Page 35 of Fallen

The factory was darkerand colder than he remembered. Shadows stretched black fingers toward him from the corner of his eye, disappearing every time he turned toward them. It felt claustrophobic, the darkness crowding him, congesting around him.

He turned a corner around a stack of cardboard and saw bodies. His mom and dad and his baby siblings, Annabelle and Eric. Their bodies were open down the middle, as though they were stuffed animals someone had simply unzipped and emptied the contents within. Viscera was positioned in a perfect circle around their bodies, from head to head like the gruesome points of a star.

Alex sobbed. “No, this can’t be.”

Low, wicked laughter echoed around the room. “But it is.”

Anger flushed through him, and Alex raised his chin, screaming, “Show yourself, you coward! Come and face me!”

A presence appeared at his back, wet lips brushing his ear, and the voice that spoke was high and gleeful. “I’m right here, little boy. Ready to join your family?”

He took a breath to scream, but before it escaped his throat, a juddering sensation trailed fire down his abdomen. Horrified, he looked down. There was a zipper in his chest and stomach, and the demon was pulling it down, spilling blood and gore from his body.

“No—no,” he gasped, hands scrabbling at the mess.

He fell, creating the long-awaited fifth point of the pentagram. His head rolled to one side, a tear trickling from his eye, and saw the mozgoran standing with Talon, looking exactly as he had the first night they’d met, shirtless beneath his rakish leather jacket. They laughed together, Talon’s hand landing on the demon’s shoulder.

It was all wrong. That wasn’t Talon. It couldn’t be. The real Talon wouldn’t do this.

Alex bolted upright with a gasp,swearing the taste of blood lingered on the back of his tongue. With a soft sound of despair, he looked down at his bare chest, passing a hand down his abdomen as though to assure himself there was no zipper there. No blood. Just skin.

“Fffuck,” he breathed, relieved it was only a dream but pissed he’d had one at all.

And Talon… That hadn’t been the real Talon. When the real Talon showed up, it felt different. Realer, somehow. No, this was his own mind’s twisted version, acutely designed to torture him. He hated to admit it, but the real Talon, despite his demonic nature, wouldn’t be so cruel.

His gaze slid to the phone on his bedside table. The real Talon, the kinder Talon, was just a text away. Probably sitting at In Extremis as usual, given that it was almost four AM. He could text, ask him to enter Alex’s dreams and help him rest.

“No, don’t be stupid,” he said to himself, flinging the blankets back and standing. It had beenone day. He wouldn’t give in. He didn’t need Talon to sleep. Of course, he’dhadTalon for weeks. It was only natural that there would be an adjustment period. A detox, so to speak. His nightmares might be worse for now, but it was better than his mind being invaded by aleviathan, surely.

He would make some calming tea and then lay back down. That would help.

Chapter 12

Alex

A week slippedby like the pages of a book flipping in the wind. Alex returned to the old factory once, but there was no sign of the mozgoran. No doubt it was long gone. Why would it return when it knew its hiding place was compromised? Alex kicked himself for being so careless. If he’d approached the factory smarter, he might have been able to take the demon by surprise and end things right then. Instead, he was back to square one.

Only now, he was sleep deprived. The nightmares were relentless, his guilt gnawing at him like ragged teeth in the night. Each night, at least once, he awoke gasping for breath, blood and pain reverberating through his mind like ripples on a water’s surface. He managed no more than two hours of sleep each night, and he knew it was taking a toll. Nathan was giving his haggard appearance worried looks during the day. His hair was a mess, dark bags hung under his eyes, stark against his pale skin. No amount of coffee in the world could replace the sleep he wasn’t getting. He felt betrayed by his own mind.

More than anything, he missed Talon.

He reached for his phone almost every hour. Talon could fix this. Talon could help him sleep. Talon, Talon, Talon. The name echoed in his mind. He saw his face in his dreams, but it was never the real one. The one in his dreams never called him ‘little bird,’ never treated him like he was something to be cherished.

No one had ever treated him like that before—at least not that he remembered. His parents might have, but he didn’t remember them well enough. It seemed almost cruel that it should be a demon who evoked these feelings in him now.

It should’ve been easy to push Talon away. Instead, it was the worst thing he’d ever done in his life.

Training and patrols seemed like Herculean tasks, his body growing tired far faster than normal. He was twitchy and irritable. Every time he closed his eyes, he caught himself drifting off to sleep and startling awake.

Exactly one week after he last saw Talon, he left HQ after a nightly patrol and drove in a blur. He thought he was going home, but when he pulled into a parking spot, he looked up and realized his body had driven straight to In Extremis.

‘You’re perfectly safe here,’ Talon had once told him. And he felt it, as he dragged himself from the car and trudged to the door.

The white-haired bouncer opened the door without a word, and there was no hesitation in Alex as he went inside the dark, demon-infested club.

The pulsing music felt too loud to his ears, the chaotic streaks of light painful to his tired eyes. He slunk through the club with purpose, bypassing the brightly lit bar—brightly lit compared to the rest of the club, that is. His eyes were on his destination, his heart in his throat. He didn’t know what he’d do if Talon wasn’t there. Heneededhim to be there.

He spied leather-clad shoulders, and all the tension drained from his body so fast that his knees wobbled. Talon was sitting in his usual booth, clutching a bottle in one hand and looking at the dark screen of his phone on the table. Was he waiting for something? For… Alex? It seemed like a fanciful notion, but the hopeful seed had taken root against his better judgment.

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