Page 55 of Ghosts of the Dead

Now he’s tending to the fire in silence, keeping Autumn safe in another way I’ll never be able to.

I should be over there. I should be with her, making sure she’s okay. Patching up her fresh wounds like I’ve been taking care of her wrist.

Then I remember I’ve never been able to protect anyone I’ve ever cared about. So instead, I’m by the car, elbows deep in an engine that doesn’t need fixing.

We already know what’s wrong with the car. We’ve known for two days, but I can’t sit still. Can’t look at her sitting there with her shoulders curled forward and her whole body dimmed like someone turned her brightness down from the inside.

I slam my palm against the hood and move to the trunk of the car. Maybe there’s something in here that can distract me.

Mars glances over at the noise. There’s something in his eyes I don’t want to read. Something that looks too much like the guilt I already carry. I reach up and touch the scar running through my brow. Another reminder.

I look away and turn back to the trunk. Back to the largepiece of metal filled with bolts and rust and wires I keep pretending to understand. My fingers curl around the wrench I grab, then I drop it.

Shit.

My hand clenches around the edge of the trunk, and something in my chest snaps. The sound I make isn’t even human. I grab the crowbar and swing.

The back window of the car shatters with a sharp, glittering scream. Glass rains down onto the dirt around my boots.

I swing again. Driver’s side mirror. Gone.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Plastic, metal, and glass shower my body and the dirt. I don’t even feel a thing.

I don’t stop until I’m panting. Until my grip on the crowbar aches. Until the edges of the world go sharp and red. My pulse roars like thunder in my ears, and I raise the crowbar one more time. Then…I see her.

She’s there, right in front of me.

Autumn.

Fire demon.

Her eyes are wide as they take in the scene. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t move, either. She plants herself between me and the car. If she thinks I’d go straight through her to get it, then she’s wrong, and she knows it. Luna flanks her, ready to sink her teeth into me if I even dare try.

My arm drops. The crowbar falls to the dirt with a heavy thud. Autumn’s hands rise and she presses her palms flat to my chest, right over my pounding heart that’s wearing a hole in my chest. I can feel the warmth of her skin radiating through my shirt, and it grounds me more than it should.

“Jace?” Her voice comes out soft and sweet, a stark contrast to the storm inside of me. “Are you okay? Becausewe’ll need to create a rotating breakdown schedule if you’re not. We can’t survive if both of us lose it.”

I glance down at her wrist. The bandage hangs loose from her arm. She must’ve been in the middle of letting Mars rewrap it when I caught her attention instead. She shouldn’t have stopped for me.

My gaze drifts over her, and I really look at her for the first time today.

Her tank top has gotten even shorter from all the fabric she’s torn off for bandages and a makeshift torch. If she keeps this up, she won’t have a shirt left at all.

The thought sends an unexpected heat through me that’s immediately followed by concern about her being protected from the elements.

“Does it still bother you?”

She blinks in surprise. “What?”

“Your wrist. Is it still hurting?”

She hesitates, and that tells me all I need to know. “No…not really. It’s healing.”

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