Page 4 of Till Death

Just a few.

He had refused to help us with the apocalypse. He expected us all to die fighting, so there was more name-calling where that came from.

“I guess you know what I’m going to say next, too?” I asked, my anger at his resistance emerging again.

“Yes.”

Annoyance made my muscles clench tight. “Am I dead-dead or not?”

“You’re not dead-dead,” he replied plainly. “I pulled you from Hell before things got too far.”

He could do that?

“I did create it, Jade,” he went on, somehow answering my thoughts.

“Get out of my head,” I snapped. “Believe me. That’s not a place you want to be.”

He chuckled, and his nonchalance only angered me more.

“You created everything, yet you can’t help us beatyourenemy. Maybe create yourself a set of balls next?”

“Evil is all our enemy, Jade.”

“Bullshit.” It snapped from my mouth before I knew it, but Hank didn’t flinch. “Don’t try and feed me that philosophical crap. There arerealpeople risking it all down there foryou. Realpeopledyingdown there because ofyou.”

Sighing, his attention drifted away to the nothingness over my shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t under—you’re kidding me, right?”

“It isn’tforyou to understand anyway, Jade. Just believe me when I say that this war…it’s what has to be done.”

This mother fucking sonofabitch—

“Put. Me. Back.” I ground out. “If I’m not dead-dead, then put me back in Hell. I was in the middle of something important.”

“Saving Cole Masters, you mean,” he replied. “The Halfling.”

He’s not a full Halfling yet.

I still had time. I could still get to him, if I stopped wasting it here in the Void talking to this schmuck.

“Look, I appreciate the save, but you need to send me back. Cole… He…” My voice faded out as my anger swiftly reformed into despair. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I had to shake my head clear to stop them from falling. “He means a lot to me.”

His gaze roamed over me. “I see.”

“So, I need to go back,” I rushed on, hearing the desperation clinging to every word. “I need to know how to save him.”

When Hank’s boyish face turned deadly serious, I knew I wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

And boy, was I right.

“It’s simple, Jade. You don’t.”

CHAPTERTWO

His words struck me right through the heart and I stood for a long time with my lips flapping open and closed, like a fish gasping for breath. A physical pain began in my chest and radiated outward. All the while, my eyes wanted to bulge out of their sockets and I struggled to figure out my next words. Something tactful, full of aplomb and dignity while discretely telling Hank to go fuck himself?

“What do you mean, I don’t?” I asked, trying not to let my voice shake the way it wanted to. “There has to be a way to get him back.”

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