I’ve endured worse, I remind myself.
Much worse.
The male Diablim turns up the volume even higher until I can feel the scattered beats pulsing beneath my feet.
It’s no use. They won’t listen. I am going to have to get myself out of this.
But how? A sour voice asks in the back of my mind.
I’ve never been to Elisium. I’ve never even been outside without Ford to escort me. And that only happened at most once a year on my birthday.
I know nothing of how to survive in a world outside except what I’ve learned from TV.
If I thought my chances of survival were bad just being with Officer Silva at the precinct, they are slim to none here.
A grimy substance coats the floor of the van, and the air inside is thick and humid. My palms are riddled with all manner of asphalt, dirt, and glass. Some of the cuts are easily half an inch deep.
They will be infected by morning, and I won’t survive an infection, not without a hospital. Not without my pills. Definitely not on this side of The Hinge. Do they even have hospitals still over here?
There it is. The reality of my situation crushes down on me and a sputtering breath tumbles past my lips in the dark.
I am in Elisium.
In the back of a van with two—no three—Diablim. Heading god knows where.
My chest tightens, and I struggle to get air into my lungs, pressing my head between my knees.
Maybe if I go along with their plans…
Maybe if I can get ahold of a weapon…
Maybe…
I jump as the brush of cool fingers strokes over the back of my wrist.
I skitter back, staring into the Diablim’s bright blue eyes. A flop of matted brown hair brushes his long lashes. And though his face is covered in streaks of grime, there is no denying his beauty.
The boy shakes his head when I open my mouth to scream, putting a finger to his lips.
He floor, he mouths, revealing two rows of straight white teeth.
Confused, I squint at him. “What?”
The Diablim boy leans in closer, and I hold my breath, terrified he will put some sort of spell on me. Instead, he says just loud enough for me to catch the word over the music. “Healer.”
When he pulls away, he’s looking at my palms. He gestures to them in silent question.
Hesitant, I press my lips together to stop them quivering and reach my palms out toward him.
If he is a healer, that means he’s Nephilim. Half angel.
But he could be lying.
One thing is certain, if I have any hope of escaping this place, I am going to need the use of my hands.
Brows lowering, the boy folds my right hand between his, and I suck in a breath as shooting pains ricochet up my arm. Behind my shuttered eyes, a small burst of amber light flares, and I gasp, tugging my hand away at the raw, burning sensation tingling in my palm.
As I do, tiny bits of glass and dirt fall onto my knees, and as I clutch my hand, the pad of my thumb brushes over smooth skin. Glancing from my hand and back to the boy, I gape incredulously.
Two seconds.
It took him two seconds to heal me.
Hope swells in my chest and I spring forward, sitting bold upright. “Can you heal me inside?” I ask, almost shouting next to his ear to make sure he can hear me over the blasting music and car horns outside.
He furrows a brow.
“I’m sick,” I explain. “I have an autoimmune disease. Can you—”
Before I can finish, the boy presses a hand to my chest. Against the sweat coated flesh just below my neck. I go still.
He closes his eyes.
Please.
Please, please, please.
Ford refused to mingle with angel and demon kind. He never would have allowed a Nephilim healer to try healing me. Now Ford is dead. Gone. There’s no one to stop me from trying everything I ever wanted to try. Absolutely no one.
I mean, except for the Diablim who have me held prisoner in the back of a van of course.
I’m still sending silent pleas heavenward when the boy removes his hand. He shakes his head.
I deflate, fighting the sudden burning urge to rip the universe apart.
Not sick, he mouths, dropping his hand. Confused.
He reaches for my other injured hand, and I let him lift it in a daze, but before he can wrap his hands around my palm, the van shudders to stand still.
…not sick?
There’s no record of any autoimmune disease, Silva’s voice echoes in my skull.
“Not sick,” I repeat to myself, as if tasting the words on my tongue can will them to be true. They taste wrong. Sour. Like a lie.
Something pounds on the exterior, and the boy and I scatter apart, flying back to our respective benches. I pull my knees back into my chest, trying to decipher what’s happening outside.
I lean forward from my cocoon, peering past the Diablim up front into a sea of slow-moving vehicles and the press of hundreds of bodies. To either side, tented off sections filled with strange wares and even stranger food form rows to hedge in the flow of vehicles and foot traffic.
Horns honk. People holler.
If I look closely, though, it’s clear to see they aren’t human. Bright red eyes flit this way and that. Between two bodies a tail flicks, the tip of it hooked and barbed. Further in, another thing like the one on the bridge stands taller than all the rest of the gathered bodies sweltering under the summer sun.
This one has horns that jut straight out instead of curve upward on either side of its head. It watches over the Diablim in the market space with its thick arms crossed over its massive chest. The demon is guarding something, I realize as we draw near enough to see.
It’s an entrance to a low-lying, slightly domed building. The gaping maw of it is pitch black as though it might lead straight into Hell.
“Where are they taking us?” I shout to the boy over the music and the thudding on either side of the van, not caring anymore if the Diablim up front hear me.
The music is turned down so the male Diablim can holler to someone outside the van. “Two!” he shouts and a winged man further inward nods, moving a cement blockade with ease to allow us through.
The Nephilim boy frowns.
“To the demon market,” he says, his voice much rougher than a boy his age should sound.
Then he looks away, his shoulders tensing more and more the closer we draw to the black entrance. “To be sold.”
7
Turns out the black hole doesn’t lead to the actual Hell, though it’s hard to be sure.
It’s as hot as I would think Hell to be. There are Diablim and demons everywhere. And I’m pretty sure I’m one simple cash exchange from being tortured for the rest of my miserable life, so…
Yeah, maybe this is my own personal form of hell.
The Nephilim boy and I are yanked from the van and forced at knifepoint into something I can only describe as a cattle run. The boy first and then me behind him. A barred door is slammed shut behind us.
The jeering crowd around the metal barred channel in the wide-open space crushes against the sides of the bars. Some of them reach inward, trying to touch us with clawed fingers. Taunt us. Scare us.
I jump back from one reaching hand only to be scratched by another behind me. I jerk again when the boy grabs hold of my hand, his blue -eyes as calm as a morning lake.
This boy—this twelve-year-old boy—is trying to comfort me.