Regenerating was hungry work. The wraith pulled the blade out of her face, flicking white tissue on Spencer’s black clothes, and brought him to her gaping mouth. He got a shot off. Hit her in the shoulder. Ineffectual. The wraith, like the sun, was rising and she was hungry for breakfast. Spencer screamed high, like a girl, as the wraith sealed her kiss. His body jerked once and then lapsed into a slack sack of skin.
Talia felt Spencer blink out, and she shuddered at the waste. So stupid. What other end had he imagined for himself? This was the only one fitting.
With Spencer now a used heap on the floor, the wraith resumed her progress toward the bedroom. She was at the threshold when she suddenly reared back, clumsy in fear. Heedless of obstacles she scrambled through the great room, slid on glass, and plunged backward out the window.
Adam. Talia crawled toward the bedroom door just as he exited. She scrambled to meet him near the alcove, took one of his hands, sticky with blood—his?—and pushed her shadows at him. The pungent tang of the blood clung to him like a corpse, and she controlled a gag by switching to breathing through her mouth.
Adam’s gaze focused on her with the resurgence of her shadows. He’d aged ten years in the last five minutes. His eyes were clouded with an emotion, but she couldn’t name the feeling that flowed from him and into her—something dark, tinged with grief and pain, but strangely settled and resolute. She didn’t trust it, found herself preferring his anger. This new sensation made her ache as if she were dying a little inside. Whatever he found in that room must have been very bad.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her words were woefully inadequate, but she couldn’t think of anything better to say.
Adam’s expression hardened as he glanced around the room, taking stock of the soldiers spreading slowly in blind stealth, and the remaining wraith.
Adam’s gaze finally rested on Spencer. His lips curled into a sick smile before he dismissed the sight altogether. Spencer was scum; he didn’t deserve to be mourned.
“We’ll take the stairs,” he said.
Yesterday Patty, and now Custo. Adam’s losses just kept piling up. His strain was showing—he had every right to break and should have, a long time ago.
Emotion squeezed Talia’s heart. She had to say something more. She had to let him know that he was not alone.
“Adam, I—”
“Not now.” His grip on her hand tightened painfully; the rest of his body went very still.
She swallowed the rest of her words.
Not now. She understood. He couldn’t take comfort with Custo’s blood on his hands.
“The stairs,” she repeated.
He seemed to relax slightly, gave a short nod, and then guided her in a crouching walk through the kitchen. He maneuvered past the elevator to an adjacent nondescript door. The door hissed when opened, leading to a stairwell.
A soldier on the other side of the door backed against the stairwell wall, raising his weapon.
Adam shifted and kicked the man head over heels down the flight of stairs. They stepped over his body, rushing downward, trying to keep ahead of the remaining soldiers within the loft. Talia strained to hear footsteps, but none followed. She figured they had a few things to deal with what with Spencer dead and all. Several minutes of quiet, panicked descent later, they exited the rear of the building, Talia trying to smother her gasps of air.
Adam grasped her hand to keep her close, alert for signs of pursuit. He was too quiet, too calm, the roar within him utterly silenced. Solemn resolution dominated now. Stripped of all his resources and everyone he trusted, he still tried to hold the world together with his bloody bare hands. Adam Thorne was the strongest—no, the best man she’d ever known. She understood why Custo gave his life for him, because she knew she’d do the same. Adam could take anything he wanted from her, her breath, her body. He already had her heart.
At the end of a short, clean alley, a car waited, Zoe sitting at the wheel. Had to be Abigail at work again. A cop shouted stop! just before they pulled away, but Zoe didn’t even bat an eye. She must have known he wouldn’t follow. She took one nonsensical turn in a backward-moving direction, but redirected toward the club on the next block.
Once inside, Adam parted the motley crowd with a sweep of his arm. “Where’s that doctor?”
“Here.” Amalia shouldered through.
“She can’t stop shaking. Her color’s not good. And her skin’s gone clammy,” Adam said.
“I’m fine,” Talia argued, but her weak, raspy voice contradicted her. The suffocating coating had not thinned at all.
He strong-armed her back into the little dark room and planted her in a chair. “You don’t look fine.”
“Neither do you,” Talia said.
“When did you last eat?” Amalia asked as she fit an oxygen mask over Talia’s face.
Her question stopped Talia short. Adam, too, from the look of his confused expression. Food hadn’t been high on their list of priorities.
“Maybe twenty-four hours,” Talia admitted. Adam grudgingly nodded confirmation.
“Slept?” the medic prodded.
“I slept in the car,” Talia said. She pointed to Adam. “He never sleeps.”