“A shadow walker?” I breathed, staring at the boy on the cliff, whose blond hair blew in the heated breeze.
He pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded. “Balthazar never got his hands on that one. He never even had a chance. I’m not sure how, but the shadow demons caught him early.”
I looked at the shadow walker. The turned-up collar of his gray coat framed a face made of angry angles and a furrowed brow. A group of at least ten screaming souls trailed behind him. He gripped the wrist of a girl, shimmering and brilliant against the darkness, and pulled her away from the rest.
Her red hair looked like a flame waiting to be snuffed out. She wailed and tried to jerk away, but he held on to her as if it were as easy as breathing. He stared down into the waves where shadow demons crawled up the cliff. Across the water they began to melt out of the gaping eyes and nostrils of the skull caverns, moaning, screaming, hissing with the need to feed.
I stepped forward and reached for my scythe. Easton squeezed my shoulder to stop me.
“Don’t,” he said. “We’re not here for that.”
“We’re just supposed to stand by and watch while that innocent soul is fed to the scum of the underworld?”
“Yes.” Easton slid me a sideways glance. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Do you honestly think we could take on all of them?”
My gaze drifted beyond Easton to the shadow demons clambering up the cliff. There were thousands. They looked like a single entity, moving as one, all with the same goal in mind. Feed. I flinched when the blond boy shoved the girl over the cliff edge and released her wrist. She flailed for a heart-stopping moment, her pretty blue dress plastered against her like a second skin as the wind enveloped her. The shimmer around her exploded with panic as she disappeared into a sea of writhing black shadows, her screams blotted out by the hungry hisses and growls. The boy jumped out of the way as shadows clawed their way over the edge and pulled the wailing souls in one by one. The shadow walker watched for a moment, as if to make sure the deed was done, then turned to walk away.
He stopped and met my gaze, his eyes cold and gray. Deluded by madness. He grimaced and looked to the sky.
“Stop!” I shouted taking a step forward, reaching out. Pleading. “You don’t have to do this.”
He hesitated, only for a moment, then whirled, his long gray coat spinning out around him, and disappeared.
My hands were shaking. My legs felt weak. I stumbled back and Easton’s warm chest stopped me.
His hands settled on my shoulders.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why would anyone agree to do that?”
“They got their claws in him before he knew any better. Now it’s him or them. Feed or be eaten,” he said. “What do you think Cash will choose?”
I shook my head, feeling sick inside. Sick and helpless and cornered.
“Balthazar will be using him, too, you know?” Easton offered. “Maybe not to this extent, but that kid is never going to have the peace you want him to have.”
Peace didn’t seem to matter in that moment. I couldn’t let this be an option. Yes, Balthazar would use him. But it had to be better than this. Anything had to be better than this.
I shook off Easton’s hold on me and stared up into the sky. Drops of fire began to fall like rain from the billowing gray clouds above. Somewhere in the distance screams created a staccato rhythm that rang of pain and death. I closed my eyes, unable to look at this place another second.
“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t have that choice.”
Chapter 15
The guest bedroom of Emma’s house was suffocating. Unfamiliar. The shadow demon perched on the end of the bed wasn’t helping matters. At least it wasn’t touching me. As long as it was just the one and it wasn’t making a move, I could think. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to think.
I glanced out the window, at the starlight and steady glow of the moon filtering through the parted blinds. Vertical lines of twilight painted stripes across the green comforter. I couldn’t help but wonder where Anaya was. Heaven? Hell? I sort of felt like I was both places when I was with her. Maybe she didn’t know what I was. What happened when she found out? I let my gaze drift to the shadow demon sitting in the dark, a twisted gargoyle with holes for eyes. Its black mouth opened into what I could only guess was its version of a grin. It made me sick.
“Who did you used to be?” I said, searching for something, anything human left inside of the thing.
I twisted the comforter in my fist and glanced around the otherwise empty room. “Your friends call in sick?”
It just stared at me, unmoving.
“What do you want?” I groaned, letting my head plop back onto the pillow.
“Youuuuu,” it hissed into the dark.
I sat up on my elbows and watched it twitch and jerk beneath its oil-black skin. Hell to the no. Sleep was not happening tonight. I climbed out of bed and a breathed a sigh of relief when the thing didn’t follow. It just watched me as I closed the door and padded silently down the hall to Em’s room.
I stood outside her door for a minute. It wasn’t her old room—the one I’d grown up in that always smelled like cinnamon and flowers—but it was her. And Emma was home, despite everything else happening. And I was so homesick, I could barely breathe. I twisted the knob and slipped into the dark, shutting the door behind me. Her mom waking up and finding me in here was the last thing I needed.
“Em,” I whispered and stopped when a deeper voice cursed under his breath and the bedside lamp switched on. The room exploded with muted light. Emma sat up and pushed a mop of tousled blond hair out of her face and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Cash?”
“Finn?” I said, feeling my brows hike up an inch or two.
Finn stood next to the bed in his navy-blue boxers. I followed his gaze down to my black boxers.
When I looked back up, he was shoving his legs into a pair of worn-out jeans. At least
“Hey, I can leave,” I said, placing my hand on the doorknob.
Emma rolled her eyes and sat back against her headboard. “It’s not like that. We weren’t—”
Finn raised a brow at her that kept the rest of the words in her mouth.
She turned eight shades of red and looked away. “We weren’t doing anything. Finn can’t sleep at—”
“Emma,” Finn cut her off. She looked up at him, surprised, and he just shook his head. Now that I looked at him, I could see the damage that lack of sleep had left behind. The bruised look under his green eyes. The lines worn into his face. So Finn wasn’t sleeping, either. I wondered what could possibly keep Death himself up at night.
Emma sighed and looked back to me, her sleepy blue eyes softening in a way I didn’t deserve. Not after the way I’d been to her lately.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Yes. Everything. Instead of telling her the truth I just said, “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Join the club,” Finn grumbled. He leaned over pressed a soft kiss to Emma’s mouth. I couldn’t watch it. It felt…wrong. I guess I always wanted her to find someone, but I never really thought it would happen. Emma was always so hell-bent on being alone. I still didn’t know how to feel about this. How to accept it. How to share her with someone else.
“Think I can use the bathroom without waking the warden up?” I had a feeling he didn’t really have to go, but I nodded.
“Use the one by my room so they think it’s me,” I offered.
