Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) (16 page)

I try to swallow my lie, because without ingredients in our pantry, no potions can be made.

We need a miracle.

“Chett!” I hear Katie scream out.

I look up and find her racing across the yard toward Seamus and Chett, who have just appeared on the porch.

I reach blindly for Joanna’s arm and squeeze. “Wait here with him,” I say, and then I dart off after Katie, past the girl she helped, who’s just now sitting up, and past Jezi, who’s still trying to remove a curse from the other one. Weldon appears again, this time with Gavin and Cassie, who’s already working a spell to heal what looks like a gunshot to his thigh.

I can’t keep my eyes from scanning the porch for Jaxen. He’s not here.
Breathe,
I tell myself, but my lungs aren’t listening. They can’t when my heart continually slams against them like a bucking horse trying to shake off the panic living inside my bones.

Weldon appears again, this time with Katie’s dad and Mack.

Still no Jaxen.

Mack’s cursing out, yelling at where Weldon once was before he disappeared into another shadow. “I told you to leave me!” he shouts. Jonathon is leaning against the porch railing, holding his side with one hand and using the other to hug Katie.

Dread replaces my blood. “What’s wrong?” I force out when I approach Mack.

He spins on me so fast, still cursing, when he pulls me into a hug. “Thank the God and Goddess!” he says, squeezing me tightly.

I push myself out of his clutches. “I asked you a question.” My eyes keep shifting from his face to the porch, where Weldon should be appearing. “Where’s Jaxen and Sterling?”

Darkness settles across his features. He turns to face Jonathon and lifts his brows, almost as if questioning Jonathon if he should answer or not.

“Tell me. Now,” I say, my voice deadly low. I can’t feel any part of me except my pounding heart that’s beating so hard inside my ears.

“This was never going to be easy, Faye. You knew that going in,” Mack says, his eyes still filled with the memory of battle.

I think I might scream. Might rip apart this entire house. “Don’t give me that shit!” I snap. “Just tell me.” I can’t keep from searching for him. I try to connect with his mind, but there’s nothing but darkness. Nothing but quiet.

And it nearly rips the strength from my limbs.

“No,” I say, backing up, shaking my head.

“You motherfuc—” Jezi says somewhere near me, yelling at Mack and Jonathon. I barely register her limbs flying as Chett grabs onto her body, holding her back from landing any of the blows she’s so desperately trying to.

“Faye,” Mack says, reaching out for me, ignoring the insults flying from Jezi’s lips.

Gavin, only a few feet away, looks up. Curses under his breath. He pushes up to his feet and hobbles over to me. Catches me before I can move back any further.

“He’s coming back, Faye. There was just a… a hiccup.”

“A hiccup?”

“Yeah, a hiccup the size of Clara,” Weldon says, dropping Sterling and Jaxen onto the porch, both unnaturally still.

I’VE NEVER SEEN JAXEN SO still. So peacefully quiet before.

I don’t know how I manage to make it to his side. I can’t process anything. It’s like my body is moving on its own. Like my brain has decided I can’t be trusted to make decisions, so it’s shut my conscience out and taken over.

The early morning sun is just beginning to peek over the hill, witnessing all the horrors the night holds. I’m on my knees, searching for the wounds on his body, but there isn’t a speck of blood. Nothing giving away the reasons behind his body not moving and his eyes sealed shut. I smooth back a lock of his dark hair from his forehead, confused by the relaxed look on his face.

I don’t think I can breathe. Ever again.

“I told him we had to go, but he insisted on being a hero,” Weldon says as he crouches down next to me. He takes a deep breath, as if he’s having trouble processing this himself. Hangs his head a little. “Damn fool.”

“What happened?” I hear myself ask, my words a hollow whisper. I feel like a thousand needles are pricking at my skin. Like everything in the world is suddenly upside down. Not as it should be.

He runs his hand through his disheveled golden locks, trying to smooth some order into them. “They had Sterling. Mack managed to get most of the prisoners to the rooftop, but not Sterling. He was kept by Clara’s side. An insurance policy so to speak.”

“And?” I ask, pressing my hand against Jaxen’s face. His skin is unnaturally cold, and my skin goes hot with rage, anger, and all the hateful emotions my mind is allowing me to feel, to keep me from feeling sorrow, loss, and despair.

“And so, he decided to go after her. Even after I told him not to. There was nothing I could do, Faye,” he rushes out, panic in his words. “I had to get the rest of the prisoners back first. He knew that. And after I finished bringing everyone else here, I went after him. Found him and Sterling like this on the rooftop.”

