Page 189 of Jagged Souls

“Abort the child.” I don’t call it hers, can’t call it fucking hers. Because then it would bemine. Regardless of whether or not I’m the father, anything she decides to keep will be mine too. I will accept all pieces of her. I will be the peace she fucking deserves. But first I have to bring her home, and she’ll never need to know it was Khalid and I who aborted the thing in her womb.

“What?” Enoch this time, but he’s more confused than outraged.

“Antonio killed one of his men for giving her V. He’s feeling the stress of whatever deadline he has. We kill it now, he’ll blame it on the potion or Eduardo, and that will sow more discord in his ranks.”

“And how does that fucking helpher?” Dayne demands.

I look him in the eye. “He won’t trust them to watch her. He might take her with him when he leaves.” Now that she’s stopped fighting, and he can’t trust his own men around her. Maybe. But it’s enough to hope.

His eyes widen. “Then we can grab her.”

I doubt it’ll be that simple, but it’ll give us a much better chance than what we have now. Khalid pulls her doll out of his shadows. Murmuring beneath his breath, he shapes the air around it, using it like a phantom hand as he uses his actual hand to pluck a pin of green energy out of the air. It’s a tether of his soul, and it won’t just connect him to the doll. It’ll connect the doll to him.

What if Micha’s so far gone that she’s attached herself to Antonio? He’s just gone back and killed one of her abusers. That’s a situation ripe for turning her to his side. If Micha fights Khalid, she could save the fetus and kill him.

My stomach tightens, but I push that fear aside. She has been tortured for nearly three months, and she won’t know it’s him doing it if she’s in a V-haze. She won’t know there’s anything to fight…

But what if I lose him too?

My brothers used to feel invincible to me. I used to think we could take on the world together. Now their existence feels so fragile. That guarantee is gone. I’ve lost two already, within months of each other.

I could lose Maddox on his mission.

Khalid could die.

Stop.

Worrying won’t do anything but waste time. I need to tell them the rest of my plan so we can bring my wife and brother home. Locking down my fears, I look at Ezriel. “You said you found out where the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries are now held?”

He nods. “Orpheus Cave.”

“Wait, where we just were?” Enoch says, and his twin slaps him upside the head, ruffling the edge of his mohawk, which has been cut into the shape of a gecko. “That was Odysseus’ Cave, dumbass.”

“They sound the fucking same!”

“One has an R in it!”

“You’regoing tohasmy fist –” His mouth slams shut as Dayne touches him on the side of the head.

“You were saying?” he asks as he looks at me. I pulled out my phone as soon as they started bickering to text Vlad and Aleric. I hit send, letting them know we need a lift.

“Antonio won’t risk the place being tampered with when he needs it to go into the Underworld. He’ll have something or someone watching it. So if we just let ourselves be seen in the area –”

“He’ll go check it out,” Dayne finishes as he lets Enoch go. Then he shakes his head of dark hair. “I don’t think he’d bring her with him for that.”

“No,” I say. “It’s two plans. The miscarriage is for if this one fails.”

“So what’s this one?”

“We set up an ambush to kill him and Eduardo.”

Aleric never replied back, so Vlad ferries us in multiple hops one by one on his own. He’s never been to the area the cave’s in though, so the first time he goes, taking Enoch, he can only phase the distance he can see for the last couple miles. The new reaper is still on his knees and groaning by the time the rest of us got there two hours later.

“Oh my gods, you’re such a baby,” Ezriel says, and I turn away from them, sorrow piercing my lungs at the thought of the baby I’ve lost.

Dayne looks at me, and I can see the pain on his face too.

“This needs to work,” he says, his voice tight and low. “If she’s broken –”