Shadowfever

I flip my head down, scrape my hair forward, and, although it takes me a few tries to get the angle right, I take a shot of my nape. Sure enough, two tattoos. Barrons’ brand is a dragon with a Z in the center that shimmers with faint iridescence.

To the left of his tattoo is a black circle crammed with strange symbols I don’t recognize. It seems Ryodan was telling the truth. If the tattoo was put there by the LM, it explains a lot: Why Barrons so heavily warded the basement where he dragged me back from being Pri-ya, how the LM found me at the abbey once the wards had been painted over, how he found me again at the house Dani and I squatted in, and how he’d tracked me to my parents’ in Ashford.

I pull out the small dirk I lifted from BB&B.

My hand trembles.

I could end my pain. I could curl up and bleed out next to him. It’d be over so quickly. Maybe I’d get another chance some other time, some other place. Maybe he and I would be reincarnated like in that movie, What Dreams May Come, that Alina and I hated so much because the kids and husband died, then the wife committed suicide.

I love that movie now. I get it, the whole idea of willingly going to hell for someone. Living there, insane if you have to, because you’d rather be insane with them than endure life without them.

I stare at the blade.

He died so I would live.

“Damn you! I don’t want to live without you!”

It’s how you go on that defines you.

“Oh, shut up, would you? You’re dead, shut up, shut up!”

But a terrible truth is shredding my heart.

I’m the girl that cried “wolf.”

I’m the one that pressed IYD. I’m the one that didn’t think I could survive the boar on my own. And guess what?

I did.

I’d driven it away and already been safe by the time Barrons appeared and blasted into it.

I hadn’t really been dying after all.

He died for me and it hadn’t been necessary.

I overreacted.

And now he’s dead.

I stare at the dirk. Killing myself would be a reward. I deserve only punishment.

I stare at the snapshot of the back of my head. If the Lord Master found me right now, I’m not sure I would fight for my life.

I consider attempting surgery on my own skull, then realize I am not in the best frame of mind for that. I might not stop cutting. It’s close to my spinal column. Easy way out.

I slam the blade into the dirt before I can turn it on myself.

What would that make of me? That I got him killed, then killed myself? A coward. But it’s not what it would make of me that bothers me. It’s what it would make of him—a wasted death.

The death of a man like him deserves more than that.

I bite back another scream. It’s trapped inside me now, stuffed down into my belly, burning the back of my throat, making it painful to swallow. I hear it in my ears even though my mouth makes no sound. It’s a silent scream. The worst kind. I lived with this once before, to keep Mom and Dad from knowing that Alina’s death was killing me, too. I know what comes next, and I know it’s going to be worse than last time. That I’m going to be worse.

Much, much worse.

I remember the scenes of slaughter Barrons showed me in his mind. I understand them now. Understand what might drive a person to it.

I kneel beside his naked, bloody body. The transformation from man to beast must have shredded his clothing, exploded the silver cuff from his wrist. Nearly two thirds of his body is inked with black and crimson protection runes.

“Jericho,” I say. “Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.” Why did I ever begrudge him his name? “Barrons” was a stone wall I erected between us, and if a hairline fracture appeared, I hastily mortared it with fear.

I close my eyes and steel myself. When I open them, I wrap both hands around the spear and try to pull it from his back. It doesn’t come out. It’s lodged in bone. I have to fight for it.

I stop. I start again. I weep.

He doesn’t move.

I can do this. I can.

I work the spear free.

After a long moment, I roll him over.

If there was any doubt in my mind that he was dead, it vanishes. His eyes are open. They are empty.

Jericho Barrons is no longer there.

I open my senses to the world around me. I can’t feel him at all.

I am on this cliff, alone.

I’ve never been so alone.

I try everything I can think of to bring him back to life.

I remember the Unseelie flesh we crammed into my backpack what seems a lifetime ago, back in the bookstore when I was getting ready to face the Lord Master. Most of it is still there.