Sterling’s hand twitches by his side. Weldon and Mack surround him at once. “Sterling?” Weldon says hesitantly, lightly slapping the side of his cheek. “You awake?”

Sterling’s eyes flash open. They’re completely black, rimmed in crimson red.

So hollow. Equally empty.

“Shit,” Mack says, turning away from him.

Weldon doesn’t move. Although his face has gone unmistakably pale, his lips remain firm. His body remains strong. He’s holding it all in. A perfect form of composure. “Sterling?”

“Th-thirsty,” Sterling manages to say, his voice paper dry.

Weldon looks up at me. Blinks once.

“He’s turned?” I’m surprised I even managed to get the words out. I already know deep down. I felt it the moment he crossed the threshold… the certain darkness that alerts the Hunter in me, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I didn’t want it to be true.

Weldon nods at me. “And once a vamp wakes, if they don’t feed, they die.” He’s looking at me like I should be connecting what he’s saying to something. Like the five words he just said to me is some kind of exchange we share every day.

It takes me a long moment to realize that he’s asking me. Asking me for my blood.

“You can’t be serious,” I say, eyes scrunched as I pull back away from him, still holding onto Jaxen.

But Weldon latches on to my forearm. “There isn’t time to waste or second-guess, Faye. Do you want him to die?” he asks, his eyes crazed with anger. “Do you want what Jaxen risked to bring him back to us to be in vain?”

I’m sure now that I can’t be in the same universe I once was in, because this is not something that would ever be considered.

Weldon doesn’t wait for me to answer. He just grabs my hand and forces it against Sterling’s lips. The minute his teeth sink into my flesh, I scream out. Everything in me, every good, whole part, wages a war against the lips and tongue sucking and pulling the life from my body. I feel like my bones have been ripped out of me, leaving nothing but skin and blood that’s offered to him. That’s been unwillingly given to him.

As strength moves into Sterling’s limbs, his hands latch onto my forearm, fingers digging into my flesh. He sits up, sucking desperately now.

“Weldon!” I cry out, trying to pull from Sterling’s iron grasp. Trying to keep my mind from shutting off as the edges of sleep reach out for me with greedy hands.

“That’s enough,” Weldon says sternly to Sterling.

Sterling doesn’t stop.

Vampires don’t have control over their blood lust.

“Sterling,” Weldon says, sharper this time, but his voice slips away from me because my mind is growing faint. My skin feels like a blizzard has wrapped its arms around me and pulled me close. I blink, sluggishly, trying to find something to focus on. Anything that will keep me in the present and far away from the icy cold that’s settling in my bones as my grip on Jaxen’s hands slips away.

But then my eyes close shut.

I breathe in, slowly, faintly, as time takes the shape of eternal darkness.

When I open them again, Weldon’s features have darkened to his demon side and Sterling has flown across the porch, snapping one of the banisters clean in half. Weldon lifts my body from the ground. Plants me firmly on my feet, holding me upright by my waist.

“Faye?” he says, holding my face within the V of his hand. “Faye, look at me.”

“Huh?”

“What the hell, Weldon!” Jezi says, shoving him away from me.

I stumble back a step, caught by the railing. Blinking rapidly, I try to gain my senses, but everything is so blurry. So foggy and distant.

“He needed to feed!” Weldon says hotly. “Look at her. She’s fine!”

“She’s your partner!” Jezi retorts in disgust. “Not food!” Jezi’s in my face, and I have to lean back to bring her into focus. “Faye, listen to me. I’m going to help you.” She grabs onto my hands, and warmth spreads up my arms as her magic fills the gap left behind by Sterling’s bite.

Once I can see clearly again, she lets me go and spins on Weldon. “If you ever do that again, I’ll kill you. Without warning. Do you understand?”

Weldon rolls his eyes. Avoids my gaze as he heads over to Sterling, who’s looking around, his face screwed up in confusion.

“Wha-what the hell happened?” Sterling asks, picking himself up from off the ground. He’s looking at me. Touches his face. Pulls his hand back to find blood on his fingertips. “No.”

One word… one syllable, pulls at the little composure I have left.

He looks up at me again, his eyes filled with so much sorrow. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t… I didn’t want thi—” He stops and his nose lifts into the air, teeth poking out over his lips.

Blood.

It’s in the air. On the lawn. Still on my hands from helping Joanna.

The cords in the general’s neck pop out, one by one, as a low growl slips past his bared teeth. He’s on his feet now, crouched down like a predator waiting to pounce, when Weldon places his hand on his shoulder and calls his name out like he’s talking to Jaxen.

In one brotherly gesture, it’s like watching a solid oak tree struck by lightning, snapping it clean in half. All the general’s strength… everything he stood for, I can almost see it spilling out of him as he fights to keep control over what he has now become. As he fights the urge to feed.

