Sixth Grave on the Edge(101)
Mendoza said something I didn’t comprehend. No one could have survived that fall. Not even a supernatural being. Not even the son of Satan. He lay there, unmoving, and I could not wrap my head around it. Any of it.
“Ready?” I heard at last.
Mendoza was the kind of man who enjoyed killing. He enjoyed the false sense of power it gave him. But he also enjoyed the part right before the actual death. The torment. The taunting.
I looked at him. And I did my job. I judged him unworthy of crossing into heaven.
He didn’t like the revulsion he saw in my eyes. Where he’d expected fear, he found disgust. He turned me to face the edge again, put a hand on my back, and just before he pushed, he said, “No loose ends.”
I stepped forward, but the roof beneath my feet disappeared. I was over. He’d thrust me over the side just as he had Jessica. Just as they had Reyes. And we would die together.
In one final act of rebellion, I twisted around to look at them and swiped a hand through the air. In that split second between dream and reality, I’d marked their souls for the Dealer, a bright archaic symbol emblazoned on their chests. They were all his.
Then I saw Angel. He grabbed for me. When I twisted around, I’d kicked out and he caught my boot and pulled. But there was nothing he could do. I weighed too much. Little did I know the shit had a plan. My foot caught on something. A metal brace protruded out from the side of the silo, and Angel wedged my foot there. But my body kept falling until the wedge took hold. Pain shot up my leg, and my ankle very likely broke as my body slammed against the side of the silo. My skull cracked against a metal rung. I grabbed hold of it and held on for dear life.
I hung there upside down, trying to gain my bearings, staring at the top of the silo, and waiting for the men to figure out I didn’t fall. They would have to shoot me now if they couldn’t reach to dislodge my foot. When they didn’t appear immediately, I took another long look at the ground beneath my dangling body. Reyes hadn’t moved. He hadn’t flinched at all. A wave of grief overtook me, and tears fell up my face to mingle with the blood flowing there. I looked at my boot, wondering if I could move it a centimeter to the left with the ankle broken, just enough to dislodge it and finish the journey.
In that moment, the only thing I could think about was what it would be like to live without Reyes. It wasn’t a life I wanted, and I suddenly realized how and why Emily Michaels could do what she did. How she could risk her life to protect the man she loved. Even prison was better than death, losing the ones we loved so desperately.
An agony that matched the shooting pain in my ankle consumed me so fully, I could think of nothing else but the fact that I did not want to go through life without him. I pushed on the metal bar and tried to dislodge my foot. I’d never been particularly suicidal, but I’d never been consumed with quite that much pain. Not emotionally, anyway.
“What are you doing?” Angel asked, peering over the side.
“Help me dislodge my foot,” I said.
He shook his head and said, “Fuck you,” right before he disappeared. Little shithead.
My teeth welded together as the pain of my busted ankle coursed through my body like electricity. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered the sound of fighting above me. I snapped to attention as gunshots ricocheted around me before an eerie silence thickened the air. As I fought the effects of blood rushing to my head and pain hammering into me, another dark-haired man peered at me from over the side of the building. But this time, it wasn’t Angel.
“Reyes!” I shouted, reaching out to him.
“Sorry, sugar,” the man said. “It’s just me.”
I blinked and tried to focus. The Dealer. What was he doing there? Had I summoned him when I marked the souls of Mendoza and his men? Was that even possible?
He showed his teeth and gestured over his shoulder with a nod. “Thanks for the grub, though.”
I unclenched my stomach muscles and lowered my upper body to take in the horrific scene underneath me. Reyes was still unmoving. The Dealer reached down for me and grabbed hold of my pant leg, and in that moment, I honestly wanted to slip out of his grip. I considered kicking him with my other leg to loosen his hold, but he glowered and shook his head in warning.
“Uh-uh-uh. I keep telling you,” he said, pulling me up as though I weighed nothing, “we need you alive. No thoughts of suicide just because that mutt of yours kicked off.”
My heart contracted so fast and so strong, I felt as though a hulk made of rock had punched me in the chest. I would not survive the force of my agony. Even knowing he could still be with me incorporeally didn’t help. I wanted him. I wanted Reyes Alexander Farrow in my arms, warm and solid and real.