Page 11

I burst into Starlight and scare the shit out of a girl I’ve never seen before. I’m not sure if it’s my facial hair, which I haven’t bothered to handle in the past… since I woke up… or the crazed look in my eye.

Maybe a combination?

At least I’m wearing my own clothes. They’re clean, they fit. I won’t be mistaken for a homeless person… just one who might’ve escaped the nearest insane asylum.

Wait, do they still call them that?

Nearest mental institution. The psych ward.

The loony bin.

“Is Saint here?” I demand.

Her chin wobbles, and she points over her shoulder.

I stalk around the desk. Separating his work space from the rest of the room is a half wall, with a curtain currently dragged across it for privacy.

The buzzing noise—his tattoo machine, surely—stops. I yank the curtain back.

Saint sits on a stool, and he’s tattooing a man’s back. Well, he was up until right this moment. He’s wiping a wad of paper towels across it, and his head jerks up at my abrupt entrance.

“Reese.” He scowls. “Wait for me out front.”

“I think your secretary pissed herself.”

He rolls his eyes. “Have you seen yourself?”

I fold my arms over my chest. “No.”

He grabs a handheld mirror and tosses it to me. I manage to catch it, raising it to my face.

Ah. Well, apart from the dark-blond scruff, my face has a lovely patchwork of motley bruises that have yet to fade. Black eye, yellowish-green cheekbones. At least the swelling has gone down.

“Right,” I allow. “So I’ll wait here.”

Saint grunts. His attention returns to his client, while I drift toward the far wall. There are sketches pinned or taped to it—not like the framed beauties out front, these seem like works in progress.

There’s a realistic arrow. A mask I recognize as one that might belong to Ares—the God of War does not fucking mess around with his bloodshed. A black-and-gray peony.

He’s talented.

Obviously he’s talented, he’s got his face in fucking magazines.

Sometimes the hype just doesn’t match the skill, and here, it might be the other way around.

Finally, Saint ushers his client out front to the secretary and we’re alone.

“Okay.” He snaps off his gloves and tosses them in the trash. “Why did you storm in here? Are you even up for storming?”

I glower at him. “You need to be home more.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Have you seen Artemis lately?” I step closer. “Like, have you actually looked at her?”

Saint blinks once, then again. It takes him a second to get what I’m implying, and his lips flatten.

“I’ll take that as a no.” I scoff. “She’s falling apart, but she thinks…”

I don’t know what she thinks.

She won’t talk to me.

“She’s not falling apart,” Saint argues. “She’s just coping. It’s a process.”

I laugh in his face. Sorry not sorry, Saint . “What the fuck do you know about coping? You’re a miserable fuck ninety-seven percent of the time.”

He doesn’t have a response to that.

He goes around the room, cleaning and disinfecting in the wake of his last appointment, and I just… I watch him because I don’t know what else to do.

What am I supposed to do?

“She keeps leaving,” I say in a low voice. “She barely gets back before you. She locks herself away in her room. We watched a fucking horror movie, and she didn’t flinch once?—”

“Maybe you’re just a pussy,” Saint mutters.

“Maybe you’re oblivious because you feel guilty for how you treat her.”

No, that’s not quite right. The hunch of his shoulders tells me I’m almost there, though.

“You feel guilty for liking her,” I guess.

He cringes.

We talked about Nyx. The great love he lost. He detailed it one night after Artemis went to bed, drinking whiskey and commiserating about our pasts. Although it started as a game of one-upping the other, I quickly shut up and let him rattle on about her.

All about Nyx—Elora, he called her. Her real name. Their love and her death, played out for me in drunken whispers. When he told Jace King—Hades, I learned—that he wanted to die, Jace came up with a solution. One that involved Nyx’s best friend, Artemis.

A year and some change later, Saint Hart is still stuck.

Still grieving, still contemplating dying. But in the abstract…

At least, that’s what he tells me.

I thought Saint would feel guilty for living with Artemis. For treating her like garbage for months .

But, no.

He treats her that way because he fucking likes her, but he loves a dead girl and can’t quite let that one go.

How fucked up is that?

“That doesn’t give you the right to treat her like shit,” I admonish softly. “Especially after what we’ve been through.”

His nod is disjointed. Up, pause, down.

Then an admission: “I tattooed Kade… and I told her yesterday morning.”

Even I wince. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

How long will he choose literally anyone else over her?

Kade picked me.

Saint chose Kade.

Fuck them . I stride out of the shop, irrationally angry. No, no—I’m rationally angry. On behalf of Artemis Madden, I’d like to give the middle finger to Saint Hart and Kade Laurent.

