Page 64 of Painless
“Hey, guys.” I tried to keep my voice calm as I moved between the kids and their father’s body. “I need to get you inside, okay?”
“Dad!” Avery, his daughter, shrieked. “Why’s Dad not moving?! I want my dad!”
Blocking their view with my arms, I looked at Mari over my shoulder. Leaning over Dallas, her hands were slick with blood as she searched for a pulse. When she caught my gaze, she gave a tiny shake of her head, her eyes glittering with tears.
Fuck.
Fuck everything about this.
“Daaaad!”the kids wailed, pushing on my arms as they tried to get around me.
“We need to get you guys inside,” I repeated, numbness taking over me.
Dallas was dead.
No fucking way, how could we losehim?
Hades’ growl pulled me back to the present. He grabbed Dallas’s son by his shirt and started yanking him back toward the clubhouse.
“Mari, get them inside.”
“We can’t just leave him out here—”
“We can’t leavethemunprotected either. Go!” An increasingly loud buzz alerted me to another approaching drone. I jumped to my feet to make a shield over them, scanning the sky with my rifle ready. “Get them out of here! Get somewhere safe!”
“Jandro, look out!”
I didn’t feel the blast. First I was on my feet, looking for the drone through the smoke. Then I was either falling or flying, maybe both. And then nothing.
Blackness surrounded me,like I was floating in a pool of ink. I felt weightless, even bodiless. I tried to move my fingers and toes, but couldn’t feel them in this space.
“Fuck no. Am I dead?”
Was I actually speaking, or just thinking? I couldn’t tell.
If this was death, how fucking boring.
I just hoped Mari and the kids were okay. The guys would take care of her. Poor Dallas. Would I see him here? It didn’t seem like anyone else was here but me.
Something appeared to shift and materialize in the blackness. I couldn’t see clearly, but I could make out the rough shape of a man in front of me. He had no discernible features, but the solidness of his presence was a small comfort in this weird, floating blackness.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the figure said in a deep masculine voice, almost with an air of snobbery.
“Well, excuse me,” I huffed. “I didn’t exactly intend to stumble in here, wherever the fuck this is. Death? Hell? Some signage would be helpful, you know.”
“Neither. You’re close, though.” The figure seemed to cock its head to the side, like a dog. “But it’s not your time, Jandro.”
“Sweet. Send me on back then.” I tried to ignore how unsettling it was that this figure knew my name.
“I can’tsendyou anywhere. You have a choice to make—fight and live, or give up and pass on. Mariposa is doing everything in her power to save you right now. The least you can do is fight for your own life.”
How the fuck was I supposed to respond to that? I was hanging by a thread, and my girl was probably scared shitless.
“Who are you?”
Not that I could see anything, but Ifeltlike the figure smiled.
“I’m Hades.”
