He’d burned himself to the bone in places, to keep her safe, while she’d tried to rescue someone she’d known full well on some level wasn’t there.
“The wound I refused to dress,” she whispered, for a moment fourteen again, chained in a dungeon with Ryodan trying to get her to face the atrocities of her life, stare them down cold, acknowledge and make some kind—any kind—of peace with them; his brand of tough love, the only thing that’d had the slightest chance of penetrating her formidable armor. She’d told herself it wasn’t concern but manipulation. Her thoughts and feelings about the man had always been at odds. She’d idolized him. Craved his attention and respect. Never trusted him. Yet what he’d done tonight…she could see nothing the mighty Ryodan might have gained from it.
She’d made her own kind of peace by freeze-framing into the future, faster than the wind, faster than any pain could follow. Seeking adventure, sensation, stimulation, because as long as she was feeling something new, she didn’t feel anything old. Past is past, she’d crowed to anyone who’d listened.
She knew Ryodan’s words by heart. She knew everything he’d said by heart. Few adults had given her useful words. Tucked into a Mega brain behind a gamine grin and insouciant swagger, they’d always been treasured.
The wound you refuse to dress is one that will never heal. You gush lifeblood and never even know why. It will make you weak at a critical moment when you need to be strong.
Tonight her unhealed wounds had cost her. And him.
She’d watched him die once, gutted by the Crimson Hag. Somehow, miraculously, he’d returned from the dead, whole and good as new. She wasn’t worried that he might die from these burns.
Regardless, looking at him in this condition made her feel sick.
She closed her eyes, reliving the abbey under attack, the bloodbath of a battle, so many dead, cut down so young, the hellish fire, the moment she’d felt her mind snap.
Shazam.
Ryodan stumbling from the inferno, carrying her and her stuffed animal, both unharmed.
Which brought her to thoughts of the completed tattoo at the base of her spine, the cellphone in her pocket, and the certainty Ryodan could find her no matter where she went.
Of course, now that she had what she’d so desperately wanted, she couldn’t justify pursuing a personal agenda.
Forgotten in her hand, the protein bar had melted and chocolate ran warm and gooey through her fingers. She devoured it in two bites, barely chewing, licked her hand, and pocketed the wrapper.
Her hands curled into fists.
“Ryodan, we’ve got problems. Mac’s gone. She tried to save us from the Sweeper by using the Sinsar Dubh. When she took a spell from it, the Book possessed her. I can’t find Barrons. I don’t know if Mac is still in there somewhere. I do know the Book will destroy everything it comes in contact with.” She paused then said flatly, “Logic dictates I kill her at the earliest opportunity.”
Which, technically, had passed.
She’d taken Mac’s spear before she’d undone her restraints, erring on the side of caution. She should have attacked the moment the Book revealed itself with its nightshade-toxic gaze. She was faster and the Book had been having obvious acclimation problems, struggling to get off the table, swaying slightly as it found footing. She could have stabbed it with the spear, cleaved it in half with her sword, ensuring the body that held the Sinsar Dubh would rot and die.
Mac’s body.
Eventually.
Slowly and horrifically.
For a woman who lived by the motto carpe momentum et cetera sequentur, she’d never wanted to seize a moment less.
She knew why and told the unconscious man heatedly. “Because friends don’t give up on friends. They never give up.”
The body on the mattress shivered but said nothing.
Lost in the Silvers versus lost in the Book: Jada didn’t perceive the odds of rescue as substantially disparate. The fallout, however, could be catastrophically different: one girl, never to be seen again, versus the earth’s total domination and destruction. Assuming the black holes didn’t destroy it first.
“Lor told me you didn’t know where I’d gone,” she told the silent room. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Mac’s either. People need to stop thinking they’re responsible for my actions. It wasn’t like I needed to be rescued. I’ve never needed to be rescued.” She’d always found a way to save herself.
Still, she knew intimately the despair of day after day passing, followed by nights cold, hungry, alone; of belief dying bit by bit.
Mac had sacrificed herself, to ensure Jada’s survival. If Mac hadn’t opened the Sinsar Dubh and used a spell to save them, the Sweeper would have sent horribly “fixed” versions of Mac and Jada out into the world, which might have been every bit as deadly as the Book being unleashed on it. And who could say the Sweeper’s work on Mac’s brain wouldn’t have freed the Sinsar Dubh anyway? There’d been no easy, good choices tonight, only the lesser of evils—two women destroyed or one.