Page 112 of Wicked Salvation

Nothing.

Because I was never fighting for power. I was fighting for her.

And if she slips away from me now, like a dream I wasn’t allowed to keep, I wouldn’t even be able to mourn. I’d burn everything down. I would destroy more than the school. I’d destroy more than the city. I would destroy everything that anyone had ever loved. I’d end bloodlines, searching for just a glimmer of the happiness she gave me in the ashes.

I can’t lose Eden.

She’s all I have to live for.

XXV

EDEN

Iwake up slowly.

Everything feels distant—muted. Like I’m seeing the world through a thin veil of smoke. It reminds me of the derealization I felt after my first real panic attack.

The ceiling above me is unfamiliar. Pale white. Sterile. The kind of white that isn’t just clean, butpurposefullyclean. White that has been scrubbed and bleached and scoured of dirt.

A low hum from the fluorescent lights buzzes overhead, steady and constant. Somewhere to my right, I hear the steady beeping of a monitor. The quiet, mechanical rhythm of my own heartbeat, made visible and echoing into the room. Something cold tugs at my wrist—an IV.

The scent of antiseptic clings to the air like a second skin.

This is what a hospital smells like. I’m in a hospital. Not the dusty, century-old room with drafty windows and cold sheets in Augustine’s Infirmary.

This place is quiet and clean.

It’s safe.

Safe from him.

A flashback hits me like a freight train and I grimace, trying to put the thoughts out of my head. I killed Silas, but he was trying to kill me. That makes it okay, right?

It should.

He admitted to killing Vivienne, too.

I force myself back to the present, refusing to let my mind fall back into the terrible space. A soft warmth coats my skin beneath the sterile chill. The blankets are just thin enough to remind me I’m alive.

I blink slowly, my eyelids heavy like they’ve been stitched shut for days. The lights are dimmed, thank god, but the room is still sharp enough to make my head ache.

My body feels slow and numb in place. One of my arms is in a cast. Every one of my limbs is draped in exhaustion. Yet I don’t feel sick in the same way I felt before. No, this sickness feels like something I can recover from, like something I can survive.

I shift—just slightly, and even that makes my ribs complain—and that’s when I see him.

Lucian.

Slumped in the chair beside me.

His body’s curled in on itself in a way that doesn’t suit him, like someone forced him to fold into a box too small. His long legs are awkwardly bent beneath him, one foot twisted beneath the other. Lucian’s laid back posture is gone, instead his spine is curved, shoulders slouched. His head tilts forward slightly, like it got too heavy somewhere in the night. A few dark strands of hair have fallen over his forehead.

His clothes are stained with blood.

My blood.

My breath catches.

How long have I been out? I remember falling into Lucian’s arms, but I thought it was a dream, the kind of thing you seewhen you’re about to die. But it wasn’t. It was all real. He came for me, and that’s why I’m here.