I wanted to drop to the ground, crawl over, and cradle him in my arms, tell him everything would be okay. But that would be a lie. I didn’t know if things would ever be okay, for any of us. And somehow, I knew trying to explain to him that Nahilius wasn’t the problem wouldn’t help. I bit down hard on the inside of my lip. I bit until I drew blood and felt the sting. I forced the control and stood my ground.
“If you kill him, it will change you. Forever. Trust me…” I stared into the nothingness, that place that I could go. “I know.”
He looked at the ground. “That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
I shook my head at him, desperation mixed with stubbornness taking over. “Well, I’m not!”
Lincoln, increasingly confused, looked from Nahilius to me. He was suffering so badly, the cruel burden of inherent protector weighing him down.
My only chance was to turn things around, give him a way to save us both.
“You’re not the only one who will pay the price for this decision. Don’t you get it? Since the trials…Since…that day.” I struggled to hold my voice as I fought back the memories trying to invade. “The only time I find myself—me—is in you.”
Truth stung my eyes and I quickly blinked the tears away and forced fresh ones back.
Now is not the time for leakages.
“If you do this, you’ll be gone and what will happen to me?”
Please, let this work.
“You don’t need me to know who you are,” he said, quietly, not able to look at me.
“Of course I do. When one soul is lost, how can it ever find itself again if not in its—”
“Counterpart,” he finished, astonished. He was looking at me now, the cogs turning behind his vivid green eyes.
“Yes,” I confessed, relieved yet terrified I was admitting what I knew.
We were silent, both wondering where to go from here. Confusion built in Lincoln’s face as he battled an internal war.
“Lincoln,” Magda said smoothly. “Violet is young. She doesn’t understand. Nahilius won’t stop and you won’t get another shot at this. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Her voice was honey sweet and more dangerous than any beesting.
Lincoln’s eyes were darting around the room frantically. He would do what he believed was best. He would protect me at all costs; I knew that now. Just as I would him.
“I will not hunt you,” Nahilius said, surprising everyone.
He looked like he wanted to say more, but my arm was shaking badly now. I was out of time. I mustered all the strength I could and turned on Lincoln again. “Decide. If you don’t make up your mind in five seconds, I’ll kill him.”
Please, please, please let this work.
It was the only option. If it had to be one of us, I would rather it was me. I was already broken.
“One…two…three—”
“Wait!” Lincoln screamed. “No, Violet. Don’t!” He dropped his head and lowered his voice. “I don’t want this.”
I let out the breath I was holding and relaxed my arm, still fighting to keep my hold over the other exiles.
He stood. “I’m so sorry.”
I took a step toward him, my shoulders dropping with relief, but I flinched when from behind me, Nahilius screamed, “No!”
Even spinning around at inhuman speed didn’t get me there in time to see or stop any of it. All I saw was Magda standing behind Nahilius, the tip of her dagger coming through his chest.
“Bitch!” Nahilius moaned, staring straight at me as he fell to his knees—but before they hit the ground, he was gone.
I was startled by the venom in the one word intended for me until I realized I had no right to be. I had held him in that immobile state, threatened his life, and then, when I was finished with him, had done nothing but turn my back in time for his end.
I am a bitch.
Spence watched, hands stuck midair, mouth open. He didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t blame him, nor did I. We’d wanted to stop them from using guns and Lincoln from killing Nahilius for the wrong reasons. We hadn’t considered things beyond that. It’s not like we were planning to send the exiles off at the end with a pat on the back.
It was Lincoln who walked over and stood on the spot Nahilius no longer inhabited.
“Magda, you had no right.”
But Magda stood tall as she sheathed her dagger. “I had every right, Lincoln. I helped you do this in your way and let you make the call, but he’s an exile and that’s our job. I’m not sorry for that.” She stormed away toward the stairs. “I’ll be downstairs when you two are done with your reunion.”
Spence chose this moment to walk over to the final exile, who had been wordlessly recovering on the ground from his gunshot wound. He glanced at me quickly. He wasn’t asking permission—Magda was right: this was our job description—he was checking that I wouldn’t object, which I didn’t.
Spence drove his dagger into the exile heart. It was over quickly.
Lincoln and I watched on silently.
“Um…” Spence said, looking awkward. “I think I’ll go hold Maggy’s hand. She seems a bit wound up.” He was giving us space.
Lincoln pulled me in for a hug as soon as Spence was out of sight. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“You haven’t.”
“I guess not. I’m sorry,” he said, his words thick with emotion as he held me close, breathing deeply. I could have sworn he was breathing me in. “I couldn’t let him get to you.”
“I know. It’s over now.”
He pulled back from the embrace. “Hey, you didn’t…You know…When you healed me…you didn’t have to—” But he didn’t get a chance to finish. It’s too hard to talk when someone is kissing you.
It was wrong, totally.
But it was right, completely.
