Page 157 of Afflicted

“What is happening?” I hear Juliet’s voice through a strange sort of haze.

I feel dizzy. I raise my hand to my face. It glistens with snow, sticking to my skin in the wavering glow of the distant floodlights.

No. Not snow.

My mouth goes dry, and my throat becomes tight. My heart slows.

Not snow.

Silver.

CHAPTER41

JULIET

Everything is shimmering.My hands, my clothes, Silas’s hair. Everything is flecked with tiny specks of silver. I can’t get it off me. I can’t get it off him. It’s coating his lips. It’s hanging off the ends of his eyelashes.

“Silas.” I whisper, holding his hand in mine. “Silas, please wake up. Please. Don’t do this to me.”

They came and got us off the rooftop. My hysterical screaming told them I was there. I twisted my ankle throwing myself back across the expanse between the buildings. I didn’t even feel it.

I still see Silas’s face when I close my eyes, the moment he looked at me, the split second before he collapsed to the ground, those tiny silver specks poisoning his system. The National Guard had a contingency to take out the Afflicted, and they’d dumped it straight on top of us.

And killed Silas.

A nurse comes into the curtained cubicle, and casts a glance over Silas’s body. She regards me with tight lipped sympathy, and pats my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, hon.” She gestures to my ankle. “They said you’d hurt yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I clasp onto Silas’s hand, and the fact that it’s still warm makes me almost angry. I could almost believe he was just sleeping.

The nurse puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Well, when you’re ready, you let me look at it, OK?” She leaves without another word.

I lay my head on Silas’s chest, gazing at his motionless face.

“You’re so beautiful.” I trace a finger along his jawline. “You can’t be dead. I won’t let you be dead. That’s not fair. I’ve lost everyone else.”

I curl my fingers around his, and tears slip down the side of my face. They pool on his chest, glimmering with those tiny shards of silver.

“I didn’t finish telling you about Paris.” I sniffle and bite my lip to stop myself from crying again. “You know, I’d have thought you’d have gone there, Margot being French and all. I guess maybe it was bad memories, huh? Anyway, I think you’d have really liked it. The galleries were amazing. They had these people set up by the Seine, they’d be there with their easels, and everyone had a different art style, it was so fascinating to watch.”

I lean over him, stroking the dark tendrils of his hair from his forehead.

“I discovered macarons there, and I made myself sick with the green ones. I told you about Kaden throwing up everywhere, well let me tell you that was nothing compared to me.” I laugh, brushing away the tears that keep running down my cheeks. “And throwing up green, well that was so much worse.”

Footsteps rush past the cubicle, voices talking about IVs and saline andCan we get another stretcher down here?People are hurt, people are dead. But I can’t face all that and offer to help. Instead I nuzzle my face into the crook of Silas’s neck.

“You know, you made me want to live again,” I whisper to him. “I didn’t want to when I… I went to the stream. Even though you were so nice to me, I didn’t see life being any good. And then… You know what it was? You know what the moment was? When I woke up and you were there. It was like, I nearly died and then my reason for being here was there.” I bite back a sob. “I thought you were a monster, I thought you were darkness and badness and all that shit, and I was so wrong. You were my light, Silas.”

“And you were mine.”

I back away with a gasp, my mouth dropping open. It can’t be. It’s not real. I’m dreaming.

Silas smiles at me weakly, his eyes a dull shade of brown.

“Hello, angel.”

With a strangled cry I throw myself on him, one sob after another tearing out of my throat as he wraps his arms around me.

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