Page 61 of Once Upon a Curse for True Love
They were gone.Both of them.
Her roommate, her best friend, the one person she could always count on.
And Donatello—he’d arrested her, infuriated her, made her laugh, and unearthed parts of her she didn’t know existed.She’d left his bed only hours ago, his touch still lingered on her skin.And now she’d never feel it again.
The two most important people in her life both swallowed into the void.
Both dead?
Fear settled in her bones like ice, cold and absolute, numbing her from the inside out.She’d lost them.Andromeda stared at the black screen, waiting for a voice, a flicker, any sign of life.
But there was nothing.Just darkness and silence.
Chapter Twenty-four
Not Dead
DONATELLO
Eyes still closed, Donatello tasted copper in his mouth while a high-pitched whine filled his ears.His brain rattled loose inside his skull, shaken hard and unfastened.Darkness pressed against his eyelids—not the natural blackness of night, but something thicker, more oppressive.Was he dead?He moved and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through his side, sharp and unforgiving.Not dead then.The deceased didn’t hurt this bad, did they?
His eyes snapped open to a world shrouded in murky gray.Air swirled in a heavy shroud that drained the world of color, reducing it to the faded hues of a sun-bleached photograph.He was lying on his back, the ground a slab of ice beneath him, chill threading into his spine.Above him, a sliver of sky was visible between buildings—he was in an alley.The knowledge seeped in, slow as sand filtering through water.
The narrow gap flanked the pharmaceutical facility where Graves had been hiding.Where everything had gone wrong.
Donatello sat up, gritting his teeth at the white-hot burn in his side.Blood slicked his fingers as he touched his side.His uniform was charred.The fabric melted into a blackened hole that exposed raw, bleeding flesh underneath.The wound looked like he’d been struck by a lightsaber.But the laceration was courtesy of one of Graves’s lightning bolts.The memories flickered back, disjointed and hazy.
The shadows erupting from the lich.Callidora’s voice, tight with controlled fear as she deployed the containment net.The blinding flash of dark energy as Graves hurled lightning at them both.The searing, unimaginable pain as it tore through Donatello’s side.
Sarah Michelle.
Where was she?A jolt of adrenaline shot through his system, dulling the ache.Had she escaped?Was she—
A pitiful moan cut through the ringing in his ears, coming from somewhere ahead of him.Donatello forced himself onto his elbows, squinting through the thinning darkness.At first, all he could make out were shapes—the hulking outline of a dumpster, the angular edges of a fire escape climbing the building walls, and trash scattered across the alley floor.
Then he saw them.
Two figures crouched about twenty yards away.One lay flat on the ground, the other hunched over, their faces nearly touching.Through the murky haze, Donatello recognized Graves even if most of his humanity had leeched away.
The prone body was Sarah Michelle.
Another soft wail drifted through the alley.Hex, the lich was feeding on her.Black tendrils connected Graves’s mouth to Sarah Michelle’s face, pulsing with an oily light as he sucked the very essence from her body.
Cold fury washed over Donatello, clearing the fog from his mind.
He locked his jaw, riding out the wave of pain that threatened to split him in half, and reached for the tactical sphere at his belt.Every SMPD officer on the perimeter had been given an energy containment net.Sarah Michelle had deployed hers and missed.Donatello wouldn’t make the same mistake.His fingers closed around the cool metal, relief coursing through him when he found it intact.
He drew a shaky breath and rose to a crouch, moving as silently as he could.The pain in his side was a living thing now, clawing at his insides with each movement, but he compartmentalized it—locked it into a box in his mind and threw away the key.There would be time to hurt later.If they survived.
The lich was focused on feeding, so lost in the act of consumption that he hadn’t noticed Donatello regaining consciousness.That was his one advantage.Once the net was deployed, it would lock onto the dark magical signature and close around it, leaving Sarah Michelle unharmed.
But he had to get closer.
Donatello crept forward, staying low, using the shadows—ordinary ones cast by dumpsters and fire escapes, not Graves’s unnatural darkness—as cover.Each movement sent shockwaves of agony through his body, but he kept his jaw clenched tight, refusing to make a sound that might alert the lich.
Fifteen yards.Ten.Five.
He could see Sarah Michelle clearly now.Her dark hair was bleeding color, turning an unnatural white-blonde—lifeless as the rest of her.Her skin was ashen, her lips bloodless.Was he too late?
