Page 94 of Infernal

“Come on, Jem,” he answered with a slow shake of his head. “You know me well enough to know that’s not going to happen.” He ticked his chin to Dominic. “And I’m pretty sure he’s not letting you go alone either.”

Dominic nodded his head in agreement.

“Besides,” he continued before I could say anything else on the matter, “if we plan this out properly, we can take him out before he even sees any of us coming.”

“Take him out?” I repeated, certain I’d heard that wrong. If it was anyone else, I would have believed it, but not Ben. He was Trace’s best friend since as far back as either of them could remember.

He dropped his head and shoulders. “You heard what they said. There’s no way to separate them.”

Shaking my head, I rubbed the horrified expression from my face. It appeared that everyone had already reached this insufferable conclusion long before I was even ready to look at it.

“We can’t just let him keep killing people, Jem. Trace wouldn’t want this. You know it, and I know it.”

I tried to blink back my tears, but it was useless. They were spilling down onto my cheeks, picking up exactly where they’d left off not even two minutes ago.

Dammit. Would I ever be able to stop crying?

“Look, I know you can stop this. I know you have the sword,” he said, glancing away when I looked back at him surprised. “I overheard your sister taking about it with Gabriel.”

Fucking shit.

“We can’t just stay here and wait for him to kill her,” he said, his tone sharper and more urging.

“Don’t you think I know that?” I fired back, panic strangling me.

I knew it, and yet my feet still refused to move.

No matter how many times I’d heard the saying, “between a rock and a hard place,” I’d never truly understood its meaning until that very moment. I was between two rocks right in the middle of hell.

It didn’t matter which way I looked at it. Someone I loved was going to die tonight, and the blood was going to be on my hands, and mine alone. Everyone else would be able to leave it in the past and move on with their lives, but I was going to have to live with this ghost for the rest of my life. Maybe that’s why it was so much harder for me to see the bigger picture. I was the only one that was going to be irreversibly changed by it—haunted by it.

The bigger picture wasn’t so big when you were looking at it through my eyes.

“You can either come with me and help me save your best friend or you can sit here and let him kill more innocent people. What’s it gonna be?” he asked, his dirty blond eyebrows arched high, challenging me.

“I’ll go,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Of course, I would go. I had to. I was the only one who could stop Lucifer. “But on one condition.”

“Don’t ask me to stay here, Jem. I’ll give you anything you want, except for that.”

“I won’t be able to concentrate on what I have to do if I have to be worried about watching your back.”

“You don’t need to watch my back,” he fired back, audibly offended. “If anything, we’ll be watching your back,” he said, wagging his finger between himself and Dominic. “Besides, Lucifer ain’t coming alone, and you know that. We’re just making the fight fair.”

“Dominic, can you please back me up here?” I asked, turning to him for help.

“Unfortunately, angel, I happen to agree with him.”

Of course he did. “Thanks a lot,” I ground out in a tone that was anything but thankful.

“So?” prompted Ben with determination in his eyes. “Are we talking his car, or Caleb’s?”

I shook my head, drawing the damn line. “Caleb isnotcoming with us. Two of you is already bad enough.”

“Bringing a Caster is just good business. He’s powerful, Jem, and besides, there’s strength in numbers.”

“Not when Lucifer said to come alone,” I reminded him.

“You won’t be saying thatwhenthings pop off, and trust me, Jem, theywillpop off, especially when he finds out you already killed his witch.”

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