Our souls were connected. I realized when I reached within my power to help heal Lincoln’s heart that I shouldn’t be able to do it. Phoenix may be able to have a physical connection with me, even tamper with my emotions, but all of that was related to the senses, to external forces. The soul is the only part that is eternal, that transcends the fabric and goes beyond, into the tiniest fibers of our very existence. My soul belonged to Lincoln’s as his belonged to mine. Did that make everything okay? Open the doors to happily ever after? Of course not. There would never be a guarantee, just a feeling, and that wasn’t enough. Not for the risk.
But I kissed him anyway. I opened my power to him. Not for healing purposes, but for a brief liberation. I was nervous he’d pull away and I felt him hesitate for a moment, but then just as my power had opened to him, his power flooded into me. Finally, we could no longer deny the truth to each other.
Even if it is just for this moment, it’s perfect.
I pulled away from him but kept my arms around his waist. Not wanting to break contact yet. For once, things were as they should be. He knew I loved him; I knew he loved me.
We didn’t say it wouldn’t last. That there was too much at stake. And we didn’t pretend it wasn’t real. One stolen moment that would punish me later. Painfully.
It was a sentence I was prepared to serve.
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
On the way to the airport, Spence and I filled Magda and Lincoln in on everything. They knew some from what Griffin had told them but hadn’t heard the latest updates about the plane or the destination.
“I can’t believe you went to that aircraft hangar without me,” Lincoln said. But he was only concerned, not accusatory. I was struggling to follow, anyway. Lucid thoughts were hard to hold on to. He was still holding my hand, his thumb running over it back and forth, gently. I couldn’t stop counting. I was up to sixty-three. Sixty-four.
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“It all comes back to Phoenix,” I said, my voice catching. The lies and omissions had to stop. Lincoln could handle it and he deserved the truth. “It was Phoenix who brought back Nahilius.”
Magda swung around from the front seat with surprise before landing a sour look on me.
Jesus, she hates me to the extreme.
Lincoln was shocked too, but I kept going.
“He set it up to distract you. He wanted to separate us.”
Lincoln’s free hand fisted tightly. I heard his breathing deepen, the way it does when he’s fuming about something. Of all people to use Nahilius against him, Phoenix was the worst. In the end, Lincoln just nodded. He got it. I wasn’t going to rub it in.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Spence was texting on his phone constantly, and Magda didn’t acknowledge us again, but I knew she’d heard everything. I was guessing she was pissed it wasn’t her holding Lincoln’s hand right now.
Can’t say I felt bad for her though.
As we neared the airport, Lincoln squeezed my hand and shuffled the tiny bit closer to me that the backseat would allow.
“Thank you, Vi,” he whispered.
It wasn’t only him that swallowed hard. I knew what he was saying, how big it was. Saving someone from doing something so horrific, something he would never have been able to come back from—I knew how much it meant. I was glad I could save him. It felt a little like rescuing myself too.
The taxi pulled up outside departures and we all got out, except for Spence. He was still busy typing away on his phone.
“You guys go on. I’ll see you when you get back,” he said, barely looking up.
Magda had already walked on ahead, not concerned at all with what any of us did right now.
Sulking much?
When Spence realized we hadn’t moved on, he looked up and gave us a cheesy grin.
“It’s fine. Seriously. I get it: no partner, no ticket. It’s okay. I hear Jordan sucks, anyway.” He pulled the taxi door closed and went back to his phone. “See you guys later,” he said through the open window.
The car drove off and Lincoln, still holding my hand, started to walk toward the entrance to the departures area.
“You think he’s really going to let this go?”
“Not a chance,” I answered.
But before we could start to speculate as to what Spence was up to, my phone rang. I would have had to let go of Lincoln’s hand to pull it out. I didn’t want to. Once the connection was broken…I knew this wasn’t forever and wished I could hold on a little longer. But then, Lincoln let go of me.
“I think that’s you,” he said, smiling as my heart sank, thinking that it seemed so easy for him.
I guess that’s that.
“Hello?” I said.
“Violet, tell me you’ve got them,” Griffin said.
“Yeah, we’re at the airport. Where do we go?”
“You’ll have to run. We’re already on the runway and they want to take off. Don’t go through the commercial terminal. Come around the southern end of the building and through the security gates there. There’s a uniformed soldier there, Lieutenant Marks, who’ll get you through. Don’t say anything to anyone.”
“Do we need passports?” I said, suddenly panicking I’d made a critical error.
“No. Just get to Marks fast and you’ll be okay. Hurry!”
I was already running with Lincoln beside me keeping pace. We couldn’t see Magda; she had gone on ahead into the commercial building.
After a couple minutes of running way too fast for normal humans, we spotted the security gates and had to slow to a walk—there were more people around. We picked the official who had to be Lieutenant Marks because he was uniformed and already looking straight at us. As soon as we reached the gates, he said something to the security officers, who then nodded at us. Marks waved us in and was already jogging toward the runway. We followed suit.
When we hit the open tarmac, Marks pointed to a large green plane that had at least a dozen military personnel standing guard around it and was stationary on the runway. After a quick nod, he started back in the opposite direction.
