Page 73 of Till Death

Amon had said something important, during one of our talks. Something about balance, and it continued to gnaw at me until my movements went mechanical while I struggled to mentally put the puzzle pieces together.

Balance.

Amon seemed to give a lot of weight to the word. He’d made direct eye contact, too. All this time I assumed the demons were overpowering the angles and that was why we had a problem. What if that wasn’t the case?

What if it was backward?

We always thought we needed more angels to keep fighting. More angels to turn the tide and get the veil closed for good. Then we’d lost Michael; things went dark.

The realization hit me in a flash of divinely—or maybe the opposite—inspired lightning. The balance meant that both sides had to even out their numbers. There couldn’t be too much power for the Darkorfor the Light. The angels had to reduce their power in order for the veil to be restored, which meant our side needed a massive loss in order to accomplish anything.

Shock coursed through me so quickly I lost my grip on Bertha and the sword clattered to the floor.Oh, shit.

The angels needed…to lose.

Andre ran in front of me and jumped to block an attack at the last minute, taking a hit across the chest to shield me. His skin peeled back from the wound and he gasped.

“Jade! Get your head in the game!” Andre winced, twisting to cradle his chest and speeding away.

Now that I had an idea, it grew inside of me to the point where the rest of the room faded away. One of the angels had to sacrifice their power to tip the scales in the right direction. Someone had to take themselves out of the equation. Someone of great power.

They had to give up their divinity in order to gain traction in this war, or perhaps to end this war entirely.

And at this point, I had the greatest power; I was the only one left with enough juice. Besides, things really hadn’t started to go tocompleteshit until my powers had fully activated. Which meant—

I reached forward and grabbed hold of Eli’s shirt to get his attention. He spared me a quick side look, his brows furrowed down and his face speckled in blood.

“What’s the matter?” He must have read the expression I wore in that split second because he stopped and stared at me. “Jade…what’s going on?”

I ground my teeth against the weight of this decision. Even though I knew this was the right thing to do, it was hard to reconcile what needed to be done.

“I need you to kill me.” I broke eye contact only to bend down and grab Bertha and adjust my grip so that I held the handle out for Eli. “I need you to help me sacrifice my light. For good.”

He’d know where to strike to make it relatively easy if not painless.

“Are you out of your mind?” he snarled in my face. “You’re insane. We need you now more than ever, and you want to die?”

“No. We thought we needed more angels to win,” I tried to explain, hoping I didn’t bungle this. “We actually needless. Michael is dead. Now it’s my turn to sacrifice, otherwise we’ll all need to die. Every angel. Including you.”

I was the strongest one out there. If I gave myself up, it would be enough.

It had to be enough.

Eli shook his head automatically. “No. I won’t do it. You’re asking for too much. We’ll never make it out of here with you gone.”

“I’m asking you to do your duty,” I insisted.

“Duty,” he repeated, with enough bitterness to burn me,

“The angels need someone of great power to give up their light. It’s me, Eli, and you’re the only one I can trust to get the job done.”

I was forcing him to make a terrible choice, between love and his job. I knew that throwing this in his face as his duty would spark something inside of him and for a moment I hated myself for pushing that button. But I needed that spark so that he could do what needed to be done in the way that only he could.

“Jade? What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Kay chose that moment to cut into our conversation and I found myself unable to look at her.

She clutched my arm, but I didn’t shake as I continued to hold the sword out to Eli.

“No, no.” Kay tugged at me and I heard the tears in her voice. I desperately tried to ignore her, otherwise I’d cave. I’d fold faster than a house of cards. “Don’t do this. You can’t; I won’t let you!”

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