Page 50 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

“I gave everything I had and more for the Sanctus Ghost,” he said, “but we called it that for a reason. You can’t touch holy and you can’t touch a ghost. Sometimes it felt like the Sanctus Ghost was more like an ideal that would avoid us if it actually existed.”

Cal stared at Lethe as if shocked he’d say the words to her.

Ana looked back at the painting, legs stretching out as her arms hung limp by her sides.

She kept looking at the painting until she rolled onto her hands and knees and positioned herself directly before it.

“But I’m just one man, Ana,” Lethe said.

The painting seemed to bring her a strange sense of peace. She reached her hand and touched the canvas.

“Ares figured it out,” Ana said after a while. “How do we?”

Lethe approached her, standing over her as she flattened a hand on the painting.

“I’m going back to the State,” she said hoarsely. “Hailey wants Chronos. I have my own conditions.”

“Right now? That’s insane! You froze them all,” Cal argued.

“Cal, can you get her some water?” Lethe replied back sharply, and Cal nodded and rushed outside to the nearby well.

“It was only a second for them,” Ana said, reaching up as Lethe caught her arm and helped her to her feet.

“Why all of a sudden?” Lethe asked as she steadied herself against him.

“He forgave them,” Ana replied, looking back at the canvas. “Ares gave up his plan to attack the capital. He forgave them. I’d be a hypocrite if I turned on the State now.”

“How do you know?” Lethe asked, searching the room.

“He told me,” she replied, gesturing to the painting. “That’s not mine.”

Lethe looked back over it, inspecting it closely. Through his new eyes, he saw small fingerprints of sentiment and intention. He’d have to look closer to confirm if what Ana said was true.

“You got all that from a painting?” Cal asked, hauling in a sloshing bucket from outside.

“Yes,” Ana replied.

“And you’re sure? I’m not. Not at all, actually,” Cal said as he dunked a cup inside and handed it to her.

“Yes. Let’s go.” She pushed off of Lethe, finding her stride as she started back to the door. She reached for it, hand hitting the doorframe and missing the door. She rubbed her head, leaning into the doorframe.

Lethe took the water from Cal and handed it to her.

She drank thirstily before explaining, “Chronos can have some strange effects on people. I’ll get better as long as I don’t use it again,” she said, exhaling as she seemed to struggle against some feeling of sickness inside her.

“Let’s go,” she repeated, pushing off again. Her knee buckled and he caught her.

“All right. No,” Lethe said, pulling her into him as he slid down the doorframe and sat them both against the floor, taking the cup from her. “You can go back, but tomorrow.”

“He’ll come after us,” Ana said, but she didn’t lift her head from his chest. She stared out at her horse, but he could feel every ounce of energy in her body centered on staying focused on anything at all.

“Ana, Hailey isn’t coming to meet us,” Lethe said. “We need you to rest some, all right? Cal. Go up the path and keep watch. As soon as you see any of Hailey’s men, you ride back.”

“Lethe, that’s risky for Cal,” Ana objected.

“I accept,” Cal said, leaping over them as he walked through the door. “You can trust me! I’m a hero now.”

“Cal, be careful,” Ana said.

Cal waved back. “I’ve got it.”

He jumped on his horse and charged off.

“I think your arrogance rubbed off on him,” she whispered, watching him go.

“You’d think, but just a few hours ago, he wanted to run away from Chronos. An opportunist if I ever saw one,” Lethe said into her hair.

She didn’t reply. For a moment, she just lay there against him. He wasn’t even sure she was still awake after a while.

He savored the closeness, the warmth of her body soothing some inner ache he kept forgetting he had. He rested his face against her neck and she didn’t move, Lethe closing his eyes as he listened to her pulse.

He found himself adrift in the feeling, pulling her closer to his chest.

“Lethe,” she said.

“Too close?” he breathed, simultaneously feeling exhausted and wide awake.

She didn’t reply.

He opened his eyes.

Her metallic arm rested over his knee, and he peered past her head at it, curiously examining the triggers. He pulled back her sleeve around it, examining the handiwork. He picked up one of her fingers, inspected the joints.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled.

“Just curious,” Lethe replied. “You could feel that?”

“No. My eyes are open,” she said.

So, she was just enjoying lying there with him?

He nudged the thought off, along with the compulsion to voice it.

“You beat the Strike,” she voiced the statement, but it was an inquiry, he could tell.

