Chapter 27
The murmuring was driving her fucking mad.
It was there, just at the end of awareness. Perpetual. Unreachable.
And worse, she was back in a fucking cell.
Not one of her better days.
Kael—no, Helios—was still alive. Presumably. Unless the Others had some way of interfering with a Tether.
Wraith sat down with a thump. The floor was a smooth white material that glowed with some strange inner light. The walls and ceiling were the same. There was no sign of a door.
The wrongness of wanting the Tether to still be in place chilled her even more than being back in a three-by-three-meter room.
Why the fuck did they always make cells that size?
She’d assume he was alive until proven wrong.
And why couldn’t she keep hold of her own thoughts? They kept slipping, no matter how hard she tried to hang onto them.
She pushed her hands to her temples. The physical pressure did nothing to relieve the crushing mental weight.
She was on an Other Ship. A big, fucking, Leviathan Class Other Ship. And by the feel of it, there were a lot of Others on board.
She needed to think. Couldn’t think.
Wanted to hit something.
Now that was the best idea she’d had all day.
She stood and slammed her fist into the wall. Which did nothing to the wall, but pain blossomed through her hand and for a moment, the overwhelming presence of the Others flinched back.
She smiled the way Shade would; like someone about to start a holy war with their bare hands. Turned a 360 in the room with her hands held out. She didn’t know if they were watching, but she hoped so, because the idea of it felt fucking good.
Then she hammered the wall again. Heard the crack of bone. Felt the mental flinch again.
It seemed the Others weren’t used to pain.
But pain had been her companion for longer than she cared to remember.
She clenched her fist, almost reveling in the near-blinding intensity and the grating, crunching sensation of fractured bones rubbing together.
A quiet swish sounded behind her, followed by a breath of air and a voice that stopped all thoughts in their tracks.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Ash.”
She turned, each movement suspended, like the air itself had thickened.
The one voice she’d most needed to hear for the last five years. The one she had never been able to fully convince herself she’d hear again.
Was here.
On an Other ship.
Opening doors like he owned it.
He looked the same. Still huge. Somehow graceful. His dark face serious, but with a softness around his eyes as he looked at her.
In her head, she ran to him and collapsed into his arms like the past five years hadn’t carved her hollow. Locked her lips to his and kissed him hard to make sure he was real. Reached for him. Found him again and made everything okay…
Instead, she stood still.
“Elijah,” she murmured, the name anchoring and unmaking her all at once. “Or do you still prefer Phantom?”
He smiled at her. That smile twisted in her chest like the dull edge of a blade.
“Don’t I get a hug?” he asked quietly.
She fought not to shake. Not to think. Not to feel.
Fought hardest not to move.
She didn’t know if this was real. It couldn’t be.
And if it was? Then the universe was even more fucked up than she’d given it credit for. And she was also completely screwed—just not in the fun way.
“Where’s the Major?”
His smile dimmed. She swore she saw hope die in his eyes before he turned away, hands falling to his sides.
“This way.”
There were no guards in the corridor, but the parallel to meeting Kael for the first time was not lost on her.
And now she couldn’t move.
Every step forward felt like it would cost more than she had left to give.
But as usual, she had no choice.
So, she swallowed hard. Centered herself as best she could. And followed him out.
Kael lay on what she tagged as a medical bed. Face pale. Eyes closed. Breathing even.
Elijah loomed beside her.
There was no sign of anyone else, but the murmuring had started up again at the edge of her awareness.
“You’re keeping him under?”
“He’s reacting oddly to the Void. We’re monitoring him. He’s stable, and in no immediate danger.”
We’re monitoring him.
He may not have meant the statement as a threat. But Wraith had too much experience not to treat it as one.
“Come on, let’s fix your hand.”
She turned to him. The physical pain was so distant from her current reality that she’d forgotten it was broken.
He walked around to the other side of a nearby bed and tapped a few controls.
A light flared, too bright, and dimmed again.
“Here,” he patted the bed. “Just put your hand here.”
He smiled—and she felt him then.
Not reaching, not pushing. Just… there. Sad. Tired. Hopeful.
Void save her, it was him.
“How are you here?”
Her voice cracked; she knew was very close to losing it.
He shrugged, “Kind of a long story.”
And that just… pissed her off. Five years and a thousand different ways of grieving him, he says that?
She stepped forward and slapped her hand down on the bed, too furious for the pain to register.
“Well, unless the rules of engagement have changed drastically; I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked up at him, her gaze hard, ignored his mental flinch. “You may as well get started.”