They both fucked up. I did years ago… I learned my lesson.

I won’t make the same mistake.

Gabriel

You promised me a little chitchat.

How did you get my number?

IMAGE]

The photo is of Artemis. Her eyes are closed, and she’s on a couch.

Where is she?

You don’t recognize that couch?

Fuck, I do. It’s my old couch—one of the only things I brought into that cramped studio apartment. I paid a guy fifty bucks to help me get it in. It was heavy as fuck, since it had a trundle bed inside it.

How the hell…?

I don’t question it. I get in Tem’s car—the keys were just sitting there, asking to be used—and drive into South Falls. I park in front of the building and take the stairs, too impatient to wait for an elevator.

The doorknob turns easily under my hand, and I step in.

“Are you armed?” Gabriel asks.

He holds a gun to Tem’s head. A small revolver, easily concealable. He’s next to her on the couch, one arm thrown around her shoulders to keep her upright. Her head is back, though, her eyes closed.

“What did you do to her?”

Gabriel tsks. He motions for me to spin in a small circle, which I do.

“Lift up your shirt.”

I comply. I don’t have my gun—I didn’t think I would need it to confront Saint. Stupid, really, although it saves me from Gabriel strip searching me.

Which he might, yet.

He whistles. “Nice abdominal muscles, Mr. Avery. Bet the ladies love that.”

I glower at him.

He hops up, leaving Artemis in the center of the couch. Without him, her body tips sideways.

“Go on, catch her.”

I do. I take his place, but it isn’t enough. I haul her onto my lap sideways, angling her head to rest on my shoulder. I brush the hair from her face and check her over.

Gabriel drags a folding chair across the space. Most of the shit I had in here was just stuff I found on the side of the street with free signs attached. A circular table that required a bit of TLC to not wobble, two folding chairs, the couch.

Artemis doesn’t even stir at the scraping noise.

“What did you do to her?”

Gabriel tsks. He stops close enough to touch, turning the chair around and sitting backward on it. He rests his arms on the back.

“We have to have our chat.”

My grip on Artemis tightens.

He clocks it and makes a dismissive noise. “I didn’t do the same to her. You were special, Reese. So? Tell me? What do you remember after I drugged you?”

“I…” My voice falters. “I remember not being able to move. You were right, it did burn.”

I’ve done everything in my power to forget about… well, all of it.

His gaze sharpens. “Go on.”

“The world went dark.”

“I closed your eyes.” He nods emphatically.

“There was nothing for so long. The pain faded, sounds faded, but I was still there.” My muscles tense, and I force my gaze to drop to Artemis again. Stroke her hair, convince myself we’re not in any danger.

A laughable lie.

“And then Kade came,” I continue.

“How did it feel to be carried out? Like a baby.” Gabriel makes a gesture like his mind is exploding. “And then waking up in the hospital… a rebirth.”

“Not quite.”

Inside, I was screaming.

And helpless.

“I see your fear,” he croons. “I know you don’t want to be trapped there again. In your mind. But it was good for you, don’t you see? You know what you have to do.”

I cock my head. “Do I?”

“Of course!” He smacks his thigh. “Of course you do, Reese. You’re going to protect Artemis from all the shit coming down on Sterling Falls… and you’re going to realize that you can’t.”

A chill descends on me. “What does that mean?”

He smiles. “Sometimes, destruction happens from the inside out.”

I stand, lifting Tem easily with me. Even though my muscles ache from disuse, and the beating he gave me, it’s no true strain to carry her.

She seems more fragile than she was. The time in the hospital did a number on her…

she lost weight, definitely. The dark circles under her eyes only seem more pronounced.

I cradle her to my chest and jerk my chin at the door. “Do me a favor and open that, would you?”

Gabriel leaps to his feet and claps. “Oh, I do like your spirit. You’re so different from Kade, you know.”

I stiffen.

“Kade is too brooding. He doesn’t put up with my shit.

They didn’t know that they were sending me back to my old playground…

I spent a long time crafting my mask outside of Sterling Falls, and returning here, with power at my back, released me from those shackles.

” Gabriel flings open the door. It slams into the far wall, and he strides out ahead of us.

Completely unbothered about having me at his back.

“I kind of figured he was in love with you.”

“What?” I choke out.

“Kade.” He glances back, scowling. “Why else would he risk her for you?”

“I saved his life.” I shake my head. “It was just…”

He spins around and blocks my way to the elevator. “No.”

“No?” I blink. “No, what?”