“Xal Xel was completely destroyed,” Lethe said. “The Strike is dead. Cal helped. That’s pretty much it.”

“Jasper, the Mystics, and basically all of my friends are apparently a part of some plot to overthrow the State and break The Great Light,” Ana replied.

“I ran out of time. They attached me to Chronos right before I died. That’s pretty much it.

” She mimicked Lethe’s flat demeanor, but he could sense emotions boiling under the thin veil of her exhaustion.

Something else was wrong, something underneath the bare disappointment of it all.

He waited there for a moment, pondering the news. She elaborated. “The shell, a blue shell, the object of the Great Light. The State has it. They found it in the lab. And my time ran out, but they had already tied me to Chronos.” She hesitated. “My brain won’t stop.”

“Then go to sleep. It will all make more sense when you’ve slept,” he said, still admiring her arm. He turned it in his hand, touching the skin where the metal connected to the rest of her arm. As if familiar with the reaction, Ana barely seemed to notice.

“I can’t stop thinking.”

“Hmm,” Lethe said, inspecting her hair now. He curled a strand around his finger.

“What is it with you and touching things?” she said, sounding exasperated but not moving.

“Habit, I guess,” he replied.

She reached a hand up and circled his, holding it still in her hair. She curled her fingers around his palm and pulled it down so that his arm rested over her shoulder, keeping him still.

“Ana,” Lethe started. “I feel like I need to clarify something. Hailey is dead. You were there. I killed him. Do you remember when I came to get you?”

Her hand loosened slightly on his as if the news unnerved her.

“I remember,” she said, sounding a bit unsure of herself. “I saw you go up to him, I think. I didn’t understand.” She didn’t look at him. “You killed Hailey. Just like that? He’s gone?”

“He’s gone,” Lethe said, making no attempts to justify himself. He knew there was no more explaining he could do to sway her either way. She’d make up her own mind.

“He’s gone,” she repeated, in disbelief or awe, he couldn’t quite tell. She didn’t move away from him, though. He didn’t feel her tense in any way.

He didn’t regret what he’d done and hadn’t given it a second thought, but he knew that Ana, even at the risk of what would have been her life, might have rushed to save Hailey out of principle had she been of sound mind.

His curiosity in Ana’s silence quickly became fascination when he didn’t have to wait for her response. He saw vibrant, green vines of trust that flickered between them, and he wanted to wrap them in his physical hands, coil them around his fingers.

A sudden impression came over him, and he tried to translate the intense sensation into a thought as it pushed through his body and made his head spin. He tried to center himself in logical thought, but the rush continued like a flood through him.

Hold on. He coaxed himself back into his humanity, finding that this other part of him was becoming harder and harder to stuff away the more it continued to wake up.

He repressed it compulsively now. He didn’t even understand logically why he was still resisting it.

It was only a matter of time before the Snake Bite was gone completely and he became what he’d truly been all along.

He checked his fingers out of the corner of his eye, focusing hard to hide the bruising, and feeling relieved as it seemed to recede again. He still had enough Snake Bite in his system to keep The Eating Ocean and all of its symptoms at bay. For now.

Ana turned slowly in his arms, looking steadily into his eyes for a moment before she said anything. “Lethe,” she started, emphasis heavy in his name as if it were new to her somehow.

She continued to search his eyes, and he explored hers in return. Something was wrong. He saw her uncertainty, a coming question in her eyes. He could almost mouth it as she whispered, “How are you?”

When he hesitated, he saw a deep emotion shoot through her like bright electricity, this distracting, jarring image that he could almost feel in his chest, and for a moment, he lost his train of thought, his senses reeling as they intensified on her in search of the flash of emotion.

He saw the scent of oak trees, subtle traces of sweat on her neck, and a rhythmic pulse that emanated with a sensual and vibrant warmth through her. He wanted to feel her pulse, not with his fingers but with some sixth sense to connect with it—become it.

Everything she’d touched and that had touched her that day emanated like an aura of influence and feeling. A blue heaviness throbbed in her core, a creature coiled out around her ribs and forcing her to have tense and shallow breaths.

He found her gaze, and everything else around him became quiet. He took a deep breath in the presence of something so shocking and beautiful, and her essence danced in the depths of her eyes like a light—so many feelings.

“I’m fine,” he replied simply, feeling like it had been hours since the question and hoping it had only been a moment. “How are you?”

She seemed to be studying him, and he wondered if she’d noticed anything strange.