Page 84 of Thorns from the Fall

I can’t let myself spiral though, and I make a choice.

One that condemns a man to death but might save countless others. It’s raw and violent and tears me apart at the seams. It’s monstrous and unfair, but I have to do it.

“Now floor it out of here,” I command. “Get as far away as you can, and don’t stop. Don’t look back. Don’t turn around. Keep going until you physically can’t anymore.”

When he shuts the door, I load my gun.

I wish there was some way to tell Hale that I’m hiding, but I don't know how. I can’t risk going to find him, dragging my scent along with me for Agnarr to follow. But if he goes after the truck, Hale will too. My only hope is that my friend will hang back and play it safe until I can contact him.

Maybe Agnarr won’t fall for my trick and murder me right here in my real dad’s car. If he does though, he’ll earn a silver bullet to the heart. That might be all I can manage, but I won’t give up. Not now. Not after jumping from a thirty story building and surviving.

Perhaps I am a cockroach after all.

I don’t dare fall asleep as I feel my bones shift and realign. I’m exhausted, but I simply can’t let my guard down. I count as high as I can in French, focusing on my pronunciation as I let it distract me. Once I run out of numbers in my vocabulary, one phrase repeats in my mind on a loop. His deep voice courses smoothly through my mind like wine poured over precious stones.

Ma petite cafarde. My little cockroach.

32

ROMAN

I joltawake from where I’ve passed out on the couch to someone banging on the door.

“I’ll get it,” my brother says, rousing from his own nap. After our conversation about Gwyn, we’d settled into an easy silence. After deciding he wanted to marathon the Lord of the Rings movies, specifically opting for the extended director’s cut, I’d joined him. I’m pretty sure Boromir was dying when I passed out, but I can’t tell if we’re on the second or third movie now. They’ve always been Remy’s favorites. I have no idea what time it is, but I wipe the sleep from my eyes as I stand up.

“No, it’s okay,” I say, but he’s already at the front door. There’s a high-pitched whining sound coming from the other side, and when he opens it, I can see why.

Zuul sits on my porch step, and for a second I think he’s found his way to my house himself—which is an inane thought—until someone speaks and steps into the light.

“I thought you were dead,” the man says to Remy. My fangs extend in my mouth when I realize it’s Hannigan, the man who saw Gwyn naked when I was holding her prisoner. Mesmerized by the scent of a hunter’s blood, he would’ve attacked her ifI hadn’t intervened. I’d told him to walk into traffic after that exchange, and I haven’t seen him since.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask. Hannigan loses hold of Zuul, and the dog barrels past my brother. He turns, slamming his body into my legs before nearly sitting on my foot and looking up at me. Confused, I want answers. “What is this?”

Hannigan yawns. I nearly rip his head off for the disrespect, but decide against it.

“You should really answer your phone,” he says. “The bitch is missing.”

I curse when I realize my pocket is empty. “I don’t know where it’s at,” I say, before understanding what the fuck he just said. “Gwyn is missing?”

“Yeah. Jumped off the building or some shit,” he says, and the thorns wrapped around my heart constrict so tightly, I’m sure it ceases to beat. I can’t breathe. My pulse is loud, pounding in my ears despite the fact that I think my heart stopped.

“Nico made me bring the mutt here so I could tell you to call him. Figured if I didn’t do as I’m told, you’d make me lay down on train tracks.”

“She jumped from the rooftop?” Remy asks, and Hannigan nods. “Fuck.”

My brother asks him something else, but none of it registers. I can’t focus on their conversation, only able to replay his words over and over again. He said she was missing. He didn’t say she impaled herself through the heart or some other equally wretched mental image I’ve painted in the last few moments. He didn’t say she was dead.

Sheisn’tdead.

Hannigan leaves and Remy shuts the door behind him. Zuul is licking the backs of my legs as I reach down between the couch cushions looking for my fucking phone. When I can’t find it, I flip the bastard sofa over in a rage. I’m imagining the worst.

She fucking promised me, I think. Is she injured somewhere, trying to find a way to finish whatever the fall didn’t? And why the fuck did she jump? When she woke up and found me gone, had it set her off? Is her blood on my hands? There’s a physical ache behind my ribs, and I rub at my sternum.

I told Remy things between me and Gwyn were done, but it was wishful thinking. There’s no way I’m finished with her, and I was kidding myself when I voiced that aloud. But if she’s actively working against that by trying to fucking kill herself? I begged her to live when I helped her Ascend, and I made her promise to stick around last night.

I don’t know what else I can do to keep her. But whatever I feel for her has surpassed need, and I refuse to let her go.

She knew a jump like that would only maim her until she could heal, so did she do something else before she jumped to ensure it would kill her? Why Sasha and Hale thought Gwyn having a gun was a good idea is beyond me. What if she used it before she fell?

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