Noah’s hand grips mine and leads me through the foyer to the library. Everyone is pretty much where we left them.
Where Eli and I left them.
I feel my knees go numb, my body begin to crumple.
Noah grabs me, holds me up. Victorian, despite the glares and threats from Noah, is at my other side.
“What is it?” Jake says, striding toward us.
“The Fallen. They got Eli,” Noah says. His voice is laced with fury. Eerily calm, barely contained fury.
“What do you mean, ‘got him’?” Jake asks.
I look up and meet Jake’s green gaze. The memory of what I saw rushes back, hits my gut like a brick. “I’m gonna be sick,” I say, and pull from Noah’s grasp. I bolt for . . . anywhere, stumbling, my hand over my mouth. I’m lost, trying to find a bathroom, a trash can. Plant. Door. Anything.
In my next breath I’m swept up and Jake is running through the Crescent. I close my eyes because my head is now spinning. He eases me to the floor, kicks the toilet lid up with his foot, and holds my hair back. I wretch and wretch until I cough.
Coughing turns into sobbing. I break. I can’t help it. I try not to but . . . it happens.
I totally break down. Even while it’s happening, I know I’m allowing myself this one weakness. This one snap. I’ll let it all out, then be done. None of it will help bring Eli back.
At the sink, with Jake still holding my hair back, I throw water on my face and rinse out my mouth. He hands me a hand towel and I dry off, then our eyes lock in the mirror. Even Jake’s face seems ashen.
“It canna be,” he says, his unusual accent washing over me. Comforting me somewhat. “Tell me.”
With my hands propped against the sink, my head drops forward and the tears fall. Pain surges up from my insides, seizes my gut, my throat, and escapes on a noise even I can’t define. Wailing cat. Singing whale.
Mourning human with tendencies.
Uncontrolled sobs rack my body, my shoulders shake, and I feel myself sliding downward again. And once more Jake scoops me up and I allow it, just this once. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I bury my face into his chest and he rushes . . . somewhere. I don’t know. Don’t care. He’s using more strength than he probably realizes to hold me close, because I’m barely able to breathe. Again, don’t care.
Jake lowers me onto a bed. As he sits beside me, his weight presses the mattress down and he pushes my hair from my face. I look up at him through hazy, teary eyes.
“Rest,” Jake says. “We can talk later.”
Inside, I’m shaking. “No,” I say, my voice quivering. “Now.”
Jake studies me thoroughly, then nods. “I already know what happened,” he says gently. “After Miles arrived. But I need to know what happened before that.”
Need, he says. Not want, but need.
I draw a deep breath. “We were free running, racing to the monument. I got ahead of him,” I say, and Eli’s image flashes before my eyes. “And just kept running. I was to the top of the monument before I even noticed Eli”—saying his name out loud physically hurts me—“wasn’t with me.” I stare at Jake. “I called to him in my head, but he wouldn’t answer.” I close my eyes. “He never would not answer me, Jake.”
Jake is silent, his gaze remaining on mine, patiently waiting for me to continue.
“He always answers me, no matter what. I felt inside that something was wrong. Then I smelled it,” I continue.
“Smelled what?” Jake asks.
I shake my head. “That awful stench. It’s hideous. It smelled like a Jodís.” I look at him. “I followed the smell to Waverly Station. When I got there, the station was closed up, but I could hear voices inside,” I say. “But the language.” I shake my head again and look at him. “I can’t even explain it, Jake. Nothing I’ve ever heard before. It almost . . . hurt to hear it.”
Jake’s angry gaze locks with mine. “That’s the language of an angel. No one can understand it or mimic it.”
“When I found them, I saw Eli just standing there,” I continue. Tears spill over my lids, and Jake wipes them with a fingertip. “He was surrounded by several punk kids, and one was lying on the ground.” I look up. “It was that kid I followed into St. Giles’.”Something flickers in Jake’s eyes. Recognition?
“I used my suggestion to make them back off of Eli, and they did. But then the three showed up.” I look at Jake. “The Fallen. I knew right away it was them. I try first to make Eli run. It doesn’t work. And neither does it work on the three. The one . . . he just smiled at me.”
“Continue,” Jake encourages. He pushes my hair off my face.
“I yell and yell to Eli in my mind, but he ignores me. Then beating wings, and flashing light and shadow,” I say, “and in a blink, Eli changed—complete vampiric change—and just . . . stood there. Two of them,” I recall, “literally tossed the punk kids across the tunnel, and their heads smashed against the concrete wall.” The vision makes me squeeze my eyes shut. “Dead. They were all dead.” I open my eyes and look at Jake. “Except for Ian, on the ground. The third Fallen picks him up and holds him, suspended in the air. Then another Fallen grabs Eli and they both fall in front of—”
Jake presses his fingers gently against my lips, shushing me. “I know,” he says, and scrapes my tears. “I know that part, Riley.”
