Page 30 of Silverproof Damsel

Soon after the piano keys ended, ‘The Night We Met’by Lord Huron began playing. My mind tried to grasp the words, failing. My brain felt fuzzy, as if I’d been drugged. The voices around me were threaded with the lyrics of the melody. Fighting through the fog wafting throughout my skull, I strained my ears to decipher between the song and voices, then flinched as agonizing pain ripped through my shoulder blade.

“They’re not stopping,” someone muttered next to me. “They’re waiting for someone, or maybe for something to happen. I, for one, would like to know what the fuck that is sooner than later.”

“Focus on saving Remington, Ruger. You can’t worry about what’s happening outside. Not while saving our baby sister’s life.” Savage sounded sad. As if she’d already begun grieving myloss. The tremor in her voice caused my eyes to open, causing a kaleidoscope of colors to blind me.

“Do something, Ruger. She’s still fucking mortal. We cannot lose her or the babe,” Winchester ordered, voice firm yet her fear was audible in the demand.

“Remi?” A palm cupped my cheek, which I assumed belonged to Savage.

Parting my lips, I fought to get words out. No matter how hard I tried, only marbled gibberish came out. Fear struck through my heart with the inability to produce anything other than whimpers and incoherent speech. Eyes widening, I struggled against the hands holding me down.

“It’s going to be okay, honey. We’ve got you,” Savage promised, but I heard the hesitancy to lie to me as she’d spoken. “Stop struggling. You’re safe with us.”

“Don’t downplay it or lie to her. Remington is one of us, Savage. She deserves to know the seriousness of what is happening.” Ruger’s stressed tone issued dread to pulsate through my veins.

Ruger was a trained medic, one who’d served in countless wars throughout his lifetime. When I was around five years old, he’d taken me with him to one of the largest waterfalls I’d seen in my life. On our way home, we’d come across a horrific accident between a big rig and a few other motorists.

I’d stood beside him sobbing, while he’d pulled victims, gravely wounded, from crushed vehicles. Never in my life had I ever been that bad before.

The people he’d pulled from the wreckage were more mangled than their vehicles had been. To me, it felt like each person he’d dragged out was worse than the one before.

My brother hadn’t faltered in his gruesome task. He’d dominated the scene with calm, mindful clarity. Amid that crisis and the chaos, he’d persevered. I could still hear the controlledtone he spoke to those victims inside my head. Mainly because it wasn’t the one he was using now. His voice shook with fear, which was creating panic to blossom in my chest that threatened to overwhelm me.

“Savage, turn on‘Fix You’by Coldplay.” Savage made a sound. As if she intended to ask him something, but he cut her off before she could get anything out.

“Now isn’t the time for worrying about your playlist,” she returned with confusion heavy in her tone.

“I need Remington calm, and I know music will do the job. Music has always soothed her deeper than anything else. We have to get her bleeding under control, and right now, she’s freaked out, causing blood to rush through her veins,” Ruger explained, the tremor in his voice confirming my fear was palpable, as well as quickly spreading through the room.

As Coldplay hummed through the speaker, reassuring warmth washed through me. It triggered my pulse to slow as memories of Ruger and Sig teaching me how to control and slow my breathing to play out in my head. It was more than that, though.

He’d requested the same song that he had sung to me while we’d left the horrifying scene in the rearview mirror on the tragic day. I slowly began feeling safer each time he’d begun the song over, repeating it to the frightened child I’d been.

Now, he was using it to do the same thing. To calm down my frightened, erratic cognizance. His deep, raspy baritone sang the soothing, soft lyrics to me. It finally allowed me to inhale a deep, calming lungful of air. Repeating the motion, I gradually loosened the grip that terror held over me.

“Just breathe, little sister. I got you. No way in hell am I losing you today. Not like this,” he promised as emotion hung to each word, coating it in his vow. “That’s my girl.”

“Next time, maybe lead with that song?” Savage grunted, then something collided into the side of the chateau. “Bloody bastards are trying to make this place a tomb.”

The entire fortification shook as glasses clinked together, as hinges creaked from the cupboard down, slamming open. Turning my head to the side, I inhaled the stench of gunpowder and burned fuses.

It wasn’t until I squeezed my eyes closed, then repeated the action several times to clear the blotting rainbow prisms clouding my vision, that my heart stopped beating in my chest.

They’d placed Nyx’s lifeless body on the table across from the island. It was where they were working on me. Tears seared my retinas, and my bottom lip quivered as an entirely different sort of agony assaulted me.

The warmth drained from my limbs, leaving them numb and devoid of feeling. Bitter, deafening silence clung to her, made louder by her blue lips. A heaviness weighed on my chest, threatening to crush my lungs. The pain felt visceral, as if it were a physical wound that had been inflicted so deeply that it became an endless void of agony.

No sound escaped my lips, even though inside, I screamed until my ears bled. Gut wrenching, penetrating heartbreak tore through me, demolishing my insides and staining my soul. It felt like my heart was being physically snatched from my chest, repeatedly crushed, and then forced back inside. Tears stung my eyes, wetting my lashes as the loss broke me more than anything in my life before now ever had.

My lips parted, then closed without any sound escaping. The reality that she wasn’t coming back stole my ability to speak or feel anything other than the brutality of grief shredding me apart within. She was fucking immortal. It meant she had to come back. That’s how immortality worked, right?

Savage’s eyes followed the path to where mine remained, wide with horror as I stared at the mess they’d created of my best friend. Releasing a heavy sigh, she pushed the hair from my face, then swallowed audibly.

“We know little about nymphs, or how to save them, Remi,” Savage murmured, pushing her slender fingers through my unruly curls. “I’m so sorry. Focus on you for now. You’ll have time to grieve for your friend later. Once you’re in the clear of dying.”

I felt the tingling at the back of my throat, the one that started before I normally cried. Since I was already bawling my eyes out, it seemed off that it was there. The knot twisting in my stomach caused me to reach for my abdomen, but the same hands that held me down prevented me from doing so.

Lifting my head, I peered at what Ruger was working on. Horror shot through me as I glanced at the gaping hole in my stomach. A broken sob rippled up from my lungs to explode past my lips.

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