Page 100 of Walking in Darkness

Horror squeezed my heart as I watched her grip the spot where she’d been hit.

Her hands pressed to it as blood gushed from between her fingers, her eyes wide with shock and pain as she stared at me like she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

We were both held in it.

In this devastating awareness that passed between us as evil hovered overhead.

One second later, she floundered one step to her left. A blip away from losing consciousness.

It snapped me out of the trance.

I ran for her, but I didn’t make it before she toppled over, landing hard on her side, then flopping onto her front.

Unmoving.

Panic assailed my spirit as I dropped to my knees beside her.

“Aria! Aria!” Frantic, I rolled her over.

Nothing.

No movement.

I patted her cheek to try to get her to open her eyes.

“Aria. Please. Baby, please,” I begged as my fingers went to her neck. Couldn’t get them to stop trembling as I searched for a pulse.

It was present, but thready and bare.

Terror slicked down my spine, and I ripped up her shirt to reveal where she’d been struck, and a gush of distraught air blew from my lungs.

“No.” It raked out of me on a low cry. “No, baby, no.”

The wound was gaping, but different from when we were burned in Faydor. It was deep. Flayed open. Blood pouring out.

I pressed my hands against it to try to stop the flow.

“Oh my God,” Dani rasped from where she’d run up behind us.

I blinked through the agony. Through the torment. “We have to get her to the hospital.”

It was a terrible fucking option. She’d be ripped away from me. Incarcerated or committed after what had happened at the mental facility. She’d be vulnerable, and Ambrose or whoever he sent would get to her.

Every fucking ignorant hope I’d let bloom inside me lost, but I couldn’t give in to all the turmoil that wanted to hold me back from taking her there.

Because the alternative wasn’t acceptable. She had to live. It was the only thing that mattered in this moment.

Saving her.

I’d deal with figuring out the rest later.

I tore off my shirt and balled it against her stomach, pressing hard as I scooped her up in my other arm and stood.

She felt too heavy and too light.

Those sweet, delicate arms didn’t wrap around my neck the way they normally did.

They were limp. The same as her head, which bounced listlessly as I ran.