Page 144 of Finders Reapers

“What the hell did this?” Fletcher whispered, jumping back just in time for a chunk of meat dropped from the ceiling. “We need to get Vallie and go.”

“Agreed.” Jamal nodded, his head tilted to the ceiling. Maddox suspected it was in case anymore surprise body parts decided to drop onto his designer shoes.

Maddox ignored both of them and turned to Valentina—she didn’t even look up as he took off his jacket and laid it across her shoulders. She just kept rocking, hugging her knees to her chest. Her mouth moved so quickly, muttering something that Maddox couldn’t hear.

Rome approached. “This blood is strange.” He held out his fingers, but the red light of the room made whatever vicious fluid on his fingertips.

“Shit.” Maddox hung his head. “Shit shitshit.” He cursed.

“What?” Rome’s gaze sharpened, and for once, Maddox was glad that they were not enemies because Rome walked a very fine tightrope of sanity.

“Oriax.” Maddox didn’t dare speak his name on anything more than abated breath as he studied the room with renewed interest. “Valentina, what happened here? What happened to Oriax?” Maddox didn’t dare jar her from whatever internal war was playing in her mind. Her entire body was wracked in tremors, the kind of shock that he was well versed in.

“Do you think that something untoward happened to Oriax?” Rome asked delicately, holding his hand up as he studied his fingers. “Do you think they were attacked?”

“I don’t know!” Maddox snapped.

“Look at her eyes, Maddox.” Rome lowered his chin until he was looking down his crooked nose.

“Why?” Maddox’s spine straightened, and it took everything inside of him not to jump and push Rome until he got to fucking point. Whatever had torn a fallen angel apart was powerful. Dangerous. And very likely to still be in the room.

"Just do it." Rome’s accent thickened when he was annoyed, and it had reached the point where Maddox could barely understand him.

Maddox huffed, turning his back on the Russian as he faced Valentina. Cautiously, as if he was worried that she would break into a thousand pieces of porcelain if he touched her too harshly, he reached forward and pushed the tacky stringy hair out of her eyes. It was dark with blood.

Her eyes were fixed forward, staring into space.

The whites of her eyes had been swallowed by darkness. There were no irises. It was as if her pupil had blown and taken over her entire eye. Even with inhuman eyes, she was gone. Maddox could see that she was far away, living some hell.

His suspicion that she was a drude was almost impossible to ignore.

Maddox stood up, a plan forming in his mind before finding the words to describe it. He bent down, sliding his arm under the bend of Valentina’s knees and cradling her shoulders as he swung her up into his arms.

The others stared at him, undoubtedly confused by his change of reaction. From snarling and cursing her name to holding her like a princess that Maddox was determined to rescue from a castle.

“What are you doing?” Jamal asked, and Maddox could tell that he would have been smiling if he wasn’t so worried.

“Valentina killed Oriax,” Maddox stated plainly.

“Hey!” Fletcher protested. “We don’t know that. We should wait until she can tell us what happened.”

Maddox shook his head. “We have to run.”

Rome, already ten steps ahead, nodded before sauntering through the group's center and past all the discarded body parts as he made his way to the elevator. “Are you coming?” He asked the others dryly.

“Is no one going to ask what’s going on here?” Fletcher growled.

“Valentina killed Oriax,” Maddox repeated. “She’s either a demon in a blood rage, possessed, spellbound, or braindead. Her eyes have blown. I don’t know where she is, but Valentina has left the building. We need to run. When someone finds out that Oriax had been sliced and diced into a thousand-piece puzzle, they will kill her. I can’t let that happen.”

“What happened to throwing her to the wolves?” Jamal asked, not entirely joking.

Maddox shook his head, adjusting his weight, as he followed after Rome to the elevator.

He was done arguing. They could follow him if they wanted, but Maddox wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice—he wasn’t going to turn his back on Valentina again.

Valentina curled in on herself. Hugging her knees. Her hair was in wet clumps, and her head was tucked against her thighs.

Chapter 19

---