He clung to Lydia’s arm, and through the asthmatic wheeze his holy silver-corrupted body had developed for the first time since his turning, he whispered, “You have to… go alone.”
“No!”
“I’ll come… after. I can’t keep…” He made the ploy up as he went, searching for something—anything—that would convince her to keep moving. “If we both hide, he’ll look for us. But if he hears you running—”
Her eyes widened. “He’ll come afterme.”
A stabbing pain ran through Rahil’s heart at the thought—he didn’t want to direct William at her, he wanted to stay behind to stophim—but Lydia was already letting go of him, not merely letting go, but pushing him behind a dense patch of brush. “Lydi—”
He stumbled, crashing onto his back in the prickly tangle of branches and weeds. She shoved the leaves back over him, taking off with a holler before the brush had even settled. The sound of William’s arrival proceeded not a moment later.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Rahil had anticipated attacking William as he passed, but flat on his back with his limbs trembling and his head spinning, there was little he could do but lie there, little use he could be but perhaps a sitting duck. Wouldthatsave Lydia? If only he knew. If he justknewwhich choices were the best, what actions would actually work out in the end, he’d sacrifice anything, go any distance—if he just fuckingknew.
William seemed to hesitate, his footsteps pausing. Rahildidn’tknow.
He held his breath. As the forest went silent, the distant sound of Lydia’s hollering echoed back. William set off again.
Fuck.
Rahil dragged himself to his feet, still cradling the protector device. What could he do, whatcouldhedo?
He forced one foot in front of the other.
If he’d just sent Lydia onward to be captured, or worse—
He’d been responsible for the loss of Shefali, Jonah, Matthew, Leah, and now—
No.
He reallyhadn’tknown, was the truth, not with any of them. It sounded like Mercer’s voice, deep and stern, solid as a mountain face and soft as velvet. Maybe, just maybe, all he could do right now was take his best bet and hope life didn’t fuck him over yet again. He’d have plenty of time to feel guilty in the future; now he had to act.
Rahil clutched Leah’s device tighter, his palms screaming and his fingers shaking as he jogged after William, and he repeated Mercer’s encouragements in his mind: Genius, brilliant, smarter than that. Good boy. He’d been enough for someone, if only for a moment. There wassomeonehe hadn’t failed—not yet; not until he lost Lydia.
His own blood, dark and thick, dripped across Leah’s device as he tried to think back over all the code he’d been searching through, nearly losing control of his own body as he stumbled out of the trees onto his street. He could see the front of his house, three down. A figure stepped under the porch, too tall for Lydia or Avery, too broad for Jim. Rahil’s chest tried to cave in. His body wanted nothing more than to collapse then and there, be done with life and love and succumb to the end, but he pushed. One step, then the next.
What would Leah do, he thought, and then, quieter,what would I do?
If this had been his project. Ifhehad been working on a piece for the protection of the small child in the crib beside his bed, he would not have cared about force, would not have wanted that child to be witness to blood, much less feel they were the cause of it—to take responsibility of the lives of those around them, simply by existing.
This device was forLydia. Not for Mercer, not for a random child, but for this beautiful, brilliant, courageous little fae girl, with a mother who was feeling her own body reject itself and had to know that was a possibility for her child as well—who was perhaps already seeing the first symptoms emerge.
Rahil had been looking at this all wrong. He’d been trying to force the device to react to his attacks. But what if that wasn’t its purpose at all?
What if it was something to catch Lydia if she fainted, turn her body if she seized, help her hold herself up when she felt weak—let her experience the world without the fear that one accident might end it all? What if Leah’s device was the same thing that Mercer had eventually found for their daughter in the form of pills?
What if it wasn’t a weapon, but anaid?
What if that aid… already worked?
Rahil didn’t have time to test that theory though. He was nearly to the front door, the activated device clutched to his chest, but he could hear William’s deep bellows from inside, echoing through the tired structure so thunderously that it felt his voice alone might tear it down. “You can’t hide from me!”
Given how few furnishings filled the space, Rahil knew it was the truth.
He scrambled through the front, down the hallway, gasping as he forced his agonized body forward. He nearly tripped over Nat, curled on the entryway floor. A blistering holy silver burn smeared across her neck, jaw, and cheek, like William had slammed a chunk of the metal into her face. She shuddered from its effects, but as Rahil reached for her, blood dripping through the gaps in his fingers, she hissed at him through gritted teeth.
“He’s upstairs!”
Rahil forced himself to keep going. As he reached the stairs, his body protested. It was too far, up too many stairs, and he couldn’t—not fast enough—
