Easton grabbed my arm and pulled me close enough to feel the pain and darkness that ran through his veins. He kept his eyes on an angel walking by, but his words were meant for me.
“Do you really want to waste that kind of time?”
When I didn’t answer he gave me a good shake.
“You know it’s him,” he said. “We both know. So we can waste time running all over Lone Pine looking for a guy who is not going to be there, or we can go get him. What’s left of him, anyway.”
Something inside me broke. I could feel the horror on my face when I looked at Easton.
“Joke, Anaya,” he said. “It was a joke. We’ll get him.”
He ran his palm over my hair and grinned. I slapped his hand away.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a very sick sense of humor?” I hissed.
“I’m pretty sure that you’ve told me that.” He raised a brow and grinned. “On several occasions.”
“Well, it’s still true.” I was trying to compose myself, but I wasn’t pulling it off. I was breaking on the inside, and those cracks were starting to show all over my face. They had to be. Easton nudged my shoulder.
“Come on, princess,” he said. “Let’s go get your shadow walker.”
Chapter 29
Cash
I knew I wasn’t dead yet. If I’d been dead I wouldn’t be able to feel pain. Unbearable pain. Pain like a living thing that held a grudge against my very existence. Pulsing and clawing its way through my insides. I’d never felt anything like it before, but I sure as hell felt it now.
When a bead of sweat trickled into the corner of my eye, I cracked my lids open and blinked it away. The heat burned my eyes. Scorched my skin. I tried to suck in a breath, but the sour, smoky smell made me gag.
“He’s awake,” a guy’s voice said. It echoed as if we were in a cave. Once my eyes adjusted to the hazy dark, I could see that’s exactly what this was. It sort of reminded me of the Carlsbad Caverns
Dad took me to once when I was a kid. Rocks shaped like fangs jutted up from the floor and down from the ceiling. Like I was sitting pretty in an enormous set of jaws. Part of me was waiting for them to close in and chew me into tiny bite-sized bits of Cash.
A muted blue glow blanketed the walls, me, and everything in between. Something thick like saliva dripped onto my boots and jeans. I tried to raise my hand to rub the sting out of my eye but it wouldn’t budge. I squirmed and looked down. My hands were tied behind me, crushed between a rock that felt like it had been pulled from a campfire and my back. I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t work.
“What’s going on?” I said, peering into the dark. “Why am I tied up?”
Something moved in the dark. A flash of gray emerging from the writhing shadows that slithered along the walls. Finally, Noah stepped out of the darkness and looked down at me. His ash-blond hair dangled in wispy strands just above his cold, steel-blue eyes.
“They’re afraid you’ll try to get away,” he said.
“From where?” I jerked on the ropes. “Where the hell am I?”
A hiss echoed through the cavern, sending a chill racing up my spine despite the heat. Noah turned around and squinted into one of the dark corners, his shoulders tense. When the hiss faded, he relaxed a little.
“Umbria,” he said. “You’re in the shadow land now.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
He raised a pale brow. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
I let myself look around the cave and swallowed. Smoke clung to the ceiling, where some kind of red liquid dripped to the ground around me. A drop landed on my cheek, so I rubbed it off with my shoulder. I stared at the red smudge and a fresh wave of fear crashed over me. Blood. It was raining blood. I gasped for a breath the room didn’t want to give me. A breath my lungs didn’t want to hold.
“It’s just the blooderflies,” he said. “They make a mess but they won’t hurt you.”
“Blooderflies?” My voice cracked.
He pointed to the ceiling, where you could see flickers of glistening red wings through the layer of smoke. Each one was small enough to sit in the palm of your hand. In the blue light, you could see right through their bloody, liquid wings to the veins pulsing inside.
“They sleep up there,” he said. “They’ll leave soon.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. Maybe if I closed my eyes tight enough it would all go away.
Maybe I’d wake up to the credits of some horror movie where stuff like this belonged. Because it sure as hell didn’t belong in reality. “Why did you do this to me?”
Footsteps squished and squeaked across the wet floor. When I opened my eyes, he was kneeling in front of me. “Because I need a replacement.”
“What?” I jerked on the restraints. “You said you wanted to help me! I trusted you!”
“Stop taking it so personal,” he said. “You’re a good kid, Cash. But I’m done here. I’ve put in my time. You think I want to live out the rest of eternity being some kind of delivery boy to these things?”
“If it’s so awful, why do you do it?” I gasped, my lungs fighting for air. “Why don’t you leave?”
“You think I’d be here if it was that easy?” He glanced back at the shadows lurking behind him.
“Around here, it’s feed or be eaten. Those are your choices. There is no third option.”
Choice. Looking at the desperation in Noah’s eyes, I could see that’s exactly what he thought this was. He thought he could bring me in and get a ticket to go roam the Earth, free as a bird. He was fucking delusional. Why would they let him go when they could have two of us? Noah watched me with a crazed, empty look in his eyes. There wasn’t going to be any convincing him. Not today.
Probably not ever. I needed to come up with something else. I needed to stall him.
“So why not go to work for Balthazar?” I finally asked.
Noah stood and paced in front of me, biting his thumbnail. He laughed humorlessly. “After the things I’ve done?” He raised a brow. “No, thanks. I don’t need a one-way ticket to Hell.”
“I can help you. Anaya can help you.”
Noah’s cold glare snapped up. “Stop begging. You sound pathetic. And if you expect to last longer than a day down here you’re going to have to toughen up. Now, what’s it going to be? I suggest you decide quick. They’re not fond of waiting.”
I stared at the glistening rock between my dead legs and felt my jaw clench. Sweat dripped into my eyes. Or maybe it was blood. I didn’t care. I’d made my choice. Hell, I’d even made peace with it. And this wasn’t it. Apparently that didn’t mean much to the scum that had dragged me down here.
“I’m not even dead yet,” I said, reaching for some way to stall. “Don’t I have to be dead to do whatever it is they want me to do?”
Noah sighed and sat down beside me. He stared at his boots, which were coated in ash, and played with one of the laces. He avoided looking at the crowd of shadow demons creeping out of the corners, filling the room until there was barely space left to breathe. How the hell could he be so calm? My fingers balled into fists against my back.
“It won’t take long. There’s no way a human body could survive more than a few days down here anyway,” he said. “They just collected you now because they knew that piece of reaper ass you’ve been tapping was going to bring you in if they didn’t.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I growled, feeling the sound that came out of me burn my throat. If my legs had worked, I would have done more than growled at him.
Noah chuckled. “Defending your dead girlfriend’s honor should be the last of your worries. Because after that body of yours gives out…there’s no escaping this place.”