“You need me,” she blurts out.
I withdraw slightly. “Oh, this should be good.”
She peeks, checking the proximity of the blade, and then blinks all the way open. She licks her lips and swallows, still breathing hard. “We’re in the middle of the desert as far as I can tell. Between the sand and heat, you’re an infection waiting to happen, but I can heal you.”
“You’re the reason I’m here,” I remind her. “The reason I won’t feel Kai or Avery and heal from my light.”
“I know.” Nyx’s voice cracks on the second syllable, her brows angling in. “And I’m sorry.” She looks down at the knife creeping toward her neck and whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”
I should kill her before she tries to do the same to me again, but the fear on her face, in her tone, and in her eyes when they come back to mine…
Fuck. Fuck. “Fuck!” I lower the blade and walk away from her, clutching the handle until my knuckles burn.
I’ve been without my light for minutes, and I’m already losing my shit. My stab wound aches with every breath, not that it compares to the way the rest of me hurts without the faintest flicker of light, but I know she’s right. I’m mortal and susceptible to all the weaknesses that go along with it.
Stopping, I fish the palm stone out of my pocket. I’m not sure if I’m checking for them or me, but I pull up Avery’s image. A tension eases when I see her with Kai at their apartment. Fucking safe. Given the shadows cast on the walls, the sun will set there in a few hours. That means, I’ve been gone about twenty.
“How do I know you won’t just kill me to get rid of Donny?” I ask.
I put the stone away, not turning around even though Nyx doesn’t answer right away.
“You’ll just have to trust me,” she finally says. The words sound weak. Probably because she realizes how insane they are, coming out of her mouth.
“Yeah, that’s never happening.” But I drag my shirt over my head. I tuck it in my back pocket and wait for her footsteps to cross the sand behind me.
She comes around, wary of the dagger as she stands in front of me. I clench my jaw when she lifts her blood-stained hands, but I let her place them on my chest, her palms cool.
“Please don’t stab me when I close my eyes,” she says.
“No promises.” I follow up with a mocking smile, but really, I reserve the right to take her out at any point as far as I’m concerned.
She momentarily glares before her lids fall closed. She squares her stance and pushes into me. The feeling starts as a buzz where she touches. It spreads over my skin like static, turning to a hum when it sinks into my muscles and a thrum in my bones. My heart beats faster but not in a threatening way. More like she hit the fast-forward button. My eyes fall from her face to her hands and then to the gap between them. A fresh scar spans the space between my ribs where the blade went in, and the burns on my chest are all but gone.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
Her eyes open, dropping to the scar and then connecting with mine.
“How did you do that?”
“I aged you,” she says. “About a month.” She must sense a repeat of what the fuck coming on because she quickly adds, “It won’t affect you in any way, I promise. I only transferred enough of my life into you so that your body could speed through the process.”
“You…” I shake my head, which is having a difficult time wrapping around what I just witnessed.
She starts to pull away, and I cover her hands with mine to keep her there.
“What the hell are you, Nyx?”
The handle of the blade presses between us, panic swimming in her eyes. But with nowhere to go, she takes a deep breath, looking up at me on the exhale.
“I’m a Descended.”
My lungs burn, wanting to gasp at the hot air surrounding us, but I force my breaths to stay steady. I’ve only admitted what I am to Hex and only because he somehow figured it out. But this isn’t some Upper killing his way to the top. Chaz is an original Watcher. One of The Fallen. A bedtime story Papa told us when we were little.
He searches my face, his nostrils flaring while his brow creases. “A what?”
I open my mouth and close it, confused by his response. “A Descended,” I repeat, thinking he missed it the first time because my voice had trembled.
He blinks a few times.
Then. He. Shrugs.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I jerk my hands out from under his, possibly more furious than when Abaddon freaking impaled me. “They say The Fallen are full of themselves, but this is beyond anything I could have imagined.”
I start to march away, only making it a few steps before he grasps my wrist and tugs me back around. He steps into me, twisting my arm behind my back and pulling until I’m flush against his chest.
“How about you cool it with the insults and tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
I try to wiggle out of his hold, huffing out a breath when I don’t get anywhere. “The Watchers,” I hiss. “The ones turned human as punishment for creating the Nephilim and left behind to repopulate the world.”
His face darkens then, breath hot on my face. “What about them?”
“I’m from one of their bloodlines—Kokabiel, leader of the twelve Descended Watchers.”
The mask slips, a flash of surprise in his deep blues before they narrow into an irritated glare. “Those assholes called themselves The Descended?”
He releases me without warning, leaving me off-balance in more than one way. I stumble backward a step and rub my wrist while he puts the knife away.
I expect questions, interest, something, but he walks away from me, shaking his head and muttering, “Is anyone fucking original anymore?”
“Where are you going?” I call after him.
When he keeps going, I glance around, not sure what to do. My choices seem to be wait in the desert alone until I die or until Abaddon blinks in to kill me again, or I can chase after an angel who still might very well kill me himself. The odds of me surviving the night suck all around, but at least with Chaz, I stand a slight chance of seeing Nyla one last time. The thought wedges in my throat, and I peel off the bloody sweatshirt. I drop it on the ground and follow him, sniffing away the threat of tears.
I can’t spare the hydration right now.
The sun beats down on us, relentless while it treks through the sky. At first, the temperature feels bearable, but the longer we walk, the hotter it feels. Chaz hasn’t said a word or even looked at me since I caught up with him. Even then, it was only long enough to roll his eyes.
So it surprises me when, out of nowhere, he says, “We call them The Others. Not that we talk about them often—or at all since the last one died off thousands of years ago. Until now, I wasn’t aware we needed to worry about their human descendants.”
“The stories say you abandoned them when they asked for help surviving, leaving them to suffer.”