I realized too that I’d always begrudged it. Even when I’d stood on that cliff, it crossed my mind before I jumped—that by becoming Grigori, by becoming his partner, I was not only helping him but also ensuring that we’d never be together.
Thinking of him directly, I had a surge of nearness. Lincoln was close. My body reacted, my power reacted, knowing he wasn’t far. It was like I was starving for him. The human and the angel. How could that be?
Steph rattled out the address and as she did, the craziness of it all settled in and her words slowly registered. My eyes looked up and across the road to what was now an abandoned building.
The senses erupted within, encouraged by knowledge, my angelic part now on the hunt.
“Oh. My. God.”
“What?” Steph asked on the other end of the phone just as Spence said it from right beside me.
“It’s across the road,” I replied, answering them both. “They’re across the damn road.”
• • •
I could have cursed myself for not trying to pinpoint the senses when we first arrived at the hotel. I could have blamed myself for not using my connection to Lincoln earlier. I could have felt responsible for putting Spence in direct danger as I charged into the hotel elevator with him, desperate to get to Lincoln in time. I could have done a lot of things.
Instead, I thought of the time that Lincoln had asked me to tell him I loved him. My mind went back to that terrible day when I first became Grigori, to healing him and feeling completely connected to, and yet disconnected from, him. Everything was wrong for us that day—but it was the one day he’d told me the most. The day he’d confessed he cared. That, like me, he’d fantasized about us being together. I could almost hear his words.
“I had planned everything—the candles, the lilies.”
Since we’d sorted everything out after I became Grigori, we’d settled on just being friends—it was the only option—but Lincoln had always kept a vase of lilies in the warehouse. Always white—my favorite. When Griffin had commented one day, Lincoln just smiled and told him they brightened the place. But he’d glanced at me, his eyes green and perfect, glistening with something that we both knew deep down was our secret.
There were lots of things I should have been thinking. Tactical thoughts would have been sensible, but in that elevator and running through that lobby full of pretentious rich people who would never get it, everything came down to one simple thing: there was no limit to what I was willing to do for him.
No limit whatsoever.
In the lobby, I pushed past the businessman who thought the world revolved around him as he paced in the middle of the walkway on his cell phone. I jumped over the Louis Vuitton luggage that had been dumped near the entrance, and I didn’t even spare a glance for Spence. I threw all of my strength—which was way too much—into the front entryway doors before the designated doorman even reached for the handle, and flung myself through them into the street as the shattered glass fell to the ground behind me.
Franticness overtook. I wasn’t going to let Lincoln do this—especially if part of him felt like he was doing it to protect me.
The doorman yelled at me to stop. I was too fast.
I understood this choice better than anyone. It’s not that I regret the decisions I’ve made, but if I’d had another choice…It would have been nice to have had another option.
The visions that had tormented me at that old farmhouse taunted me again. The decisions that were made in that desert when I embraced. The choices that haunted me in my dreams and plagued me when awake.
It seemed so obvious now—of course it was my greatest fear.
I was hurling myself into the road, dodging traffic on a busy six-lane street as I remembered how I’d rammed my own dagger into myself. How sharp the point had been, how easily it had sliced into my flesh, how easily I had forced it in. I had struck myself down with that killing blow, and it wasn’t the question but rather the answer that disturbed me. A car honked, another swerved, and all I could think was:
I’ll never know.
I’ll never really know who I killed that day.
It was agony to admit that on some level, I honestly believed I really had killed part of myself—my humanity. As I became more and more powerful as Grigori, I feared my humanity was slipping farther and farther away, and that frightened the crap out of me.
I would not, would not, would not let that happen to Lincoln. I reached the other side of the road and gasped desperately for air. I wasn’t tired at all, but I felt as if my insides had seized and my lungs had compressed with the terrible truth. I had no idea who I was.
I straightened, took one final gasp, and then I pulled myself together.
Remember the rules, Vi: no quitting, no running!
Spence leapt into position beside me, cars honking like mad. He didn’t speak. What was the point? He knew we were going in. Nothing in this world was going to stop me, and he was along for the ride. No invitation issued or required.
I wasn’t about to let Lincoln do something that might make him later question his beautiful humanity, the very light that shines out of him at all times. I simply wouldn’t allow it. There were no limits anymore; there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect that—because I knew.
I wouldn’t quit on Lincoln.
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.”
Carl Jung
The front door to the building, or rather the massive piece of rotted, flaking plywood that was covering the entryway, had already been partially ripped off and was hanging loosely from the last few nails.
I could sense the exiles clearly now. We pushed aside the makeshift door and entered. I paused to focus my senses.
“What now?” Spence whispered.
“They’re upstairs,” I said without breaking concentration. They were directly above us. I drew into my power—not just my senses, but beyond.
It was like the night at Hades when I’d felt Onyx and Joel coming, like what I had started to feel at the airport—as if some element of myself, not physical, was being lifted off the ground.
