Page 13 of Hellfire to Come (Infernal Regions for the Unprepared #5)

Chapter Thirteen

brOOKLYN

Samir’s house should have felt like sanctuary. A place where we didn’t need to look over our shoulder.

But it didn’t.

After the Council set up the attack not too long ago the place felt foreign. Unwelcoming. The walls were too still. The air too stale. The quiet pressed against my ears like a scream buried just beneath the surface.

Alice lay on the makeshift cot we’d dragged into the center of the common room, her skin too pale against the patchwork of blood-stained blankets reminding me of the similar scenario from a few weeks ago where she was fighting for her life in a similar fashion.

I couldn’t take her to her room because panic was clawing at my chest just thinking about everything she went through there.

We also opened a circle like before, hoping that would trigger healing in her. So far nothing had changed.

Rowan was across from her on the couch, limbs tangled awkwardly, his chest rising in shallow, erratic gasps as Echo hovered beside him, whispering words beneath her breath that left red sigils dancing just above his clammy skin like fireflies.

I wanted to feel bad for thinking he betrayed us but I had other, more powerful emotions trying to destroy me internally without it.

Chester paced near the windows, one hand idly tracing red glowing wards into the glass over and over as if that will protect us if the Syndicate decides to attack again.

The sparks at his fingertips had long since gone out but he didn’t stop, didn’t so much as blink.

Sheen glistened on his upper lip and droplets of sweat dribbled down his neck, but he didn’t notice any of it.

A silent, steady presence making sure we were ready if anything came our way.

Being down at the cages in that mansion unnerved all of them as I feared it would. They were very twitchy, almost paranoid now but I couldn’t do anything to help them with that. I still fought my own nightmares from my time there.

Dominic crouched beside me, his fingers tangled in his hair as he watched Alice’s face, for the thousandth time, for any type of sign.

The wolf was here too, muzzle pushed close to Alice’s arm, ears pinned to the back of his head, eyes as big as saucers, staring at her unblinking.

There was no change. No twitch of her lips.

No spark behind her eyelids. She was burning from the inside out with Frederic’s poison, but none of us could name it, much less undo it.

And Samir…

After blanching when he saw us walking in with Alice draped over my arms and Rowan over Dominic’s shoulder, he turned his back and disappeared without a word. A feeling I didn’t dare name lodged itself in my chest at that. Now, he still hadn’t come out of his room hours later.

“Samir,” I called out softly, my voice thin from where I sat curled beside Alice’s cot, knees drawn to my chest, forehead resting against the edge of the mattress. I knew he could hear me. “We need you. Alice needs you.”

Silence.

Not even the rustle of movement from behind that damned door. It might as well have been a wall. All my hopes that he might have an idea of what we were facing suffered a sudden death the moment he closed that damn door with a very definite click.

Echo stilled, her hand hovering inches above Rowan’s pallid forehead, the damp cloth trembling slightly between her fingers.

Her silver gaze shifted sharply toward the dim hallway, shadowed by that heavy, impenetrable silence.

The line of her jaw tightened, etched with restrained tension.

“Something feels off,” she said softly, her voice low and thoughtful, yet edged with unease.

“Samir’s never been this quiet since I met him.

Not even in his darkest moods. He broods with intention, with sound and weight.

There’s a presence to it. But this?” She shook her head slowly, lips pressed into a line.

“This is absence. A hollow. And that’s not like him. ”

“He’s not brooding, that’s why,” I said, unable to keep the edge out of my voice. “He’s hiding.”

That earned me a look from her. Sharp, assessing.

Dominic spoke before she could. “She’s right,” he murmured from where he sat beside Alice, one of her hands now gently clasped between his larger ones as if he could push life into her that way.

His eyes never left her face like he was afraid that she would open her eyes and he would miss it.

