Breathe. Just breathe.
“Clever, don’t you think?” Samrael says. “Very clever to separate it that way. Scatter the pieces across the globe and then hide them in plain sight.” He gestures with the knife in his hand, like this room is the world. “Caused us a fair amount of confusion as we tried to follow its power. We didn’t understand why it was weaker. Diffuse. Until that moment we took it—but then, you riders were all there together. A sound tactic. As was entrusting the pieces to people ignorant of what they even had. It made you immune to my capabilities. We had to do all of this. Mine you for knowledge you didn’t even know you possessed. We’ve gone to a good deal of trouble.”
He falls silent, and there’s only the sound of Texas’s labored breathing.
“Give it to me, Gideon,” Samrael says.
I look at Malaphar. “It won’t come off me. I’ve told you that.”
“Daryn is the keeper,” Samrael says. “Isn’t she? The only one who can wield its power. It’s another seal of protection. Isn’t it?”
I shake my head. I don’t know. I don’t know and if I don’t get out of this chair Texas is going to die and so will I.
“She is full of surprises.” Samrael’s gaze falls to the cuff again. He adjusts his grip on the knife. “Well, no matter. There are other ways of removing it.”
He steps in, and hammers down with the blade.
The instant fragments.
I watch the pale blade come down. I watch it slice through my wrist and bite deep into the wood of the chair.
I hear the wood split and I see my hand fall.
I hear it thump as it drops to the floor.
Time moves again, and reality returns.
No. It doesn’t.
What I see makes no sense. Where my hand should be there is nothing. I’ve been partially erased. And I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding like a leaky fuel pump.
Spots explode before my eyes.
Stay here, Blake. Stay, stay, stay.
Samrael grabs my forearm, keeping it in place with one hand.
With the other, he tugs on the cuff.
I feel warmth, wetness, slipping, and the cuff comes off.
The cuff, which is the key, which has been on me this whole time. On me and the guys—not around Daryn’s neck.
Very clever.
Samrael straightens. “Thank you, Gideon,” he says, giving the cuff a toss like it’s a baseball. “I’m glad we could finally work this out.”
He turns to Malaphar and they speak, but I can’t hear what they say. The pain comes with a sound like metal bending in my ears. It expands, a universe inside me. I stare at the knots in the pine paneling and still see my handless arm. I blink and blink and I can’t make it to go away. It’s like a scratch on a lens.
The metallic groan recedes and I hear Samrael again.
“Fine,” he says to Malaphar. “But you’ll have to answer to Ra’om for it.” He throws me a frustrated glance and leaves.
Malaphar smiles at me with his pinched features and beetle black eyes and I realize what just happened. An argument over who gets to kill me. Malaphar must’ve fought hard.
“It’s just you and me again, Gideon. It’s a shame you won’t get to meet the real Cordero. She’s here. Real nice lady. Smart. I think you’d have liked her. I think she would have liked you.”
I don’t want to die in this chair.
Malaphar disengages the safety and sets his aim on me.
I look right into the barrel.
This is the real deal, right here. Right now.
The gun goes off.
White noise—
Eclipses—
All.
CHAPTER 55
I’m here.
I’m still here.
But I’m deaf and my heart isn’t beating.
I count to five. Ten. Twenty.
The ringing in my ears starts at twenty-one, my heart at thirty.
Texas leans against the wall, holding his side. Blood pours through his fingers. He holds his knife in his other hand.
His knife. He used his bowie knife.
Malaphar is facedown on the floor. I can’t see his neck, the front part, but deep black blood is forming a pool beneath him. It’s touching the redder blood that belongs to me and Texas.
There’s a bullet hole and splintered paneling to my right.
It looks bad in here. And I’m still making it worse.
Texas pushes himself off the wall and comes over. The ringing hasn’t left my ears, but I can hear the big sucking sounds coming from him. He’s dragging in air like he’s going to dive deep underwater and the veins are bulging in his neck.
I’m not doing great, either. It’s hard to think past the pain. It begins at my hand and has no end.
Oh, shit.
My hand.
“Hand? Where’s my hand?”
Texas glances at the floor. He tries to tell me something but it comes out as a burbling noise, then wet coughing, then he bends over and spits.
We’re making such a bloody mess. I hope I don’t have to clean this up later.
He straightens and tries to talk again, but it’s no better than last time and I can’t stop asking him where my hand is.
Where is it, where is it, where is it.