But when her eyes drifted to the splintered back door that had been patched a couple of different times and was now stained with blood, she got the feeling whoever had been hiding out here had never made it to the compound.
Parrish sighed and sat down, leaning her back against the wall.
For what must have been the hundredth time that hour, she ran her finger across the infinity sign etched into the dark stone.
An image flashed through her mind. A handsome man kneeling on the ground, a mound of fresh dirt like a makeshift grave behind him, fear blossoming in his eyes.
She could almost feel his fear flow into her like a pulse of electricity.
It scared her so much, she dropped the stone onto the floor with a thud and sat up.
Something moved in the hallway, and she immediately brought her hand to the hilt of her katana, the blade already emitting a dim blue glow.
Noah’s face appeared in a small stream of moonlight, and he raised his hands.
“It’s just me,” he said softly. “Everything okay? I thought maybe you’d want to try to get some rest.”
She let her hand fall from the katana, but her heart still raced. “I can’t even think about sleep right now,” she said, taking several deep breaths to try to clear the image of that man from her mind.
Who was he? Another vision from her own past? Someone else tied to the stone?
“Are you sure you don’t even want to try?” Noah asked. “Morning’s going to come faster than you think.”
Parrish shook her head and settled back against the wall.
“I should be exhausted after everything that happened yesterday at the hospital, but I can’t get the whole thing out of my mind. How could we have been so stupid? The enemy was right there with us the whole time, and we didn’t even know it.”
“Well, we kind of did,” Noah said. He leaned down and picked up the fatalis stone before sitting on the floor across from her. “As much as we didn’t want to believe it, we all knew we might be walking into some kind of trap.”
“Yeah, but I never dreamed it was going to be that bad,” she said, shuddering as she remembered the horrible things they’d faced inside that hospital. She’d almost lost Noah back there. How would she have kept going without him? “How are you feeling, by the way? How’s your head?”
“It hurts,” he said, gently touching his head. “To put it mildly. That’s why I can’t sleep. I can’t seem to shake this headache.”
“Did you try healing yourself?” she asked.
“I don’t think it works on me,” he said. “Which kind of sucks, to be honest.”
He said it with a soft laugh, and their eyes met in the semi-darkness.
“What about the supplies we grabbed from the med room?” she asked. “I’m sure we have some good pain killers in there if you need them.”
“Everything in there is too strong. I don’t want to dull my reactions in case we have to move quickly,” he said. “I’ll take something when we get back to the safety of the compound if it’s not better by then.”
She nodded toward the hallway. “Karmen and Crash?”
“Sleeping,” he said. “Lucky jerks.”
She laughed. “I would love to be sleeping right now.”
He patted the floor next to him and lay back, head on the floor and knees raised. She joined him, his hand instantly reaching for hers as they lay there side by side.
They lay together in silence for a while, and Parrish was suddenly reminded of that night when they lay just like this in the grass, listening to Zoe play her violin.
She’d been so nervous to be that close to him. She’d wanted him to kiss her or hold her hand, and the thought of it had nearly taken her breath away.
Life had been so simple back then.
“Noah, do you think Zoe really is still alive in New York like Lily said?” She turned her head to look at him. She wanted to see his reaction. “Could that really be true? Or do you think she was just playing with me?”
Noah frowned, avoiding her eyes.
She shouldn’t have asked him. She already knew what everyone in their group was going to say. No one wanted to risk New York. Not after yesterday.
“I want to believe it just as much as you do,” he said finally. “But even if it is true, what can we really do about it before Lily or the Dark One have a chance to get to her?”
Parrish did her best to listen to him with an open mind, but she didn’t want to hear any protests. She just wanted reassurance.
“We talked openly about where Zoe is, which means Lily knows exactly where to go. She has a head start, and she’s on the Dark One’s side, which means she can just waltz into the city and go straight to the hotel. There’s literally nothing standing in her way. If we try to rescue Zoe, we’ll have to fight our way through God knows what, Parrish. We don’t stand a chance at getting to your sister first.”
“So then why tell me?” Parrish asked, glad for the darkness so he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes. “Just to torture me? To set some kind of trap for us in New York? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Noah said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind Lily or one of the Dark One’s other allies will be at Zoe’s room before the night is over. The real question is whether they’ll let her live once they have her.”
Parrish blinked back tears. “You’re saying you think it’s too late, then? So, what? You don’t want to go with me to New York, anymore?”
She reached over and took the fatalis stone from him. Somehow, it comforted her to have it.
“I didn’t say that. I’m with you all the way, but if we’re still planning
