Sixth Grave on the Edge

I swallowed and pointed to Reyes. “Him,” I said, my hand and voice shaking.

Mendoza shot me a delighted look, picked up a booted foot, and gave Jessica a soft shove. I barely had time to gasp before she toppled over the side. I lunged for her, as though I could catch her, but the gorillas tackled me and held me down.

She didn’t scream. I’d expected her to scream, but there was only silence. I didn’t even hear her fall. I only heard the wind whipping around us, howling through the metal structure.

“Surely you’re not upset,” Mendoza said, the smug look on his face the incarnation of evil. “You were enemies, after all, yes? But you’ll get your wish. Untie him.”

I tried to scramble to my feet as they untied Reyes, but they were still holding me down. This wasn’t happening. Not to Reyes. Could he survive the fall? It had to be the equivalent of seven stories. He’d survived worse. But he’d been conscious. Able to prepare, to defend himself.

Before I could say another word, two of Mendoza’s men dropped his listless form over the side and he fell quietly from my sight.

21

Misery loves company,

which explains my sudden popularity.

—T-SHIRT

I watched as Reyes fell, a scream I couldn’t hear wrenched from my throat as I waited for him to do something. For him to react. To save himself. It was Reyes, after all. He could do anything. He could fly or dematerialize or grab on to something on the way down like they did in the movies. But there was nothing. Just the sound of the wind howling through the abandoned building.

Angel was in shock, too. He was standing on the side, looking over, his eyes round.

“Angel,” I said to get his attention.

He turned to me, his mouth a thin line of regret.

“No.” I shook my head at him. It was impossible. There was just no way.

“Don’t look so worried,” Mendoza said. “You can join him.”

He nodded to his men, and they dragged me to the side. I could see two bodies, but they didn’t look real. They were small from that vantage, like mangled action figures. None of this was real.

Mendoza said something I didn’t comprehend. No one could have survived that fall. Not even a supernatural being. Not even the son of Satan. He lay there, unmoving, and I could not wrap my head around it. Any of it.

“Ready?” I heard at last.

Mendoza was the kind of man who enjoyed killing. He enjoyed the false sense of power it gave him. But he also enjoyed the part right before the actual death. The torment. The taunting.

I looked at him. And I did my job. I judged him unworthy of crossing into heaven.

He didn’t like the revulsion he saw in my eyes. Where he’d expected fear, he found disgust. He turned me to face the edge again, put a hand on my back, and just before he pushed, he said, “No loose ends.”

I stepped forward, but the roof beneath my feet disappeared. I was over. He’d thrust me over the side just as he had Jessica. Just as they had Reyes. And we would die together.

In one final act of rebellion, I twisted around to look at them and swiped a hand through the air. In that split second between dream and reality, I’d marked their souls for the Dealer, a bright archaic symbol emblazoned on their chests. They were all his.

Then I saw Angel. He grabbed for me. When I twisted around, I’d kicked out and he caught my boot and pulled. But there was nothing he could do. I weighed too much. Little did I know the shit had a plan. My foot caught on something. A metal brace protruded out from the side of the silo, and Angel wedged my foot there. But my body kept falling until the wedge took hold. Pain shot up my leg, and my ankle very likely broke as my body slammed against the side of the silo. My skull cracked against a metal rung. I grabbed hold of it and held on for dear life.

I hung there upside down, trying to gain my bearings, staring at the top of the silo, and waiting for the men to figure out I didn’t fall. They would have to shoot me now if they couldn’t reach to dislodge my foot. When they didn’t appear immediately, I took another long look at the ground beneath my dangling body. Reyes hadn’t moved. He hadn’t flinched at all. A wave of grief overtook me, and tears fell up my face to mingle with the blood flowing there. I looked at my boot, wondering if I could move it a centimeter to the left with the ankle broken, just enough to dislodge it and finish the journey.

In that moment, the only thing I could think about was what it would be like to live without Reyes. It wasn’t a life I wanted, and I suddenly realized how and why Emily Michaels could do what she did. How she could risk her life to protect the man she loved. Even prison was better than death, losing the ones we loved so desperately.

An agony that matched the shooting pain in my ankle consumed me so fully, I could think of nothing else but the fact that I did not want to go through life without him. I pushed on the metal bar and tried to dislodge my foot. I’d never been particularly suicidal, but I’d never been consumed with quite that much pain. Not emotionally, anyway.

“What are you doing?” Angel asked, peering over the side.

“Help me dislodge my foot,” I said.

He shook his head and said, “Fuck you,” right before he disappeared. Little shithead.

My teeth welded together as the pain of my busted ankle coursed through my body like electricity. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered the sound of fighting above me. I snapped to attention as gunshots ricocheted around me before an eerie silence thickened the air. As I fought the effects of blood rushing to my head and pain hammering into me, another dark-haired man peered at me from over the side of the building. But this time, it wasn’t Angel.