Page 72 of Heir of Ashes

I took a step forward, determined to get out of the alley before the stink clogged my pores. But before I could manage a second step, my strength failed me, and my legs buckled as if they were made of jelly, sending me crashing to my handsand knees. I knew I couldn’t hold myself up like that for long, especially when my arms began shaking uncontrollably.

I was about to fall on my face, probably onto a rotten, squishy thing. With effort, I crawled to the urine-smelling stucco wall a few feet away. I forced myself to get vertical while I was still motivated to make an effort, leaned against the wall, and dragged myself forward.

A door opened ahead, unleashing a stream of light and the wonderful aroma of food. A stocky man walked out, dressed in dark pants and a white t-shirt covered by a clean white apron, with a garbage bag in one hand and a cellphone in the other. His attention left the lit screen long enough to throw the garbage in the bin. I made a garbled sound—my throat too dry for intelligible words. I had reached the bottom of my reserves at last.

“Hey there, what are you doing here?” the man asked, turning the light of his phone toward me. “Missy, you alright?” He placed the phone inside the kangaroo pocket of his apron and came closer. His gaze swept over my dirty, torn clothes, the dried trail of blood on my cheek and hands, and concern crept into his tone. “Missy, you need help?”

My throat burned as if on fire. My stomach felt glued to my spine. I nodded jerkily.

He dusted his hands, which was totally unnecessary considering the fact that I was dirtier than the garbage he threw in the bin, then nervously scrubbed them on his pants before reaching for me.

He was an ordinary man in his early to mid-thirties, with brown hair and brown eyes and a blue aura. I was taller than him by a few inches. At six feet tall, I was taller than a lot of people.

He hesitated a moment longer before taking hold of my elbow with a rough, hot hand and gently placed it around hisneck. “You’re freezing,” he muttered. “Mind if I put an arm around your waist?”

I shook my head, the movement making me dizzy. Supporting more than half of my weight, he led me inside the brightly-lit restaurant, into the first room we came upon—a sterile, small office. It contained only an industrial desk, a gunmetal filing cabinet, and two chairs: one behind the desk, the other in front. A cordless phone and a neatly stacked mound of papers were the only signs that the office wasn’t deserted. The man helped me sit in the chair in front of the desk, keeping his hold until he was sure I was stable.

“I’ll call an ambulance now,” he said, and I croaked a “no” before he could dial.

“Water?” I croaked again. It came out as “wa-aa” followed by a burst of choked coughs. I wasn’t sure what did the trick—the choking or the croak—but he left the office in a half-run and returned in seconds with a small plastic bottle of the nectar of life. I drank greedily, taking huge gulps that made my throat ache, the water sloshing audibly inside my stomach.

“Missy, I have to call an ambulance. You don’t look well.”

“No,” I rasped. “Friend?”

After a moment, he passed me the cordless phone. I couldn’t remember much about what happened after that, just that I dialed Logan’s number and handed the phone to the man so he could talk to him. After that, I was constantly in and out of consciousness.

I remembered when Logan arrived, asked me questions I didn’t answer, picked me up, and carried me out. I remembered him talking to Rafael in garbled words I didn’t understand. I remembered being placed in the backseat of a car with the heater so high it felt like a furnace, and then nothing else.

***

I surfaced from the pitch-dark recesses of my subconscious in slow motion, as if wading through an ocean of molasses. I was lying on a soft bed. There were voices nearby, talking in hushed tones, and I recognized Logan’s right away. It anchored me to reality, reassuring me that I was safe.

I could have strained to make out the words, but it was too much effort. It was too much effort to open my eyes or even move my head, so I lay there and listened to the soothing timbre of Logan’s murmur.

I took stock of my condition: the queasiness, the lightheadedness, the sensation of having been scraped raw. Given my quick metabolism and fast healing, it was clear that not much time had passed since Logan had picked me up.

The pitch of Logan’s soothing murmur changed, gaining an angry edge. With great effort, I opened my eyes, turned my head, and concentrated. The side of the bed faced an open doorway, where I could just make out Logan’s silhouette at the end of a long, narrow hallway. I couldn’t see anyone else, but Rafael’s angry response was unmistakable: “… For someone you’ve only known for a few days?”

Logan grunted his confirmation, followed by, “That aside, she gets in the wrong hands, and it’s a fucking disaster. I believe she doesn’t even know what she is.”

Raphael exhaled. “Then send her to the clan and stop bullshitting yourself. Look, she’s haunted. You can see it from the shadows in her eyes. She’ll draw you in, and it will be like Cara all over again. For fuck’s sake, she even caught Black Drammen’s attention.”

A long silence followed, heavy with tension even from where I lay.

“Shit, Lo. Man, I say you cut her loose before it’s too late.” There was a kind of plea in Rafael’s voice, and I couldn’t reconcile that badass heavyweight I met a few days ago with thisone. It was obvious the two weren’t just partners but very close friends. “Her guardian?” Rafael asked after a frustrated sigh.

A pause. “I took her there. It was right before the SEALs. I haven’t been up to date with internal affairs … but shit, man, I thought the elders wouldn’t …” Logan raked a hand through his hair in the ensuing pause. “The Society was waiting for her right inside the house. Do you know how fucked up that is? How they knew to find her there? Shit, the woman she thought all her life was her mother just stood there and watched. She did nothing. She didn’t even protest.” A huff, a shake of the head. “She just stood and watched.” A baffled tone underlined his frustrated words.

Rafael swore under his breath. “What could she have done against that platoon? She’s just one woman. Do you blame her?”

I thought back to the scene in Elizabeth’s living room and agreed with Rafael. Although that indifference, that emptiness in her eyes had shown me how much I had meant to her. Besides, she didn’t have to fight anyone. She could have given me some sign, some signal that we weren’t alone, that I was about to be taken again.

“That’s beside the point now. What matters now is that Archer was going after her when he got caught,” Logan continued. “He heard rumors about a scion being held by the Society the day before he disappeared. I’m sure he went to investigate it and was captured. I called Alleena, and she brushed me off. I called Vince and was sent to voicemail. I called for a council meeting and was scheduled out three weeks. Three weeks, for God’s sake.”

“Three weeks isn’t unreasonable,” Rafael interjected.

Logan’s voice sharpened. “An emergency council meeting should take place in less than three days, a week at most. I’ve been out of the game for a long time, yes, but I still know therules, Goddammit!” He punched a fist into the palm of his other hand with a loud crack. He took a long, calming breath, and when he spoke next, his raging tone was more controlled. “That’s not even it. What if Archer didn’t tell anyone about her because he knew to keep her away from them, for whatever reason, maybe even for her own sake—”

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