Page 36

36

RAHIL

He could not have stayed.

Rahil kept telling himself that as he paced through the trees neighboring the Bloncourt’s lot, little sun-shakes wracking through his limbs. The prickling pain of each step felt good. Like he was still alive. Like he could still do something.

He couldn’t though. Mercer had told him to leave, and after he’d invaded the man’s space so many times in the past, Rahil couldn’t do it this time.

It still felt like the wrong choice, but so did every other choice.

So did every choice he’d ever made.

Rahil ran his hands through the pieces of hair that had fallen from his braid. It had been so tight when he’d put it in, what was it now, twenty-four, thirty-six hours ago? He’d lost track of the time. No, that was a lie—he’d found out that he wasn’t the only whale left in the sea, and time had stopped having meaning. And now he was alone again.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, hoping for guidance, even if it was in the form of condemnation. The text bubble icon made his heart leap and flutter, but he opened it to find a string of messages from his nieces as they planned the next family get-together: a collection of food and games, which they’d decided had to include one of the two Bollywood films they’d clearly been arguing over in a different thread, though how that fit into the ‘games’ category, Rahil wasn’t entirely sure. It wasn’t what he wanted, and he almost—almost—clicked it aside.

But then he didn’t.

As he watched, fresh messages arrived from his cousin, then his nephew. Opinions on dessert, agreements to be there. Auntie Fatima complained that her television was having problems—no Bollywood if she hosted—and Adam told her to give it a good kick. Nora asked if anyone had invited Rahil.

His head felt light, but once he started moving again, it wasn’t as hard as he’d thought. His finger slipped over the send button automatically.

Rahil

I’ll have to find a ride, but I’ll be there 3

He had to close the text thread immediately, pressing his phone to his chest and shutting his eyes. It was done. And maybe, maybe it would mean nothing. Maybe he was still the only 52hz whale in the sea. But his song had come from somewhere—from people he’d once loved, who still loved him, even after he’d pulled so far away that he’d been able to lock that love up in his heart’s dungeon and toss the key into the abyss.

He might hurt them, the little voice in the back of his mind whispered. He’d pulled away for a reason.

But if he’d truly done so many things that had turned out to be wrong, what were the chances that pulling away from his family wasn’t just another mistake?

At least this way, he’d have a front-row seat to whatever happened, for better or worse.

With his hands free of his phone, it was clear just how much he was shaking now, even the shade of the thick pine growth not enough to block out the cloudless summer sun. He had to get moving, one way or the other. Pick a wrong choice and stick with it.

He tried to settle the fluttering anxiety in his stomach, tamp down on the aching between his ribs, and look at the situation logically. He wanted to hope that Mercer had just needed space, but it seemed that Rahil’s involvement in Leah’s death was too much after all—fuck, that thought hurt. Even as a distant thing, numbed and rationalized, it made him want to tear into his own chest and rip through the muscle that bled within. He tried to steady himself with something factual: that regardless of his future with Mercer, they had come together for a job. Before Mercer invited him on a date, Rahil had already been preparing for this outcome.

Their quest for unholy gold may have been over, for better or for worse, but the mysterious protective device Rahil had agreed to finish for Lydia was still not quite functional—it turned on, certainly, but every way he’d tried to initiate a defensive outcome with it had failed. He’d consulted what programing notes Leah had written in her book and read every line of code a dozen times, but there was something wrong still. Something he was missing.

He could identify the complex coding for how Mercer’s robotic arms were meant to move, which seemed perfectly functional, and had finished parts of the coding for the sensor inputs—touch, visual, audio, movement—so it had to be something in the section that combined both, predicting what the cord’s output should have been based on the sensory data.

There were detections for whether something was a ‘person’ or whether it was a ‘threat’. In that threat category, there were fall threats, seize threats, hold threats, and more, all of which worked in tandem with a variety of monitors that seemed like coding for a wearable medical device—indicators of stress, Rahil figured—and a peculiar line of coding for if person, disable . But none of it seemed to actually do anything. So there had to be something wrong. Something to fix.

If he could get it working, at least when he was gone, he would know Lydia was safe, and Mercer less anxious for it. That was right; that was good—it would make leaving them more manageable. Less horrible.

Rahil nodded to himself, ignoring the slicing pain in his heart. He could do this. For them. In a sea of wrong choices, it was perhaps the only one that was positively right.

He’d go back to his original plan: he wouldn’t see Mercer, just grab Leah’s project and quietly return it when he’d finished, and that would be that. Then, at least— at least —Mercer would have gotten something nice out of their relationship. Not something that could make up for the pain, but still.

Shaking and aching, Rahil set back off through the little forest. He dodged the fence to the yard that bordered Mercer’s and slipped out of the woods. Everything seemed quiet, no sign of Mercer, thankfully. Rahil sprinted through the sunlit space between the shed and the trees, his chin lowered and his hood bouncing against his forehead. Kat barked at him excitedly from inside the glass backdoor, her tail wagging. He waved at her as he turned into the shed. The sliding door was closed, but as he grabbed it to yank it open, it rolled on its own.