I became somehow separate from myself, able to go anywhere I wanted with just a thought. My senses moved through walls, rooms, and ceilings. Capable. Powerful. I moved upstairs, faster than my body could carry me, and found them. A group of exiles. Lincoln and Magda. They were already fighting.
I came back to myself and felt disoriented. A sensation not dissimilar to the car sickness I’d felt earlier overwhelmed me momentarily.
Spence was right up in my face and I had to step back to reinstate the required distance. His brow was furrowed. He was looking at me like some kind of puzzle he couldn’t work out.
Join the club.
“There are four of them.” But I knew more than that—I knew, for example, that three of them had been angels of dark, but that the other must have been Nahilius because he had been an angel of light. I recognized one as the exile we’d let go that night at the farmhouse. It was strange. I couldn’t see him, recognize him by his look or characteristics; it was more of an internal signature.
It was all connected. This was my proof. Phoenix. Somehow he was calling the shots. The thing I didn’t understand was: How? Surely everything couldn’t have just fallen into place for him so perfectly?
“Spence, they’re already fighting. Magda has two, and Lincoln is fighting the other two, one of them being Nahilius. Listen”—I grabbed his shoulder—“none of them are all that powerful. This is weird. I mean, Phoenix is behind all of this. Why didn’t he send exiles who would be more of a threat?”
“Maybe they have weapons too?” Spence suggested. But I couldn’t see that.
“Maybe.”
“So? How do you want to play this?”
Sacrifice is a funny thing. Someti
mes the less time we have to think about something, the more we’re willing to do. Maybe if I’d had the luxury of time and consideration, I would have made a different decision. I’ll never know.
I didn’t tell Spence everything, just the part he would play. It’s not that I particularly thought he’d have a problem with it, but, well, I didn’t want him to jump the gun.
“Let’s go,” I said, already moving.
We ran up the stairs and into the open first level. The floor had been stripped bare, right down to the concrete. Stray electrical wiring hung from the ceiling. Everything of any kind of value had been taken, and the rest, it appeared from the piles of ash that were all over the floor, had been burned to keep squatters warm in the winter.
Buildings like this don’t stay vacant for long in the city. There was nowhere to hide, no partitioning walls or desks to scramble under, so Spence and I ran right into the middle of the action.
We moved straight past the two exiles Magda was fighting off without pause. She didn’t stop fighting or let down her guard, but she saw us. And I saw her register…surprise.
Spence and I kept moving forward, sticking to the plan.
Spence threw himself into the fight with the exile who was grappling with Lincoln, which left Lincoln with only Nahilius to concentrate on. Lincoln moved in on Nahilius, who was clearly outmatched. I was surprised to see how battle-shy this infamous exile was. Maybe when he’d had the help of the other exile, he had had a chance at holding off his opponent, but now it was one on one and Nahilius had no game.
It could have been because Lincoln’s force was unrelenting as he threw solid fist after fist into Nahilius’s face—and by the state of the other exiles, had already been there, done that—but I had not seen such lame fighting from an exile before.
I was just getting centered when Lincoln screamed something. I think it was, “Magda!” but I can’t be sure because it was overruled by a god-awful crack and boom that reverberated through the building.
Gunfire isn’t a sound normally associated with fighting exiles, so it threw everyone. We all paused, a super-fast intake of what had just happened. Magda had shot one of the exiles she was fighting.
It was crazy to think all of this had taken place within a few seconds of Spence and me coming up the stairs.
I heard Lincoln yell, “Get out of here!”
I assumed the order was for me. I ignored it.
The exile who had been shot—in the throat, of all horrific places—writhed on the floor, screaming while gurgling on his own blood.
It was wrong. Magda could’ve returned him; instead, she’d chosen this torture.
Grigori exist to get rid of exiles. We have to take whatever steps are necessary to protect human life, to guard free will, and hopefully not get killed in the process, but nowhere in the job description does it say torture and maim. That’s what exiles do. It is one of the all-important distinctions. Griffin had told me that very thing.
Magda had just crossed the line.
Blood flowed from the exile’s neck freely for a few moments before it stopped. He was already healing, but that didn’t make it okay.
I refocused on the job at hand. Lincoln was still pounding into Nahilius, who surprised me by getting in a few hits to Lincoln as well.
Magda screamed out, “Shoot him!” and Lincoln’s hand went to his waist. I could see his dagger and the handle to what must have been another gun poking out from his jeans. He pulled out his dagger.
“Get out, Violet!” Lincoln growled at me.
But I was exactly where I needed to be.
Gun or dagger, it made little difference. I looked over to Spence, who had the upper hand in his fight, but I could see he was getting carried away.
“Spence! Hurry up!” I yelled.
An instant later, Spence grabbed the exile’s arm and twisted it behind his back. He yelled to the exile to make a choice but didn’t even wait for an answer before securing the exile and releasing his power. He drove his dagger into the exile’s lower back and sliced upward. Just like that, Spence’s exile disappeared. Simply gone.
