Page 99 of Ashes

I pushed past him and looked through the glass rectangle to see Asylum and Sirena in bed together. It looked like they were sleeping. His large body was curled around her small one, and he held her tightly against his chest. I swallowed hard as I took in his fingers twined through hers.

“What the fuck is going on?” Sin demanded as I backed away from the window, my heart in my throat.

That didn’t look like a girl who was frightened of the man she was with.

I cast a quick glance at Church, who wore a grim expression on his face before I glanced to Sin.

“She’s sleeping,” I said softly.

Sin rolled his eyes and moved to the door, peering inside for a moment before backing away.

“She's sleeping with Asylum,” he said.

A muscle feathered along Church’s jaw. “It would appear so.”

Worry crept up on me and put me in a stranglehold. I flicked my lighter opened and closed.

Again. Pause. Again. Pause. Five times. Breathe, Asher. Think.

“Did we lose her?” I finally whispered.

Church strode by us. “I don’t fucking know, but something isn’t right. The Asylum I saw today was different.”

We followed him down the hall. I wanted to run back to my heaven and tear her away from the demon who held her. I knew we had to just get over this bad patch, and I wanted to just trust whatever process Asylum spoke of, but shit. This was too much.

What if he was just playing us?

It would be an Asylum thing to do too. Get into our damn heads and then trick us.

“Where the hell are we going?” Sin demanded. “Are we done with siren?”

Church whirled around on Sin so fast I nearly tripped over my feet trying to stop myself from running into him.

“We’reneverdone with Sirena,” Church snarled. “Ever.”

I looked to Sin to find him holding Church’s glare. This entire thing was still a touchy subject. We didn’t need to be fighting in the middle of a psych ward though.

“Enough,” I said softly. “We love Sirena. We’ll do what we can for her, but Asylum has her right now. We need to just. . . back off. We’ll focus on Stitches.”

Church stepped away from Sin and nodded. “Ashes is right. Stitches needs us.”

“I agree,” Sin murmured. “Let’s go see him. Maybe. . .” his voice trailed off.

“Maybe everything will be OK, and we can just trust the fucking process,” Church said, his hands twisting into tight fists at his side.

He was angry and frustrated. I couldn’t blame him. I was drowning in it too. All I wanted to do was rush back to Sirena’s room and hold her in my arms. To tell her I was so sorry and promise I’d fix it all.

But I’d basically already done that and hadn’t been successful in carrying out my promise. The best thing now would be to find out who’d helped Asylum in the first damn place. So far, nothing had turned up. Naturally, no one wanted to talk if they knew. Face the wrath of the watchers or face the wrath of Asylum. There was no lesser of two evils when it came to that choice. We were all wicked and screwed up.

“Let’s just get out of here before we have to deal with Sully again,” I said, interrupting the growing tension. “She seems fine. Asylum is with her.”

And I hated it. I really, truly did, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. At least, not yet anyway. We’d fight for her once we were on even ground. We’d go to war if it came down to it.

I stepped away from my friends and went to the elevator and hit the button to go to the third floor, where I knew Stitches’s room was.

Church and Sin got into the elevator with me, neither saying a word for a few moments as we stopped on the third floor.

We stepped out and were walking to Stitches’s room before Church finally spoke.

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