Rahil ran into the shed’s current occupant: a man, a little shorter than Rahil. Anthony? But no—

Rahil’s scrambled thoughts got no further as the man’s knee collided with Rahil’s gut. The rush of pain seemed to trigger a fresh cascade of sun-shakes, and he stumbled, unable to dodge as the stranger jerked around him, fist crashing into the back of Rahil’s head.

Darkness flared. The world spun. Rahil’s shoulder slammed into the bench, a sharp ache pounding from his kneecaps a moment later. He tried to blink away the pain clouding his vision, but the blurry shadow of the man grabbed one of his arms and yanked it to the side. Agony speared from the center of his palm, a blade pinning his hand to the side of the workbench behind him. He could not move—could not think.

The thrum of holy silver tingled through Rahil, weakening him. A whimpering sound echoed in his ears.

He followed the source of the noise to— Lydia .

Rahil’s heart crashed into his ribcage, adrenaline shooting through his body at the sight of Lydia lying on the floor, her wrists and ankles bound and a gag shoved in her mouth. The edges of her eyes were red, but behind them was nothing but fire. It brought Rahil back to life.

He thrashed, only resulting in a fresh burst of pain from his hand. Instead, he opened his mouth. “Merc—”

The man shoved him against the bench, one hand slamming down on Rahil’s mouth. He pressed the holy silver to Rahil’s neck, and Rahil could feel the way it tore through his usual strength, worsened by the sun-poisoning already working its way through his body.

“Ah ah ah,” the man hissed. “No courageous human is coming to rescue you .”

A chill ran through Rahil.

He knew this man—by purpose if not by face—the subtle cruelty, the disrespect for property, the disregard for life. But now that he had William Douglas standing in front of him, he recognized his face too: the full head of silvering hair, the sharp eyes and thin smile. He’d swiped right on him a few months earlier. It had only taken a few messages back and forth to unmatch. Nothing specific had stuck in his memory, but he recalled being unable to shake the uncomfortable gut instinct that any meeting with the man would be his last.

There was a reason vampires who advertised themselves like he did went missing from time to time, and Rahil feared a perpetrator of the problem was standing in front of him. And now that problem had Lydia.

Ignoring the holy silver pressed to his skin was far easier for Rahil than most vampires, but the metal-work blade spearing his palm to the table had him trapped. Still, he used the last of his energy to twist away from the hand clamped to his mouth, shoving William back just enough to—

“ Mercer!” The name came out more gurgle than shout as William hit him again. Rahil’s vision wavered, but he didn’t fall, both of William’s fists and his pinned arm holding him up.

“You won’t be a good bat and die quietly, huh?” William grumbled. He grabbed Rahil’s other arm.

Fear shot through Rahil, and he jerked away on instinct, but he was too weak and trapped to stop William as he forced the back of Rahil’s other hand to the workbench. Rahil managed a whimper, the sound turning to a hiss when William pressed the tip of one of Mercer’s metal working blades to his skin. William pushed.

This agony was worse than the first time, amped by terror and a sharp rush of something like claustrophobia.

Willaim pushed Rahil into the counter, leaving him slumped there in his pain as he wandered through the black spots in Rahil’s vision to the box of Mercer’s holy silver.

William bounced a little charm in his palm as he returned. “I think I can waste a piece of this if I have the maker’s daughter, huh.” He grabbed Rahil by the shirt, forcing him up. Rahil swore that the closer the charm came, the worse his shakes got, the sun-poisoning reacting to the presence of the silver like a flock of vultures to a kill. William’s grin flickered dastardly in his eyes. “Let Vitalis-Barron see what happens when a vamp swallows the sun.”

He grabbed Rahil’s chin, and Rahil tried to scream again, but it came out a yowl as William shoved the charm into his mouth, wedging it toward the back of his throat. Rahil gagged, twisting away from the terrible metal and the man assaulting him with it. William clapped his hand over Rahil’s mouth.

“Don’t disappoint me,” William hissed. His finger and thumb closed around Rahil’s nostrils.

The sudden lack of air hit him like a ton of bricks, his chest swelling and shaking as nothing came in. Each useless gasp made his throat tighten. His lungs burned and his palms seared as he tried to struggle, the holy silver charm resting at the back of his throat like a weight.

What more could it possibly do to him? The metal didn’t hurt. He was weak already, shaking, aching, bleeding from the blades in both his hands, not strong enough to push William off for a single breath of air. But who knew what holy silver did when ingested, when circulated through a vampire’s bloodstream? Whatever that was, Rahil guessed it wouldn’t be quick. All he needed, though, was long enough to help Lydia.

