Page 140 of Saints & Sinners

Her eyes fluttered shut.

And I knew.

Everything inside me shattered at once. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

“Marnie?” I whispered, pressing her hand against her wound in hopes it would finally work, and she would be healed.

“No,” my voice broke. I looked up for help, but Hunter was the only person I found staring at me with the same pained look. “No.” I shook my head as grief swallowed me whole and sobs wracked my whole body. They sounded like I was screaming. “I—I can’t —” I gasped for air. “I can’t do this without you. Please...pleasedon’t leave me.”

But she already had, and there was no one left to fix me.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Grace held Marnie’s lifeless body in her arms. The weight of her cries was tearing me apart from the inside out, and it felt as though my chest was going to collapse in at any moment.

I moved closer to her and muttered, “Grace.” I was uncertain about whether I should reach for her, and I was also uncertain about whether I had the right to do so.

She didn’t raise her head as her shoulders shook furiously, and her sobs soaked the fabric of her uniform. The sound of her anguish hurt more than any injury I’d ever endured.

I crouched down next to her and took a deep breath. “Grace,” I said, this time in a quiet voice, as if uttering her name could somehow bring her broken pieces back together.

I was completely unprepared for the look that she gave me when her head suddenly snapped up. A mixture of grief and rage contorted her face, and for a brief moment, she appeared to be someone else.

“Don’t,” she snapped, her voice breaking as she spoke. “Don’t youdare.”

I froze, my hand hovering in the air before I slowly pulled it back. “I’m just trying to—”

“To what?” she cut me off, her voice rising. “To make me feelbetter? To tell me that everything’s going to be okay? Because it’s not, Hunter.Nothingis okay.”

Her rage struck me with more force than any weapon could ever have the ability to deliver.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said firmly, my voice steady despite the storm raging in my chest.

She stood abruptly, her hands trembling as she wiped her tear-streaked face with shaking fingers, smearing blood across her cheeks. Her movements were sharp, almost frantic.

“Don’t,” she said again, her voice quieter but laced with venom. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

I rose slowly, towering over her as she shook and sobbed, her grief pouring out in waves. For the first time, I understood what it meant to truly hate myself. To hate what I’d become.

“Grace, I—”

“Was it Eden?” The question came out of nowhere as I blinked, caught off guard.

“Was it her?” she repeated, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “Did you have something with Eden? Was she the one that you lost your…?” Her voice broke, and I saw the realization dawn on her face.

I couldn’t answer that at this moment in time.

Because the truth was a poison I couldn’t force out of my throat. How was I supposed to tell her that her whole life had been a lie, that the Riftkeeper’s—her actual mother, me...

‘Do you realize how insane that is?”

‘I was—”

“She manipulated you, Hunter! Do you not see that?”

I didn’t at the time. Even now, I struggle often to see it that way.

“You lied to me,” she whispered, her voice thick with betrayal. “You lied, and I let myself trust you.”

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