“It happened so fast,” I continue, my voice cracking. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak out loud—nothing. Powerless. Just like Eli.” I close my eyes and rub. Hard. “It’s like . . . all these damn tendencies I have? Worthless, Jake.” I shake my head. “Nothing I have is worth shit now. Don’t you get it?”
“One Fallen is bad enough,” he says. “But to stand alone against three? Impossible even for one of us,” he says. “It’s why the whole team is here.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. They were supposed to still be regenerating. They came out of nowhere.” I reached into my shirt and grabbed Eli’s medallion. I hold it up to Jake. “The one Fallen, who held the kid up? He gave me this after. It’s Eli’s.”
Jake stares at it. “You saw no trace of neither Eli nor the Fallen who took him?”
I look at him. “Took him? He threw him in front of a train, Jake.”
Jake nods. “Aye. So it seems.” He squeezes my hands in his. “We’ll figure this out, Riley. I vow it.”
Tears scorch my eyes. “I can’t,” I shake my head. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“We’ll wait to inform his family. This has to be settled first,” Jake offers.
A surge of pain beats inside of me at his words, and I squeeze my eyes shut. “I hate this, Jake. This isn’t me. This isn’t right.” I feel Eli’s medallion against my chest. The ring he gave me on my finger. “It’s not. I still feel him here,” I slap my chest, above my heart. “He isn’t gone. I just know it.”
The weight of Jake’s hand on my cheek makes me open my eyes. He’s studying me, his stare just as profound as Eli’s. “Do you want to go back home?”
Part of me does. Part of me wants to curl up into a fetal ball and die, go back to Eli’s family, my brother, Nyx, Preacher, and Estelle, and mourn. Confusion webs through my brain.
“Let me think on it,” I say, turning onto my side. I close my eyes. The tears start again.
Jake silently rises and leaves the room. The door clicks behind him. I’m alone.
Alone. Without Eli.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them, clutch them tightly, and silently sob myself to sleep.
Something I should’ve never done.
I can’t determine the exact moment my body gave way to narcoleptic sleep, but I last recall Eli’s image.
He’s close to me, staring down with those intense cerulean eyes that are the Dupré trademark, and it’s kind of weird to be able to see so much love in those eyes, but I do. I can vaguely even remember sometimes that he is . . . what he is. But then he smiles, moves toward me, as if for a kiss or an embrace, and suddenly shadows swallow his features and I can’t see him anymore. He pauses, cocks his head to the side as if studying me, and continues to move toward me.
Only then do I realize it’s no longer Eli. He is male, though. This I know from the shift in his posture, the change in his movement, and the aura between us. There’s a surge of power emanating from this new being, and it’s . . . overwhelming. It’s almost inexplicable . . . it’s everywhere, in the air, and I breathe it in as if an inescapable vapor. Yet not a vapor. Not a mist and not just air. It’s him. Almost suffocating.
And highly intoxicating.
Then he moves again, the shadows recede, and his features are illuminated by candlelight. I vaguely notice my surroundings: stone walls, not all intact, dark, damp, cold, and ancient. All I can do is focus on him. I’m entranced, unwillingly so. Swear to God, I can’t help myself. It’s like I’m being forced, but . . . not. Curiously, I study him.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Hair is light, long, and wavy, and some of it hangs loose about his face, brushes his jaw, catches on his full bottom lip. His nose is straight, jaw strong, throat masculine with pronounced columns and Adam’s apple. Perfect brows arch over exotic eyes, wide yet almond shaped at corners that slightly tip upward. They study me with such intensity, I want to look away. But I can’t. They’re light in color. I can’t tell what color, though. Too dark in this place. Hazel or green, if I had to guess. Mesmerizing, without a doubt.
Then he smiles. It’s a sensual, wide, almost shy smile, and it hits me square in the chest. Straight, even white teeth, his incisors just a slight bit pointed, but not vampire pointed. His gaze holds mine.
“You are even more beautiful up close,” he says, and his voice is not too deep, not high at all, and a little raspy. His brogue is heavy, ancient, the word close sounding more like cloose. Slowly, his hand lifts to my cheek. “Be strong,” he says, and his eyes follow his knuckle, then return to me. “I will watch over you. I’ve been assigned to do so and I will until my dying breath. And in the end, when all is over, you’ll know. And you’ll choose. And you will be content. I vow it.”