Page 107 of Deck of Scarlets

“Nah, the body would’ve been an odd gray. This looked like the demon stripped the victim’s muscle right from her bones,” Josh pointed out, scratching his head.

Chloe got a phone call, talking urgently and nodding a few times before hanging up. “Collin said Asher and Baron are coming with a body bag; we’re going to transfer it to the cathedral at night. Father will still take the sample to begin the process,” she explained.

I felt sick and clammy. “Kal?”

“Yeah?” He grabbed my hand.

“Can you take me back to the dorms? I don’t feel so good,” I said weakly.

“Go, Kal. Josh and I will wait for the others,” said Chloe.

Kal brushed my cheek with his thumb. “Yes, of course. I’ll call a cab.”

Josh rested casually against a brick building, flipping the vial back and forth, watching the black substance move up and down. “It’s similar to a Drarkoth but yet…”

“Yet what?” countered Chloe.

“Yet…” Josh never finished because Kal returned to say a cab pulled over for us, and I threw up by a half-empty trash can.

“It was only a matter of time before she spewed her guts,” said Chloe.

“We’ve all been there,” Kal reminded her in a cruel tone. He held my hair back for me as I emptied the contents from my stomach, Peg’s Diner food in a pile on the sidewalk.

Kal carried my weak body over to the cab after I stopped dry heaving, resting my head on his lap in the back seat, warning the driver to take it easy, otherwise he would need new seats if he went faster than thirty miles per hour.

His kindness made me sick again, to the point where I begged for the driver to pull over, throwing up bile near a group of young girls who screeched in disgust.

Kal got me back in the car after a few minutes of another dry-heave attack. Thankful for his calm strokes on my hair, I drifted into an unexpected sleep.

Chapter Forty-Three

Time was fleeting, a thief of the good and the bad, and lately it had been taking more of the good than the downright tragic.

Training days were the hardest. Mostly because Josh only spoke to me when he gave instructions or yelled when my form was off. Other than that, it’d been radio silence, especially mentally.

I tried some days during training when he was distracted by our zealous workouts to peek inside, only to be met with a brick wall the height of a skyscraper.

I shouldn’t have tried, not after how we left things, but it hurt knowing our connection would probably never be the same.

Then again, I tended to jump the gun sometimes.

At nine in the morning, I received a message from the Order to meet in fifteen minutes. Since the weather had finally let up against the pestering heat, I yanked on a simple blue shirt and some jeans before I made my way to the stunning cathedral.

Josh and I met up at the same time. He nodded to acknowledge my presence, but other than that, we kept to ourselves.

But what we didn’t expect was Captain Harrison and the entire fleet occupying every pew.

Our Order stood in the back, while the Aces joined Captain Harrison on the dais, their faces stricken with worry. Father Benedict and Collin were nowhere to be found.

Never in my life would I witness an entire fleet inside the cathedral on school grounds. Each member, from Scarlet to Saint, wore a stoic expression, statues in fighting gear. There must’ve been over forty occupying the space.

None of it looked good.

“A horde of Olemaks was seen outside of 116th Street station last night around one in the morning. Luckily, we had a curfew in place and patrols stationed around to keep the demons at bay. However, it does not explain the horde being on campus grounds.” He removed himself from the dais, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

A horde? On campus? I sent my thoughts straight to Josh, shocked to find the wall that kept me out wide open.

I can’t fathom it either.

---