It was now or never.
I released my power and crossed my fingers.
An amethyst mist—not unlike billions of tiny airborne crystals—lifted from me and dusted the room. Each minuscule crystal rotated smoothly, searching out all corners and then dissolving the moment it made contact.
I heard Spence gasp. It had to have been him. Lincoln and Magda had seen my mist before.
I didn’t stop or lose concentration. I just kept pushing it out until I had each exile in my control. My eyes focused on the room and the mist settled, though a small showering of it remained around me, following my every movement. It was part of me.
The exiles were frozen, paralyzed but aware of what was happening. I started to take small steps toward Lincoln.
Before any of us could move farther, Magda plunged her dagger into the exile she was fighting, the one she hadn’t shot. It was the one from the farmhouse, and while I felt no love lost, I still thought he should have been entitled to his choice. Magda hadn’t given him a second glance.
Lincoln looked at me when I took another small step in his direction, then turned his attention back to Nahilius. One hand in a white-knuckled grip around his dagger, the other hand fisted tightly. Magda screamed out again for Lincoln to kill Nahilius, and when Lincoln glanced at her, I took my chance.
I lunged forward at top speed and my fist went right into Lincoln’s face.
Normally, a move like this was not advisable. Lincoln is near unbeatable, and even on a bad day, he’d see it coming. But this wasn’t a bad day—it was his worst. Channeling all my force into that one hit, the impact was enough to throw him off-balance. I didn’t waste the advantage of surprise and swiftly moved in with another hit to his face. I didn’t think—I just did it.
The dagger dropped from his hand and he collapsed to his knees.
One more, Vi. Make it good.
Lincoln’s eyes, full of surprise, lifted to meet mine as I pivoted around and swung my foot across his face. The impact was full force again and he went down completely.
“What the hell are you doing?” Magda screamed, but by the time I looked over to her, Spence was already holding her back. Just.
“Nice gun, Magda,” I said. “You plan on shooting me too?”
Magda looked at me with shock, then down to the hand that was still holding the gun, now pointed at me. She lowered her arm and tried to shrug Spence off. Bless him, he just kept holding on.
“Lincoln is my partner.” My eyes were flitting between her and Lincoln. “Now back up, unless you’re going to use that thing,” I said, looking at her gun again.
She jolted free of Spence’s hold—he let her this time—and walked a few steps away.
I turned back to Lincoln and knelt beside him. He was coming round. I didn’t have long.
I called on my power again, hoping I’d be able to keep my hold on the remaining exiles while also doing this. I focused on the healing element and sent it out to Lincoln, feeling the power travel into him. I sent it to his heart. I hoped that, just as his powers had sought out the pain in my heart the other day, my power might be able to do the same and even ease some of the pain in his.
I needed to bring him back to me.
My will worked its way through him, touching his heart and even deeper, to the fiber of his soul. But it was waiting for something. To strip away some of Lincoln’s fear and pain, I also needed to fill the void, send something to take its place. There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t have, good reasons too, but in the end, it was easy.
I sent him love.
I pulled the gun from his waistband and slid it over to Spence, who stopped it with his foot.
Lincoln opened his eyes. I took his dagger in my hand.
“Violet. What’s…What’s going on? You knocked me out,” he said, sounding perplexed.
I smiled sadly. “Linc, we all have to make choices.” My hand instinctively went to his face, soothing him. “They’re not always easy. Now you get to make yours.”
I stood, all business now. “But this is how it’s going to work.”
“I don’t understand.”
I walked toward Nahilius, who remained silent. He was watching what was going on, eyes darting between where Lincoln and I were to Magda and Spence. He could move a little, and talk too, if he wanted to—but he didn’t. I could almost see his mind working, looking between everyone, searching for the weak link.
“If you want to kill him, you’re going to have to ask me to do it,” I said, raising my hand to show I was armed with his dagger.
“Violet, you don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t be ridiculous.” He started to get up.
“If you get up off the floor, I’ll kill him,” I said, trying not to flinch at my own words.
“This isn’t your battle,” he snapped at me, but he didn’t get up off the ground.
“I would rather it was me than you.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because, Linc, I need you to make the good decision.”
His green eyes locked on mine. “You healed me, didn’t you?” His hand went to his heart. “The tightness…the…”
“Pain. I didn’t heal it; I just eased it…and, and you’re an idiot. You don’t have to carry all of this on your own,” I said, a combination of hurt and anger seeping into my words.
Holding the dagger out, my arm started to tremble. I was growing weak from keeping the exiles at bay and healing Lincoln.
“Coming from you, that’s—” he started, but I cut him off.
“I’m not going to let you do this.” I forced the shaking to stop and showed him nothing but resolve.
He let out a small cry. “He’ll kill you!” he crackled through less than a whisper, barely audible. “I can’t survive it.”
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