Lincoln took the lead and we ran to the back end of the plane, which was still open. Griffin was standing there with a guy dressed head to toe in camouflage greens.
“You the last two?” the army guy called out over the roar of the engines.
“No!” Lincoln yelled back. “One more on the way!”
We looked behind us but could see no sign of Magda.
The soldier looked back to Griffin. “Sorry, but we have to go or we’ll lose our slot! Your friend will have to get on a later flight. We have a transport plane headed to Jordan tomorrow. Any stragglers can get on that.”
Griffin clearly wanted to argue, but the army guy was too busy pushing us all toward the stairs as a military truck was driven up the ramp.
“That’s all of ’em!” yelled the driver as he jumped out and started back down the ramp. “You’re good to go!”
The soldier ushered us farther inside and hollered into his radio.
“All clear for takeoff! Doors up!”
Then he gave Griffin a salute, which Griffin aptly mirrored in response, and disappeared up toward the front of the plane.
When the doors closed, things became much easier to hear.
“Right,” said Griffin, looking at Lincoln and me, and then down. We were no longer holding hands but somehow, without noticing, we’d moved so close, we were touching from shoulder to elbow. “You’d better tell me what the hell’s been going on,” he said, as we followed him through to the upstairs section of the double-decker plane.
It was amazing—not as big as the Antonov Phoenix had been using, but it was still cool. Spence would have been in heaven. The cargo area was pretty standard, but upstairs was more similar to a commercial plane, though the seats were a lot bigger and there were desks scattered between them. Griffin stopped at the first set of seats arranged like a four-seater booth. Everyone else was already on the plane, seated and buckled. Nyla and Rudyard were opposite, Zoe and Salvatore back a couple of rows behind them.
Lincoln and I filled Griffin in on what had happened with Nahilius. I became nervous when I had to mention the guns, but Lincoln stepped in and explained. He took responsibility for everything and didn’t skip over anything. He really was feeling like himself again—always the martyr.
Griffin honed in on the most significant issue instantly. “So Magda has guns these days,” he said in a flat tone.
Poor Griffin. He looked exhausted. He’d been running all over town trying to organize us, as well as the entire city. Magda should have been helping him, not putting a gun in Lincoln’s hands.
“Griff, this is on me. Don’t blame Magda. I was out of control. She was only trying to help me,” Lincoln confessed, bowing his head in shame. I fought the urge to contribute my opinion on the matter.
“Yes, well, we’ll deal with that later. Let’s just get to Jordan and find these Scriptures.”
Griffin pulled a file from his bag and sat down. From the looks of it, he wanted to be left alone.
“Buckle up for takeoff,” a male voice said over the PA. It was weird to hear what sounded like an order instead of a polite airline flight attendant.
Lincoln took my hand again and I exhaled, as if sated by just one touch. He pulled me toward the back of the plane. When we passed Rudyard, he put his hand out and grabbed my free wrist.
“Are you sure?” he said to Lincoln as much as to me.
My eyes grew wide, my mouth quickly dry. I was about to explain, to say that we knew it was too risky, when I looked at Lincoln. He was smiling.
“We’re hungry, Rudy. We’ll talk later,” Lincoln said and started to pull me toward him again. Rudyard kept hold of my wrist. He didn’t say a
nything; he just held it for that extra moment, squeezed a bit tighter, and then slowly let me go with a thoughtful smile that I couldn’t decipher.
Lincoln stopped at the pantry at the end of the cabin and handed me a banana I knew was for him and chips I knew were for me. I was somewhere between astonished, elated, and…petrified. Lincoln looked happy. He grabbed a couple bottles of water and we settled into the back seats behind Zoe and Salvatore, who after each saying a quick hello, left us in peace.
Is this possible? Does Lincoln mean to keep his hold on me for more than just now?
I went through the motions, buckling up and eating my chips in a daze, trying to work it all out. We were soul mates—I was almost sure of it. But as always, there was that voice, the one that pulls everything apart, whispering in my ear.
Are you sure enough? Sure enough to let him risk his power? I stared out the window. Damn.
Phoenix was probably on his way to Jordan too. No one had sensed him or any other exiles at the airport; they’d gone somewhere. It was never going to be easy. We are Grigori—angel warriors who deal with the angel realm’s castoffs, the egotistical riffraff—but now, for the first time, there was a possibility we could face it together. Partners in every way.
If you’re right. And if you’re wrong, he’ll never forgive you.
Lincoln snacked on his banana, stealing one of my chips every now and then, and we chatted for a while. I tried, unsuccessfully, to focus when he asked me how my dad was doing on his trip, which only reminded me I needed to call him. We talked about how I would miss school and that it was good Steph could help me catch up. As we sat there, in a military airplane on our way to fight exiles for Scriptures that had been lost so long they were almost forgotten completely, Lincoln told me about a rock-climbing trip he’d seen advertised. He thought we could go together and use it for training.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, only that his arms stayed wrapped around me the entire time. For the first time I could remember, when I dreamed, the sun shone brightly and the world was as it should be. A dream.
In the end, though, we all wake up…Don’t we?
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