Page 48 of SIN Bone Deep

“I love you,” I said to them.

“Of course, you do,” Nova mocked me. “What’s not to love?”

Fennel looked up with a small smile. “We love you too, dear.”

Callista’s eyes were sharper. “What brings that on, Nyx?” She wondered.

I shrugged. “Nothing. I just… don’t say it enough.”

As the aunts and Nova settled into the afternoon on the porch, I headed inside to tidy up for work, and as the afternoon dimmed, I grabbed my bag and bike and wheeled it past them. “I’ll see you late tonight, I guess!” I called up to them as I swung onto the bike.

If they replied, I had pedalled too far away to hear. As I reached the end of the driveway, I paused, one foot on the ground, looking for traffic either way. A dark, expensive, modern car was parked just up the hill, half hidden by trees where teenagers sometimes parked to smoke where they imagined they would not be noticed. There was a good lookout over the lighthouse and our house, and the ocean beyond, from that point.

I turned my bike down the hill and let the bike gather speed as gravity pulled me into the descent. I heard an engine start and steered to the side, although the road there was rough under my wheels. The car was coming fast, and I swore under my breath. Its passing would force me onto the part of the road where the little girl had died, and I had first encountered Ender. I had been avoiding riding over that spot ever since, partially out of respect, and partially out of some trauma-induced dread.

The car was directly behind me.

“Just go around quickly,” I cursed it. The way was narrow, but it could get past with care, and I was as far over as I could go and going faster than was wise.

I was flying before I realized it and heard the crunch of my bike as the car passed over it just before I hit the tarmac. As the little girl had, I slid across the rough surface. There wasn’t pain, just a sensation of cold, my body shocked past agony as bones broke and skin ripped. Tires squealed and the car pulled to a stop. My vision went white as my slide ended, and I saw the man as a silhouette, a black shape washed of detail, then the car started again, and it passed around me, as it should have done from the start.

“Help…” My voice was a rasp. I could feel the sun-warmed tarmac become wet with blood beneath my fingertips and palms, and my body burned with a cold fire as shock passed, and nerves registered their injuries. “Help me. I don’t want to die.”

“Elenyx.” Ender knelt at my side, and his hand rested gently on my shoulder. “You are not alone. I am here.”

“Help me,” I pleaded.

“I am here,” he repeated tenderly. “You are not alone.”

There was no help to be had from him, I realized. I was dying and he would stay at my side waiting for me to die, and then escort me on… I didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not at all. There was so much that I wanted to do, to achieve. So much that I would lose in dying. If Ender would not help, then…

“Mal,” I whispered.

“No,” Ender protested. “No, Nyx. Don’t.”

“Malachar Veridian.”

There was a flash of fire at the corner of my vision, and the scent of sulphur. “What is… Holy fuck, Nyx,” Malachar dropped to his knees on my other side. “Nyx…” He leaned over me. “You need to invoke me Nyx. Invoke me. Invite me to be your familiar.”

“No, Nyx. It is your time,” Ender’s voice was tight and urgent, his usual reserve lost in the moment. “Be gone, Malachar,” was uttered with authoritative command and anger.

“Fuck you,” Mal retorted. “You have no power over me, Death, I answer to another. Nyx. Just say. I, Nyx, invoke you, Malachar Veridian, and I can save you.”

“Nyx…” Ender's tone turned pleading and sorrowful. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t want to die.” I was bleeding out onto the road, my body a broken doll, bones puncturing organs, and the shockingly cold burn was now a growing pain. I was going to die on the road like the little girl. I would not die alone. One lover would watch me perish and then take my spirit to the underworld. The other… The other would save me. “I invoke you, Malachar… Mal…” I was fading.

“Good enough,” Mal pushed back his sleeves.

“Damn you, Malachar,” Ender’s anger was fierce and frightening.

“Too late for that.” Mal placed his hands on me, and suddenly I was burning.

This is…

I have underestimated pain,

A fool, I had thought I had experienced all the anguish that life and death could give.

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