But as Rahil tried to focus his attention beyond William, he realized Lydia didn’t need his help any longer.

She crashed into William, a smithing tool in each hand as she slashed them into his back. William stumbled, the handle of something sticking out of his shoulder-blade. He thrust Rahil away as he did.

Rahil’s body swallowed despite his efforts to stop it, the press of the metal forcing the motion. He gasped, feeling the fresh air plunge down his throat after the holy silver charm, but it was too late. His gut twisted, and he didn’t know whether it was dread or the charm, but he felt instantly sick.

He could think about that later, though—if there was a later.

He had to ensure there was a later for Lydia , at least.

She must have freed herself with one of the tools she’d stabbed into William, but she still seemed off-kilter, leaning half her weight on Rahil as she grabbed at the blade in his left hand. To her credit, she didn’t hesitate. A fresh wave of pain rolled over Rahil as she pulled it free, but her presence—her freedom—gave Rahil the strength to awkwardly help her remove the other.

Rahil ignored the pain that screamed through his palms and bones and churned in his stomach as he burst up, one arm already looped around Lydia. He grabbed Leah’s nearly finished protective device with his other, forcing himself to move through the agony. Blood oozed from his palms onto the project. William looked more shocked than hurt, and Rahil took the only chance they were likely to get, charging past him for the shed entrance. They burst into the sunlight, the cords from Leah’s protective device flailing after them.

The house—they just needed to get to the house.

He could already hear William behind them, huffing under his breath. Rahil pulled Lydia faster. They crashed into the backdoor, Lydia banging as Rahil dragged at the handle, leaving dark red smudges in his wake. Nothing—locked. Kat whimpered on the other side, uselessly jumping against the glass.

“The front,” Rahil gasped, and yanked Lydia onward.

Every window was locked, every light turned off, blinds closed and house silent, but Rahil banged on the glass as he passed, hollering for Mercer. His car was gone from its usual place in the driveway.

“Goddamn,” Rahil hissed, trying to be angry instead of afraid. His hood bounced against his back, but his hands shook too much to pull it up. He knew what he’d find at the front door before he even tried the knob. Locked, again.

Mercer had left .

Rahil’s legs trembled. His stomach gave an uncomfortable twist.

“Your place!” Lydia shouted, dragging him along.

He wanted to protest—there had to be somewhere she could go if she wasn’t with him, a neighbor who’d let her in or call the cops—but she just kept pulling, guiding him down the street and back into the nearest spotty patch of woods, angling toward Rahil’s house. As the trees closed behind them, he risked a look back. He caught the angry form of William’s silhouette and a putrid whiff of his blood.

Rahil shifted his grip on Leah’s protective device, its cords now tucked against his chest. If they slowed enough, maybe… but he hadn’t been able to figure out why it wasn’t working earlier, not with all the time he’d had so far. What use would he be, stumbling between the forest and the sun, his pained hands shaking and bleeding and his mind frazzled?

Lydia seemed to be gaining strength as they ran, and it took him nearly a minute of scrambling after her to realize it was the opposite—he was growing weaker . Each step was a collision of muscle against bone, nothing but willpower pulling him forward. They would lose William soon, he told himself—they knew where they were going, charging through the trees, across neighborhood streets, around micro-cemeteries, and back into the shadows, dense brush at their heels—at some point, they’d turn the right corner, round the right trunk. But every time they slowed, tripped, redirected a little too suddenly, Rahil could hear William’s steady jogging behind them: a predator who already knew he had his prey cornered, even if they hadn’t realized it yet.

They had to do something. And soon—preferably before Rahil’s legs stopped functioning.

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 after me .”

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 stop him —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. Would that save Lydia? If only he knew. If he just knew which choices were the best, what actions would actually work out in the end, he’d sacrifice anything, go any distance—if he just fucking knew .

William seemed to hesitate, his footsteps pausing. Rahil didn’t know.

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, what could he do ?

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 really hadn’t known, 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 was someone he 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. If he had 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 for Lydia . 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 an aid?

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—

Where was Lydia leading William? The answer was as obvious as the stars that had stretched above them and the fearless wonder in her eyes. Rahil charged out the back door.

He didn’t quite feel the motion, just the pain and the weakness and the abysmal twisting of his gut as he stumbled out into the sunlight to stare up at the roof. Sure enough, Lydia was halfway out the attic window. She caught his gaze and her brow furrowed. She took the last step.

Before she could close the glass and hide, William came barreling out behind her. He grabbed for her shoulders, just as she shoved, sending them both into a tumble on the sloped roof.

All three of them screamed.

Rahil swore he could feel Lydia as clearly as the device alive in his hands, like each frantic, fruitless grasp of her fingers against the tiles were a swipe of nails across his heart. His breath caught. His vision tunneled.

“Lydia!” Rahil screamed as she tumbled over the side.

And he threw Leah’s protection at her.