Page 55 of Ash

She must have said his name aloud, because he flinched violently. “Go away.”

It was something she would have said, and instead of listening to him, it stiffened her resolve to stay.

She was contrary that way.

“No.” Dani crouched down, keeping her distance from him. She understood about that too.

Remy had been her personal demon, but Rindek had been behind the entire thing. For Ash, it had all been about Rindek.

She’d seen some of it—the pulses of torturous energy that the Archmage sent into Ash’s collar. But she heard, or guessed, most of it. Ash endured it all in silence. She’d never heard him scream, until now.

Why now? Was this linked to the hole Remy’s death had left in her? Or to the Dragons that had entered the dynamic? Her subconscious mind was playing weird tricks on her. She supposed there was one way to find out.

Dani took a deep breath. “What has he done to you?”

At first, she thought Ash wouldn’t reply. His hands tightened on his arms, turning the fingers white against his golden skin. Then he raised his head.

His eyes swirled with every color of the rainbow, but not in a relaxing manner. They reflected the chaos in his soul.

Dani’s heart accelerated.

Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own.

“If your life meant the birth of a great evil, would you embrace death?”

Dani stared at him. Where had that question come from? When every day was about survival, you didn’t usually stop to consider such things.

It startled her into complete honesty. “I’m not that important.”

His eyes narrowed. “You are more important than you know.”

She remembered, then, what Ash really was. That he could see into the future.

The knot in her gut tightened. “What have you foreseen?” she asked.

His lips peeled back from his teeth, making him appear, suddenly, ferocious. “Too much. I have seen too much.” But then his eyes filled, and his mouth twisted.

The energy coming from him frightened her. She’d made a friend, once, on the streets. Another woman, who struggled with an addiction that was like a monster devouring her. One evening, she’d found her friend huddled much like Ash was now. The woman hadn’t answered Dani’s questions, but just sat there, staring. Dani’s instincts had screamed at her to reach out. To touch her friend, pull her close.

To hug her.

She’d reached out with her hand. Her friend had recoiled and shook her head. “I just want to be alone.”

Dani had crouched there, shaking, one hand extended. She knew she needed to push. To put that hand on her friend’s shoulder, and keep it there. But she couldn’t do it.

Instead, she’d gone to get her something to eat. When she returned, the woman had vanished, and she couldn’t find her anywhere.

A week later, Dani heard they’d pulled her body from the river. People said she’d fallen in, but Dani knew better.

Her street friend had the same energy coming from her that Ash did now.

This was only a dream, and that had been reality, but she couldn’t leave Ash like this, not even if he was a figment of her imagination. She owed him. She could have died, struggling alone with her shift to beast. But he’d helped her. He had no reason to, but he’d done it anyway.

Dani leaned closer to him, and he flinched. She got it—touching wasn’t something she ever did. Ash had been at least as traumatized as her.

But this time, she wasn’t walking away.

Staying low, she shuffled closer. Sat within a couple of feet of him.

---