Filtering as much hope as I could into my voice, I whispered, “Jared?” The sounds stopped. I waited a full minute, gathering my courage, before asking, “Can you hear me?”
After a long moment, he said, “Yes.”
My eyes slammed shut. I turned up the audio so I could hear from a distance, then walked to the vault door. “If I let you out, will you take only me and spare my family and friends?”
He waited again before asking, “Bargaining now?”
I looked over at Cameron. His mouth formed a grim line as he beckoned me to continue with a nod. I took a steadying breath, looked behind me into the dark anteroom of the bunker, knowing an army stood behind me, and said, “I’m going to open the door now.”
After another long pause, he said, “I wouldn’t.”
With a hard swallow, I ignored him. vzyl “The door is heavy. You’ll have to push from your side.”
Never taking Cameron for the Catholic type, I was surprised when he did the sign of the cross. He bowed his head, took a deep breath of his own, then turned the huge locking mechanism.
I hurried forward and helped him pull. It opened far easier than it had closed. When the breadth spanned about three feet, I stepped around and expected to see Jared there helping, but he was standing back, his arms folded over his chest. I had also expected to see wings, huge and black and all consuming, but he was in his torn T-shirt and jeans, both bloodied from the fight.
“You’re taking a huge chance,” he said.
“We made a deal, though, right?” My body shook so uncontrollably, I felt like I was having a seizure, but I couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I tried to force myself to calm, I couldn’t stop the shaking. I stepped close to him. “Just me, and you leave Riley’s Switch.”
Without moving, he graced me with another of his smiles, this one all too knowing. “So all those people in the other room are just there to make sure you opened the door correctly.”
I put a shaking hand on his chest, fear consuming me to such a degree, the edges of my vision darkened.
“Jared, please.”
Then I was airborne. I flew straight out of the vault and skidded into the wall, the air knocked out of my lungs. And the fighting began anew. Jared was ready for Cameron this time. He didn’t stand still long enough to be shot with the dart gun. The sheriff kneeled and took aim, but he was helpless. They moved at inhuman speeds. Blurs of color and light. At one point Jared was on the ground. The next, Cameron was on the ceiling, their strength and agility incredible.
No one could help. Granddad pulled me to my feet and we just stood there, watching with our mouths hanging open. Sheriff Villanueva’s finger stayed wrapped around the trigger, waiting for the opportunity to tranq Jared. But it just didn’t come. The second one of them would get the upper hand, the other would employ some technique to reverse the odds.
Grandma had pulled me back and was holding on to me for dear life.
A group of men hurried to the vault door, prepared to close it again, to lock Cameron in there with the
Angel of Death.
I tugged at Grandma’s arm. “I want to try something.”
Her eyes rounded. “No, pix.”
“Grandma, you said it yourself: If he gets out of there, we’re all dead anyway. Whether from Jared or from this war, it doesn’t matter.” A sickly kind of despair had taken over. A desperation. “The end results will be the same.”
She couldn’t argue that point, and she knew it. With fear and sadness stiffening her expression, she let go.
I walked past Granddad. “Pix,” he said, reaching out for me, but I ducked under his arm and sprinted into the vault. Jared had Cameron in a choke hold, and for a second, I thought Cameron might lose consciousness, but he elbowed Jared in the gut and wrenched himself free.
“Jared,” I said, holding out my hand to him.
His gaze snapped up for a split second. Barely enough time to blink. And Cameron took advantage.
While I thought he would score the skin where the brand was inlaid, just enough to disfigure the symbol, he snatched the knife from his waistband and plunged the blade into Jared’s back.
Without thought, I ran to him, but Cameron tackled me down. By the time we turned back, Jared was holding the knife.
Cameron’s eyes widened. “There it is. Do you see it? That spark of light?”
Jared looked down at the knife in his hands, at the blood dripping from his fingers, and he stumbled back. He leaned against the metal wall, his breaths raspy and spent, then slid down it, falling onto all fours.
“Crap,” Cameron said. He was shielding his face with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut as though a bright light were saturating the room. “I can’t see,” he said, struggling to his feet.
Everyone glanced around, clearly unable to see what he was seeing. He fell onto his knees and cradled his head. His father ran to him and covered his head with his body. Cameron groaned through gritted teeth.
And Jared was doing the same. Cradling his own head, fighting something deep inside.
Then they both collapsed onto the floor in choreographed unison. I ran to Jared as Brooke did the same for Cameron.
Jared was completely unconscious, his solid body impossible for me to move. I looked at his face, ran my fingers over his strong jaw.
“Pix,” Granddad said, rushing toward me. “We don’t know if it worked.”
“It worked,” Cameron said, taking in huge gulps of air. “It worked.”
They picked Jared up and placed him with great care onto a table they brought in. His T-shirt, torn and bloody, hung off him like an overused rag. Granddad turned him over as Mrs. Strom stepped cautiously inside. She worked at the hospital and was the closest thing we had to a doctor in the Order. Jared’s limbs hung limp, as though all the energy they’d once contained had evaporated. And yet, even unconscious, he looked powerful, like a sleeping panther. No one could deny the omnipotence of such a lethal animal.
I stripped off my jacket and placed it under his head as Granddad examined the knife wound. “The scar was healing fast. It probably would have been gone in a matter of days.”
“And that would have been too long.” Cameron joined us, his face swollen, his eyes bloodshot.
“Whatever they had planned is going to happen soon.”
“What did you see?” I asked him, relieved that Jared would be okay and wouldn’t kill everyone I’d ever loved. Instead of waiting for an answer, however, I touched his arm.
And the nuclear flash that hit me almost knocked me off my feet. The moment the knife plunged into
Jared’s back, it started. A tiny spark became a beam, then a flood, then—in one massive burst—Jared’s essence infused the room in a blinding light.
It was similar to how Cameron had explained the darkness, only with light. It was so deep, so forever, an infusion of warmth, genuine and radiant, I doubted I would ever be the same again. Knowing that such a love existed. Knowing that such affection was out there. And then slowly a balance began to settle around him. The darkness and the light merged to become the essence of Jared, of Azrael the archangel, the supreme being who may have been created for one specific reason, but could choose his path.
I blinked back to the present and gazed at Cameron.
“Isn’t that cheating?” he asked me.
“You saw?” Brooke asked, astonished. “You have to tell me everything.”
“Okay,” I promised.
“That’s definitely cheating.”
Brooke and I both gave Cameron a grateful hug, each of us on either side of him. He hugged us back.
“Should we break more of the lines?” Granddad asked him. “The knife wound is already healing. What if—?”