“Ask him where they went,” Jenks said, but then Nash’s blood-caked eyes found mine, and from behind me, David took a shaky breath.
“Rachel?” Nash’s cracked lips smiled. “Now you’re in for it, you cold bitch. Rachel . . . will mess you up.”
I thought I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t do anything if I was holding his head. “David,” I whispered, flushed with indecision. “Take his head so I can invoke a pain amulet.”
“You can’t move him,” David said, and my anger flared at the Were’s pinched, agonized expression. “The pheromones down here turning pain to pleasure are the only thing keeping him alive,” David insisted. “You take him out of here, and he’ll die of shock in ten seconds. I don’t care how many pain amulets he’s wearing.”
Jenks nodded, and my jaw clenched. “Take. His. Head,” I ground out from between my teeth, and, shoulders slumped, David shifted to stand beside me. Nash’s eyes widened and his breath came fast as the Were’s hands slipped in under mine. My fingers went cold, and I took a shallow breath as I backed up. I was afraid to look at the rest of him, afraid that I’d realize that David was right and there was nothing I could do.
My stomach churned as I invoked two amulets, listened to Nash’s pain-etched breathing, then invoked a third. I set them on his chest, and Jenks dusted an odd gray when Nash took a deep, rattling breath in relief.
“Nash?” I bent closer, trying to smile. Constance had tortured and left him for me to find. She had wanted to scare me. But I wasn’t scared. I was pissed. Enough to do something stupid. Stupid enough to actually make a difference, maybe. “Nash,” I whispered again, and his eyes found mine. “Where’s Zack?”
He licked his lips, hands fluttering at his sides to touch the ropes that held him. “She took him and left. They all left,” he said. “After they were done with me.” His eyes went to the ceiling and the pattern of blood. “Oh, God,” he moaned. “You’re a demon. Can you put it back? She took everything out.”
“Where did she bite you?” I said, feeling his neck with gentle fingers as he pushed at his bloodstained middle. I could see no bite marks. What had she taken if not blood?
And then I followed Jenks’s ashen expression to Nash’s hands, still moving at his middle.
I felt the blood drain from me. Constance had opened him up and taken out what she could without outright killing him. Those weren’t bloody rags in Ivy’s popcorn bowl. They were his insides.
“She made him watch,” Nash was saying, tears making clear paths down his bloodstained face. “I’m sorry, Zack. I’m so sorry. Can you put it back?”
David held his head steady, his jaw clenched and his eyes averted.
My gorge rose, and I kept my breaths shallow, the scent of lily filling me with a perverted contrast. She’d tortured Nash to force Zack to accept her authority, doing it such that he’d be alive for me to find. David was right. To move him would kill him, and Al . . . Damn it, Al, I thought, remembering both his anger at Hodin’s appearance and his slyly given help even as both he and Dali insisted Constance was my problem. Giving me spell books was simply supplying resources. Healing Nash was far more, and I didn’t think he’d save an elf even if I asked.
“He didn’t give in,” Nash whispered, pride in his voice. “Don’t give her anything, Zack. Don’t give the tiny bitch the satisfaction,” he moaned, lost in memory.
“Rachel . . .”
It was David, and my fear deepened. He’d known there was no happy ending as I blithely ignored reality. “I can’t fix this,” I whispered, panic and frustration welling as I fixed on his dark eyes. “Al won’t help me. David, Al won’t help.” Even if he left me those books. . . .
“That’s okay.” Nash’s grip on my hand tightened. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” He was blinking fast, tears spilling from him as he gave up hope that I could save him. “She’s so mad at you. She wants you dead, but she’s scared of you. Stark raving terrified that you stood up to her in the I.S. tower.” His lips made a pained smile. “She can’t find where the flower smell is coming from. You drove her out of her own daylight quarters. Zack. Zack laughed at her, and she killed three of her people when they tried to explain it’s not really here. They’ll do anything to appease her, Rachel.”
My gaze flicked to the perverted finger-painted lily on the wall, and I all but gagged on the rank scent of blood and perfume. This was my fault. My fault, and I didn’t have the skill to save him. He was going to die.
“Nash, we’ll get you out of here,” I said, lying to myself. If I didn’t, I’d go insane. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Rachel, don’t,” David protested as I reached for the rope holding him to the table, but as I tugged at it, Nash shrieked, filling the air with his pain.
“Not that one!” Nash sobbed as David struggled, torn between holding Nash’s head and trying to stop me. “That’s the one keeping me closed.”
I clenched my teeth, refusing to cry as Jenks helped me figure out what I could and couldn’t cut.
“She’s insane,” Nash gasped, eyes on the ceiling as I took David’s knife and began sawing at the blood-soaked ropes. “You have to get Zack away from her. She took him back to the I.S. The flower is driving her mad. She can’t stand that you pushed her out of her new place. She had to spend the day at the I.S. She is so angry. She’s making mistakes. They’re trying to tell her, but she just keeps killing them. Rachel . . .”
I jumped when his newly freed hand grasped mine. The zip-strip blocking his access to the ley lines glinted behind the blood.
“He’s okay. Zack is okay,” he burbled, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. “But she wants you dead. She’s going to hurt everyone you care about to get you to come to her.”
His hand fell from mine and his eyes closed. For a moment, I thought he’d died, but then his chest moved. “Leave me here. Go get him,” he whispered, and then louder, lost in a memory: “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him!”
David didn’t move as he held Nash’s head even with the table. Teeth clenched, I went to Nash’s feet, grasped his ankles, and, eyes closed at Nash’s shriek of pain, pulled him down the table until his feet hung over and his head rested on the Formica.
“Sorry,” Nash panted, bright-eyed from the adrenaline surge. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Please. Leave me here. Go find Zack.”
I took his hand again, but the strength was gone from his thick fingers. Trent’s ring had become a blood pearl, a swirl of bright red and dead brown as it dried. I couldn’t stand before Zack and tell him I’d walked away. Constance had tortured Nash, murdered him to scare me, to scare Zack. But despite his few years, Zack wouldn’t be scared into anything. His mind was young, but his soul was old. He’d suffer crushing guilt—but he’d never give in.