go. Keeping her would only prove how selfish I was.
“You’ve got to go, Red,” I said into her hair, feeling another section of the wall come down. Pain was quick to replace the numbness, rushing over the rubble, drowning me from the inside out. Scout looked at me like he’d never seen me before. I rolled my eyes and flipped him off behind Gwen’s back, trying to mask the feelings inside.
“No!” She pushed away from me, that look of misplaced determination back in her eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. You don’t get to say things like that to me, then expect me to leave you down here all alone.”
I paced across the room, growling. “You don’t want to go where he is, Gwen! You don’t want to see that. I don’t want you to see that. You need to go back to your father. You need to go back to where you belong.”
“I…” Her eyes glistened. “I belong with you.”
I stopped and met her gaze, and a brand-new crack split off a piece of my heart. “As much as I wish that could be true, it’s not. You belong somewhere better than I’ll ever get to be. We both knew this was never going to work when this was over. You need to go home.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” she said, folding her arms.
“Do you have any idea how irritating you are when you’re being this stubborn?”
“You said you liked it when I was stubborn,” she said. “You said I was brave and that I made you smile.”
I threw my hands up. “Then it was temporary insanity!”
Scout stepped between us.
“As much as I hate to interrupt this bizarre yet entertaining lover’s quarrel,” Scout started, “I can’t go back without you two. I’m already on thin ice with the big guy. What do you think he’s going to do to me if I show up empty-handed?”
I stalked to the window and braced my hands on the ash-coated sill, looking out the bleary glass at the streets of Hell. Below us a constant war raged with millions of souls on the losing end. In the distance, the glow of the city faded and an icy storm raged. It wouldn’t be easy, but if we had Scout with us, we might have a chance at getting out and keeping Gwen safe. It wouldn’t take long to get to the Meat District. Less than a day. If we hustled we might have a chance at getting Tyler before the furnace blew again. And then this could be over. I could take Gwen home myself. Take whatever Balthazar had to give. I turned to Scout and Gwen, who were watching silently as if they were ready for me to snap. I brushed the ash from my hands onto my pants.
“Let’s go get the kid.”
Chapter 19
Gwen
“First you make me sneak out of that nightmare of a club by sliding my ass down a melting roof, and now you’re parading me through the streets like a freshly cooked turkey. I probably smell like a freaking rotisserie to these scumbags,” Scout mumbled behind me, hand on his blade, ready. “Jesus…I’m sweating. I definitely don’t miss sweating.”
He wiped his face on his shoulder, and Easton chuckled as I dodged a passing demon on the street. “This coming from the guy who possesses humans for fun on the weekends.”
“I like to smoke. I like to eat pancakes. I like climbing into the backseat of a 1969 Camaro with a living girl every now and again. I don’t like sweating my balls off in the pits of Hell.”
In front of me, Easton looked back over his shoulder. “You don’t have to be here. You could always go back and try your luck with Balthazar.”
Scout glanced at me and shook his head. “I pick ball sweat.”
Easton winked and returned to navigating through streets packed with restless demons and tortured souls. Steam and relentless currents of pain whistled as they escaped cracks in the street. I focused on each step, watching my ash-dusted boots skip and dodge the sweltering heat seeping up from the crevices in the ground. It was easier than looking at the horrors unfolding all around me. Not that the two reapers forming a tight barrier around me were giving much of a chance to see or be seen.
We followed Easton around a corner, and he came to an abrupt halt. A wall of chained souls stretched across the road in front of us, wailing as a band of mismatched demons drove them to their knees with whips and blades. They cackled as each fell to the ground, buckling under the pain. Needlelike sensations pricked my insides, making my stomach churn. I slapped my hand over my mouth and stumbled back. Scout caught me by the shoulders. Easton turned to face us, his lips pressing into a thin line. He nodded to Scout, and we backed up far enough to be swallowed by the crowd.
“This is your plan? Are you crazy?” Scout said, fear glazing his bright blue eyes. “Do you really want to end up like them?” He motioned to the line of souls, then wiped at a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. “They’re going to know what she is,” he said. “I mean…look at her!”
Easton holstered his blade. “It’s the only way to the Meat District.”
Scout laughed, pushing the hair off his forehead. “Do you even hear yourself? The Meat District? We are willingly driving ourselves deeper into Hell to get to the Meat District. For what? A kid who’s going to be the equivalent of ground beef when we get there!”
Easton shoved him back a step, a warning in his eyes. “We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you.”
“Right,” Scout sneered. “Keep blaming it on me. I’m the one who dressed the boss’s daughter up like a sex kitten and dragged her to the pits of Hell on a suicide mission.”
Anger flared around Easton like an explosion, but I couldn’t hear the steady stream of words flying from his mouth. I only heard the crying. Small and innocent and youthful. A baby. There was a baby here. Horror and panic burned through the barrier of common sense telling me to stay put. The hollow sadness in the sound drew me in like a siren’s call. I turned away from the two bickering reapers and let it pull me through the crowd. I kept my head down, squeezing the leather-wrapped shard of glass in my hand so tightly it bit into my palm.
At the edge of the street, the crowd parted and a black baby carriage caught my eye. I quickly scanned the area to ensure no one was watching me, then rushed to the carriage on broken wheels. Inside, a tiny, pale face looked up at me. Soot colored his cheeks and a pile of ash rested around his toes. He blinked up at me with eerily empty eyes, then began crying all over again.
I reached inside and slid the baby into my arms. He felt all wrong. Bony and cold, his eyes flat and dull. He didn’t feel like I’d always thought a baby would feel, plump and warm and wiggly all over. He didn’t squi
rm, only cried. I cradled him to my chest and smoothed my palm over the back of his bald head, cooing, singing, anything to give him comfort. He rested his cheek against my heartbeat as if listening to the sound, then nuzzled closer.
“My baby!” a shrill voice cried. “Please. Please…”
I looked up to find a woman watching us, hands clasped to her chest, chained to a pole, just out of reach. Tears carved tracks down her dirty face. She reached out, wanting. I looked down at the baby and back to her.
“Is he yours?”
“Yes!” Her eyes were wild, darting around the crowd and back to me. “Now, please give him to me before it’s too late!”
I took a step forward. “Too late for what?”
She jerked on the chains, mangling her wrists even further. “You don’t understand. He’ll come back! He always comes back. You have to give him to me…”
She dissolved into sobs. I could feel her pain. A pain deep and cutting and ancient. How long had she been like this? Being tortured by her baby crying just out of reach? It was barbaric. I started forward, keeping the baby hidden against my chest, and a burning hand grabbed my elbow to stop me.
“Gwen!” Easton reeled me back, farther away from the hysterical mother. “What the hell? I turned around and you were gone. Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
I could tell he was trying to stay calm, but he didn’t look calm. He looked like a man about to fall apart. I reached up and stroked his cheek. Instant relief washed through him, quenching his worry. He grabbed my hand, pressed it to his chest.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he whispered. “You can’t run off like that. Not here.”
I nodded and dropped my hand back down to the crying baby against my chest. The need to fix this, to eliminate the pain for this baby, for his mother, it was a living thing inside me. I couldn’t stop it. It’s what I did. It’s who I was. His eyes looked weary as he realized what was happening.