“I heard him pacing earlier. Light. Sneaky. He’s still in there, in case you think he left without us knowing. ”

“But why not say anything?” Echo demanded, a line forming between her brows. “He knows what’s happening. He knows they’re both in trouble.” A long stare at Alice made her forehead wrinkle more. “I thought he cared about the human.”

Dominic finally looked up. His gaze was steady, but there was something stormy beneath it. “Because he’s not ready to face us. To face Brooklyn. He’s ashamed.”

Echo narrowed her eyes. “Of what?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said. My tone had softened, but something inside me felt colder now. “Samir doesn’t go silent unless there is something he doesn’t want us to see. And right now? I think he doesn’t want me to see that he’s sinking in guilt.”

Echo crossed her arms. “I don’t presume to tell you what to do, Brooklyn, but if I were you, I would demand answers.” She glanced pointedly at Rowen first then at Alice again. “Especially if my friends are suffering like this.”

“You can’t force someone to come clean before they’re ready,” Dominic said quietly. “And if you try, you won’t get the truth, not with someone like Samir…You’ll get lies, stories to justify one’s actions. We don’t need lies right now.”

I looked at him, then at the hallway. At the closed door with no light beneath the crack.

I’d tried knocking twice earlier. Echo had tried yelling through the wood, taunting him that he was scared of a little demon like her.

Even Chester had made an attempt with all the subtlety of a battering ram.

Still, Samir hadn’t made a sound. Not even a peep.

“So, what do we do?” Echo stretched her arms above her head, cracking her neck and twisting this way and that to get some circulation in her limbs.

The poor female had been hunched over Rowen since we placed him on that couch.

“I tried everything I can think of but my magic is useless for either of them.”

With one last look at Alice, I stood, brushing my palms on my jeans, the movement stiff and reluctant.

I didn’t want to leave her here but I had no choice.

“Samir is the last of my worries right now. We let him sit with whatever he cooked for himself. And if that’s guilt, I hope he chokes on it before I do it for him.

I’m done waiting for help that won’t come.

I need answers and I have every intention of finding them. ”

“Finding them where?” Echo asked.

“A reservation not too far from here,” I said. “I’m going to see Laughing Crow.” The name left my mouth like a vow. “She helped us once. She might do it again.”

Echo blinked. “The shaman?”

“You know her?” Surprised that the demon spoke as if she was acquainted with the female, I eyed her warily.

Echo just blinked at me. The expression on her face more than conveyed what she thought about my question.

“She’s more than just a shaman,” I finally said, pushing away my curiosity.

“She’s one of the people Frederic fears.

Main reason Alice took…” I trailed off, unwilling to share my weakness with the demons.

They didn’t need to know about the shifters we stashed in the reservations or the fact I probably won’t be able to enter the reservation thanks to the said shamans and their wards.

Dominic, still holding Alice’s hand, gave a slow nod of understanding when I threw him a desperate look. “If anyone can see through this… it’s her. She helped Alice with you, maybe she will do the same for her.”

“That’s what I am hoping for, as well,” I told him sincerely.

“I’m going with you.” Dominic straightened as I expected him to do. “After everything that’s happened, I’m not letting my mate out of my sight.” That last part was for Echo and Chester’s benefit.

I met Echo’s suspicious eyes. “Stay with them. Watch Samir’s door. Don’t try to force him out but make sure he stays away from both of them. If he’s going to talk, it has to be his choice. If not, I can always make him later.”

Echo hesitated then nodded once. “It’ll be my pleasure to put him in his place if he tries to touch either of them. But if he bolts while you’re gone, I’m hunting him down myself.”

“I will neither stop you nor hold that against you.” I spoke loud enough that there was no doubt Samir heard it.

I took one last glance toward the silent door, my chest heavy with disappointment I didn’t want to feel.

He was in there. Awake. Listening.

And hiding.

Like a damn coward.

From me.

From himself.

And that was something I couldn’t deal with. Not now.

Not yet.

So, I turned and walked away, already thinking of the winding roads toward the reservation and the one female who might have the answers I so desperately needed.