Daniel laughed, his teeth were red with blood. “If you kill me, Riley dies next.”
I let go, my lips curled in disgust.
“I don’t have to kill you,” I informed him delicately as my eyes turned to black oil slicks. “But I can make you wish that I had.”
I laid, hunched over Warren Davenport's cold and still body, unable to pry myself away. My shoulders shook, and each breath was harder to take than the last.
There was so much pain that I wondered how humans could live with such an emotion. I felt like I had been gutted and left hollow. All I could think about was Warren's angry face as he had shouted and called me useless. Were those his last thoughts of me? Or had he seen something, something vital, which made him come to rescue me?
Maybe Warren Davenport was just a good person. Behind his cocky and grumpy exterior.
I had genuinely believed that Davenport would belong to me too.
I threw my head back and wailed, unable to move from the spot by his side. Unable to look at Warren's body either.
Daniel laid, trapped in his own worst nightmare, and unlikely to ever wake again, but I still did not want to leave Davenport to find the Ifrit.
Hands gripped my torso, dipping under my arms. I turned, scratching, like a feral cat.
“Mara!” Hugo shouted my name until my senses came back. When he saw recognition light up my eyes, Hugo gripped my body and pressed it against his, as if he was worried that I would slip away again. When he pulled back, I saw the rest of Team P had come to the rescue.
Too late.
Remi's eyes widened, and his face drained of color as he looked down at Davenport's body “Is that—?”
Jae cut in. “We need to move. Now.”
“But Warren—” I argued through numb lips.
“We’ll talk about it soon. I promise.” Hugo gripped my shoulders and led me away from the room. Away from Warren. I turned, my feet stumbling as I tried to claw my way back.
“We can't leave him,” I whispered. Hart stepped forward, and the door swished closed behind us.
“It’s okay—” Hugo said, reassuring me. I batted him away and turned. When I spoke, it was in a dead voice.
“It’s not okay,” I said. “Nothing is okay.”
Every step I took away from Warren, even surrounded by my mates, was like losing a limb. Bleeding out with no wound.
“I can't do this,” I said, hollow. The emotions that came with being inside a human body were too acute. Too strong. I reached up with shaking hands and gripped the latch of my collar. “I have to—”
“Mara...” Hugo sounded like he was in pain.
“She’s running away.” Hart crossed his arms over his chest.
“I'm not,” I argued weakly.
“She’s taking the easy route.” Hart continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “She’s running away.”
“Mara?” Jae's eyes were wide.
I stood on the precipice of the being that I wanted to be, but I was just a Demon. A small speck in the grand scheme of things. They would be able to live without me. They would survive.
“I love you.” I smiled sadly, taking in each of their faces for the last time.
Then I dropped to the floor, leaving Frankie's body behind to die.
Chapter 26
Davenport POV
I hadn't died since the eighties, but I remembered the pain well, like being burnt alive and then hit by a semi and dragged for several miles.
Such was the price of being a Phoenix.
The night sky greeted me as my body rebuild itself from the ashes, the grass behind my back began to crisp and die as my fire consumed and birthed me anew.
Jae leaned over my face, his face was devoid of his usual sense of amusement and set in stone instead. He tossed a pair of cargo pants into my chest, with more force than necessary. I sat up and noticed Mara laid unconscious by my side. Her body was still warm, and her chest rose and fell with each breath.
I reached over to touch her face. To make sure that she was okay after seeing my death, and to find out what had happened with Daniel, my most significant oversight and biggest regret.
“She's not in there,” Hart said from across the clearing. His head was in his hands.
Hugo's head snapped around, and he paused his pacing. “She wouldn’t leave us.” The incubus snapped.
“Sinclair's right.” Remi rubbed the back of his neck.
I sat up, wincing in pain. “What happened?” I demanded, staring each of my men in the eye.
Only Jae looked at me. “Mara left Frankie's body behind.”
“Why?” My voice was a harsh crack, but he did not flinch.
“I don't know,” Jae admitted.
Hart stood up and advanced, his eyes looked dead. “She said that she couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I don't think it means what you think it means,” Hugo said weakly.
Mara had run away? Had she abandoned ship to save her own skin?
We were gathered in a clearing to the side of the detainment building, a decent distance away, but even I felt the wave of heat when everything shattered. The unearthly keen as the Ifrit swirled into the sky, tangled in glittering smoke. We all watched in awe.
Mara ducked and dived, clinging to the Ifrit. Only able to battle the Demon because she had no body. As a hole tore into the Ifrit's darkness, Hart looked at his shoes, tears in his eyes before he stared at the sky, and watched with us.
“She’s...” Hart was unable to finish his thought. Guilt and grief mingled on the set of his lips.
Our Drude expanded, swallowing the Ifrit, folding in on herself. There was no sound. A vacuum. No fireworks or grand finale.
None of us moved. Unsure of what had happened. My fingers twitched, aching to reach out to catch the rainfall of diamonds, as the sky turned to light and then dark.
For the longest time, we waited for Mara to come back, but there was no smoke, no darkness like our little nightmare. The sky was still.
“No,” Hugo whispered, his voice a cry. “No. She's coming back. She has to come back.”
We waited and waited. The air fogged our breath. Riley Fisher batted her way through the underbrush and collapsed in a heap, dirty but otherwise unharmed. Hugo raced over to support her body, wrapping her in a blanket as the fire raged from the building behind us.
Riley's teeth chattered. “S-She said that it was the only way.” She whispered. “I don't know what she meant.”
Everyone turned to the female Hunter, she looked so fragile. “She said that it wanted to die. She said that he begged for death.”
Frankie’s body began to stir. Relief filled me like an intoxicating drug. Sinclair's smile was radiant. Jae's was cocky. Remi's worried, and Hart's was unsure. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up, looking around like the world was new.
I found myself swaggering over, wanting to see her face when she realized I was alive. All that greeted me was a blank look.
“Mara?” I smirked, crouching down. “That was quite a show.”
Mara blinked slowly, before cocking her head to the side. There was no life bursting from the seams of her body.
There was no manic energy, no random thoughts, and bratty behavior that she saved just for me.
Mara was gone.
Frankie Gardiner had woken up.
Chapter 27
Mara POV
I stood in the night sky, in the space between celestial bodies as I watched the stars being born, and then their slow descent into death. The balance was by my side, much larger than her childlike vessel had led me to believe.