Page 101

I released that final push of magic, my lips parting on a scream, and a wave barreled past. It curled and crested then broke over the demon, slamming her into the pavement, leaving the rest of the park untouched. The effort knocked me back into the railing. The pain of the metal digging into my spine didn’t even faze me; every speck of attention was on the saltwater wrapping around her limbs, squeezing her chest, stealing her air and her shrieks.

A shadowy phantom dislodged from her body, what I could only assume was her soul. Plumes of darkness billowed out of its back as it hovered over what remained of her mortal vessel: a chimeric, flaccid, figure that spun around and around while the Source slurped her down like a drain.

When the last of her floppy limbs vanished, the ocean retreated, swirling past my calves and snaking through my fingers with a purr-like rumble, claiming me as its master.

Finis’s faceless soul turned to me, the air around it splitting into a depthless, dark rift. A sulfuric smell stung my nostrils, and a draft of heat burned my skin.

Fear and sorrow pressed against my soul as Chthonia vacuumed up hers.

The demon let out a long, hopeless wail that shot past my ears and went straight to my nerves. It could have splintered bones and ruptured blood vessels it was so awful and doomed. But there was also something…beautiful within the darkness. Magnetic. Familiar. My hand drifted out, seeking the shelter of the pitch-black nothingness. But as it suctioned her up, the dimensional rip sewed itself back together, and the aching desire to join the darkness left me.

I blinked, thinking my eyelids must be bruised because of how much the movement made me wince. Nothing remained of the demon. No feathers, no fleshy charred stain, no particles whatsoever. It was just me, the moonlight, the wreckage, and…

Javi. I sprinted through the puddles, already sobbing before I reached him.

“Javi!” I dropped to his side, the debris harsh on my knees, checking for signs of life the way he did with me—squeezing his hand again and again. I’d do it until my fingers fell off.

Throwing my upper body over his, I pressed my cheek to his temple, and then laid it on his chest. A faint thrum reverberated against the side of my face. He lived.

Fresh tears erupted and I stroked his hair, matted with ash, dust, and blood. “We’re getting the hell out of here,” I promised.

Sliding my palms beneath him, I grunted at the pain shooting up and down my arms. With muscles bound to collapse at any moment, I lifted my best friend and shakily rose to my feet, shards of glass and metal raining from his clothes. Every step felt like it could kill me, but I carried him through the Boardwalk’s destruction towards the exit.

Chapter 33

I’d been staring at the granite grave marker for so long my eyes had started to cross. Its ashen surface blurred into one long, illegible carving I wasn’t ready to see clearly yet.

Glossing over the etchings for maybe the hundredth time, I peered at the rows and rows of graves instead, the sun reflecting off the various gray and black stones erected imperfectly across the hills. I took a deep inhale, the crisp air burning as I drew it in.

Goosebumps abraded my skin, and a ragged sigh left my lips. I was screaming in my sleep again, and the strain it put on my already raw throat made it impossible to even breathe without it feeling like it was on fire.

That was why I liked it here: nobody expected me to say anything. The dead didn’t force me to speak until my vocal cords were in shreds or force me to relive that horrific night at the Boardwalk. And I bet the person I visited wouldn’t have made me, either…if they were alive.

Which they weren’t. Thanks to me.

A horn honked from the cemetery’s parking lot. I jumped so high I swore my feet left my Vans for a sec. Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted my dad’s small SUV idling in the loading zone. Catching my attention, he opened his door and stepped out, pointing at himself, speaking in some form of parental mime language: Do you want me to join you?

With a smile that soured my cheeks, I shook my head.

After the “incident” a few weeks ago, he was always there, hovering—which would have been way more bearable if he was down to acknowledge what really happened when he found me carrying my unconscious best friend, bawling and bleeding and shoeless—but anytime I said the word demon or angel or Source he clammed up and turned greener than an algae bloom.

I got it—he was scared. And I felt for him for that. But why continue to tiptoe around it?

Especially when we both knew what ignoring the truth had the capacity to turn me into—something uncontrollable. Something dark. Something fated for ruin.

I crossed my fingers, squeezing them tightly together, as if the pressure could wring out my annoyance, and willed my attention back to the headstone. My eyes meandered down the circular sides, counting every little fleck of granite, as I laid the bundle of daffodils I’d been clutching at its base.

The easy thing to do would be to drop the flowers and split. But I remained crouching, as if my knees were unwilling to bring me back up until I faced what was in front of me. My arms flailed at my sides and smacked into my thighs. Oh, this was ridiculous. Come on, River. Just read it.

Fighting this very persistent, very annoying, urge that told me to do otherwise, my gaze lifted to the feathered angel wings flanking the epitaph and drifted over the words in the center. With each hushed syllable that left my lips my heart beat faster, and then all the air rushed out of me.

Olivia Fairmore

A bringer of truth in a world all too absent of it.

May her light shine on those who seek it.

Tucking my fingers into my cropped long-sleeve, I buried my face in my palms. I breathed into the cotton, damp from my tears, until I was starved of oxygen. A blast of air cooled my skin as I lowered my hands. I wanted to keep hiding—but I saw her when I closed my eyes.