“I know this is a lot to take in right now, but you’re here because of him,” Weldon says. He’s pointing at Jaxen, who’s lying motionless right in front of me. “I know you’re still in there. I know, because I’ve been in your shoes. Still am. I need you to go to that place inside you where all of your strength is stored, and I need you to use it, man. Use every last bit, because I—” He pauses. Looks over at me. “We need you to tell us what happened to Jaxen so we can help him.”

Sterling’s eyes go distant. He looks down at the palm of his hands like he’s searching for something. For some distant memory he can’t quite make out, and then he sags under Weldon’s hand.

“Everything is so blurry. Once the turn started to take hold… it was hard. Hard to cling to reality.” He looks up at Weldon, wearing ghosts in his gaze.

“Try,” Weldon says firmly.

Sterling nods, rubbing his eyebrows as he tries to recall the events as they took place. “Clara… she knew what Mack had done.” He pauses. Squints his eyes. “And then there were alarms.” He looks up at Weldon. “Yes, the alarms had been set off, but by the time she rounded up enough men to storm the rooftop, they had already made it up there. It was chaos,” he says, his memories slowly gaining speed. “She knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep Weldon from moving in and out through the shadows, but she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight. So she ordered the murder of them all.

“By then I knew I wasn’t going to make it. She was never going to keep me from turning, even if Faye had turned herself in. All I could hope for was that Clara would let me go once it happened, and then I could kill myself.”

His words are an ocean, vastly filled with a deep darkness I don’t think any of us will ever understand. Not truly.

He swallows so thickly. Tries his best to appear whole and in control. But his hands are trembling by his sides. “For me, it was over,” he continues, sounding so tired and defeated, and I want to tell him it’s okay, but I can’t find the words. I can’t find the strength to lie, because it’s not okay. It never will be.

“I heard the reports of those who had been hit on the rooftop and knew Clara was going to win,” he says. “And then I started to feel my change, so I let go. I embraced it. There was nothing left for me. But then someone from the outside started taking out the men protecting her office and, when I looked to the surveillance monitors, I saw Jaxen. It was remarkable. He was using power beyond what I thought was possible. It was like watching Faye, all over again.

“He managed to take them out, sucking them dry, and then forced his way into her office with only his bare hands. I couldn’t let him take on this fight alone. Not when I knew the risks he took just to come back for me. So I got to my feet and rushed Clara into the wall of monitors. It was enough of an unforeseen blow to knock her out.

“But more of her men came and Jaxen could only absorb so much of their energy. He managed to get us to the rooftop, but by the time we made it, there were so many and his body couldn’t take it anymore. He dropped. We were being shot at still, so I covered him, and then the next thing I know, I’m picking myself up from the banister.” He looks up at me. “Wearing your blood.”

There aren’t enough words in this world to help me form a reasonable response. Something that will settle his nerves. Thank him for helping Jaxen, even when his world was rapidly falling apart.

I drop to my knees beside Jezi and take Jaxen’s hand. He isn’t hurt… he wasn’t hit by anything. He’s just… gone. Overcome by too much power. The same thing I’ve felt time and time again, before my body grew more tolerant to it.

And I don’t know how to fix him.

“What are we going to do?” Jezi asks, tears sliding down her cheeks as she looks at him.

“There’s nothing we can do,” I say numbly, feeling like a dried-up ocean. Like a wilted garden with no chance for saving.

Time doesn’t mean anything anymore. Nothing does. Not the cries from those still recovering on the lawn. Not the metallic smell hanging in the air that I’m sure will never go away. Not even my heart, which can’t seem to pick a rhythm to stay on.

But then a familiar voice splinters the heavy silence. “That’s not true.”

Every affinity pair that can jumps to their feet, magic and volation at the ready.

“Werewolves!” Chett shouts. A whip formed out of volation appears in his hand, crackling with static energy. He snaps it against the ground, and then whips it in the air toward Evangeline. Spells hurdle past me, through the air, all aimed for her head.

“Wait!” Mack yells out.

Magic sizzles midair, stopped by Jezi and Cassie, who are moving toward Evangeline now, using their magic to form an invisible wall of protection.

“You better have a good explanation for this,” Jonathon says, his fists balled in the air, electricity dripping to the ground beneath him.

Evangeline stares at me and, somehow, I know she’s waiting for my invitation.

“You can come in,” I say. I watch as she crosses the yard. Moves up the stairs and past every Primeval without a blink of fear. She kneels down over Jaxen. Brushes her fingers through his dark hair in a loving caress, and then finds my gaze.