Page 158 of Black to Light

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THE LIGHT

“We can’t just leave it like this,” Black growled. “Don’t you fucking get it? We can’t leave an open, active portal in the middle of a heavily-populated area like this. Are you insane?”

“Areweinsane?” Angel spat back. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Quentin? Are you really a sociopath, like Nick always said? Why else would you be like this?

Black’s jaw visibly hardened, but his voice remained level.

“While I feel like I might be physically sick just saying the words… Brick was right. He was fucking right, okay? We can’t just leave anopen inter-dimensional portalinside what’s essentially a tourist attraction in a populated European city…”

Angel’s face contorted again, a mixture of rage and disbelief.

“Nickwent in there,” she burst out, anger winning out. “And Jem!”

“I’m aware of that,” Black growled back.

“Then what part of ‘that’ are you not understanding, Quentin?” she snapped.

“Me? I understand just fine.” Black raised his voice a few notches. “I think maybe you’re the one who doesn’t understand, Ange––”

Angel cut him off.

“You understand. Right.” Angel nodded, tears welling in her eyes. “Right. You understand. Yet you’re seriously proposing that weblow upthe mountain, even when this might be Nick and Jem’s only way back?” She bit her full lower lip. “Why? Just to keep out some hypothetical seers or vampires? What the fuck iswrongwith you, Quentin?”

“What makes you think they’d come back through here?” Black snapped back.

“What makes you think they wouldn’t?”

“Because these damned portals don’tworkthat way, Ange!”

I stood a little ways back, with Cowboy and Kiko.

I didn’t try to step between them.

I didn’t try to add anything.

I didn’t want to be in the argument at all.

Kiko had an arm around my waist, and Cowboy had his arm over my shoulders. I think they could tell I wasn’t doing well with any of this. I didn’t even know which of them, Black or Angel, I agreed with the most. They were both right.

Both of them were also dead wrong.

It was too late. We were too fucking late, and at base, they were arguing about nothing.

Nick was gone.

In all likelihood, he and Jem and my sister were gone forever.

I felt that same, sick, sucker-punch to the solar plexus I’d felt when Nick came up missing from the Thai island ofKoh Mangaan.I could feel it, that same finality I’d felt them. I recognized this. I recognized the part of me that knew we were separated by more than just a few minutes, days, weeks, or even years. That feeling was so familiar I already couldn’t breathe,couldn’t think. I could feel it with Jem this time, too. I could feel it with my sister.

They were gone.

They were really fucking gone.

My stomach heaved.

I threw up on the cave floor, unable to stop myself.

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