Page 39 of Till Death

He made it clear he’d been tolerating my little side adventures until now but we both knew we’d lost too much at this point for me to continue alone.

Refusing to even look at Cole, Eli said to me, “You understand. Don’t you?”

I glanced over at Lisa and Tamara. “I’m not going anywhere without him,” I said.

“I can’t believe you’d do all this for an animal,” Lisa replied through clenched teeth. She all but had her gun pointed between his eyes.

Shifting, I put my own body between them.

I still couldn’t do it. No matter how much sense they made or how the others looked at me. Willing me to see reason. Something inside of me must be broken beyond repair because the thought of losing Cole now—

It would be the final nail in my coffin. I’d always hated the stupid idiom, but it definitely made sense to me now. If Cole diednow, I would fail. His death had the power to destroy me.

I wanted to insist I get props for recognizing this about myself but I had the feeling no one would find my joke funny. Then again, many a truth was said in jest.

“I’m not leaving Hell without Cole. And I’m not leaving without finding a way to stem the flow of demons and Halflings into the living world. That’s why I came here in the first place.” Well, one of the reasons.

Eli remained in a defensive stance for the longest time without wavering.

“There’s no way to “plug” up Hell, girl,” Lisa said with her fingers raised for air quotes. “Who gave you that idea?”

I pointedly ignored looking at Tamara. “There has to be a way. The veil kept the worlds separate, but that couldn’t have been the only thing doing so. For the longest time, the elevators were the only way up or down. Tamara found the back door.” She’d used it once for me and once for the three of them, so I didn’t mind calling her out on that front. “There’s another way. There has to be.”

“The veil is gone,” Eli corrected. “There is no other way. We need you at the front of the battle lines—”

“Do you hear yourself? There are demons and Halflings crawling all over the surface of the Earth. I think it’s safe to say, Eli, there are no battle lines. There is one gigantic battlefield where everyone is simply trying tosurvive.” I shouldn’t have to explain all of this to them. There was no going back now.

I’d partly come down here to stop the demons from coming through so that the poor people fighting might have half a chance to get ahead of the swarm. How did I make him understand?

“You know more about war than I do,” I said, taking a step toward Eli. “You’ve lived through this kind of thing a thousand times, and you have all of your memories. I don’t.”

His expression fell at my statement. “Jade, please.”

“No, noplease. You’re the one who has a better handle on strategies. Secrets.” I stared at him, wondering if he’d known about Amon and Hank being brothers. Or why this whole war business had really started.

But the way he stared at me with those deep dark eyes, I didn’t think so. He’d probably flip his lid once he found out.

“Secrets like a way to close the gates of Hell permanently?” Eli shook his head again. “I’m sorry. If there is such a way, then knowledge of it is above my paygrade. The best thing we can do is keep cutting down the Halflings we come across and reduce Hell’s numbers. Then we can hope our friends in the living world are doing the same.”

It was the one story I’d been hoping to be false. “Well, shit.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Lisa added dryly.

“If that’s the case, then why did we waste so much time sending her down here in the first place?” Tamara argued. She placed her hands on her hips, lips pouting. “I wasn’t exactly thrilled to come back myself. You convinced me this was the next step”

No, she wouldn’t be thrilled. Not when she had a first-class ticket back once this whole thing ended.

If, I mentally corrected. If this whole thing ended and we came out on top. The more time passed, the more I doubted a happy ending for everyone. Myself included.

“I had to find a way to get to her,” Eli replied, anger flashing in his eyes. “You held the key. Simple.”

Tamara didn’t back down under his scrutiny. She crossed her arms over her chest until the tension in the room became a little too hot to handle. Anyone who had experience with Tamara on a personal level probably felt a certain way about her, but I didn’t expect Eli to get his back up this way. Honestly, I think we were all at the end of our ropes.

Of course.

Eli wasn’t really in the business of trusting anyone these days. And he didn’t trust the witch. Once again, his desperation to find me had brought him some strange new bedfellows.

“That makes me feel really good, thanks,” Tamara snapped.

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