Page 189 of Envious Of Fire
“His blood is on all of our hands.”
Kyle hears all of this from Kaleb’s bedside, his ears pricked to the drama down the hall as he waits for his brother to wake. He can’t bear Kaleb losing a friend while asleep, that he won’t know until it’s too late that his friend took a fatal wound to protect him.
And if things get worse with Nico, Kaleb will have never had a chance to say goodbye.
“Babe.”
Kyle shakes his head, not turning to Elias at the door. He can already feel the bubbling sea of anxiety inside his boyfriend with barely a flick of his Reach. “I can’t. I can’t deal with another thing. Can’t make another decision. Not until my brother wakes up.”
Despite Kyle’s state of mind, it’s a comfort when Elias draws up behind him, wraps him in his arms, and holds him tightly. “I know,” he murmurs against the back of Kyle’s neck, puts a gentle kiss there, continues to hold him.
Kyle closes his eyes. “Is … Is Kaleb’s friend gonna die? … Is Nico … Is Nico gonna fucking die?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re saying he will die if they take the sword out. Raya will be fine, we heal, we aren’t as fragile as humans. But he needs a hospital, a real fucking hospital with better facilities.”
Elias’s emotional state tightens right up, hardening like mud into stone. “I know … but …”
Kyle turns, facing him. “We don’t have that option, do we? Is it true, what Cade and Layna are saying? About their spell?”
Elias blinks, astonished. “How’d you hear them at all? You’ve been in this room the whole time.”
“I hear everything. My senses are through the roof. I swear I can hear a snake slithering somewhere in the parking lot and ants chewing through the drywall. Is what they’re saying true?”
Elias sighs, dropping his arms. “Y-Yes,” he finally lets out. “It seems to be the state of things right now. The barrier is … really more of a wall. It keeps anyone from getting into Nowhere …”
“And also keeps us from gettingout,” Kyle finishes, getting to the point. The look in Elias’s eyes confirms it. Kyle turns away, eyes wide. “We’re … We’re trapped here now.”
“Trapped andsafe,” says Elias.
“And dying.” Kyle clutches his brother’s hand tighter. “Whatif his wounds become infected? What if he gets worse? What ifheneeds a hospital, and we can’t—”
“They gave him lots of antibiotics,” Elias reminds him. “He just needs time and rest. He’ll recover. He’s proven himself strong for this long, hasn’t he?”
“And that poor girl’s boyfriend.” Kyle’s eyes drift to the wall, as if he can magically see through it to the lobby, to where all the surviving humans are gathered. “He didn’t even want to come. He didn’t want to come and … and now he’s dead.”
“Babe …”
Suddenly it’s too much. Kyle turns, buries his face in Elias’s chest, and lets out a holler of frustration that gets swallowed up the moment it’s freed. But no amount of hiding within his man’s warm body can stop his ears from picking up every word down the hall. The doctors arguing. Nico’s moaning. Raya’s uncomfortable grunts and occasional interjections. All the survivors in the lobby who keep whispering and praying to one another. The disquiet in the entire town as the citizens wonder where the eerie haze in the night sky came from, a haze that even partly obscures the stars and the moon, as if their town now floats in the middle of a sea of flying sand and nothing, as if Nowhere has become a sick joke of its own name, a place that can never again be found by any natural means—a place that is, literally, truly nowhere.
Through the wall of dread and doom, Kyle becomes aware of a suddenly out-of-place energy. A confidence which seems to play and twist in shape as it approaches.
Kyle looks up at the door before Elias does. Softly shuffling footsteps bring the shape of Drake into view.
Drake’s splotchy pink and messy hair is darkened by water, dripping down his face. In his denim jacket, now stained here and there with dirt, he leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. “Sorry for eavesdropping. Kinda heard everything.”
Kyle remembers at once what he’d left behind when George took him away from here. “Lazarus. Is he—?”
“He’s alright. Doubt even twenty silver bullets could take him down.” Drake picks something off his jacket, flicks it away. “I have a feeling I … may not be seeing him again for some time.”
Kyle hears the weight in Drake’s words. Feels his doubts and his frustrations. Lazarus was truly, deeply wounded by that single silver bullet. He would not have survived a second one. Drake is emotionally shrugging it off, turning a cheek to his own pain, not wanting to think about standing up against his brother.
“Stop creeping around inside my heart,” says Drake.
Kyle’s Reach has a mind of its own sometimes. “I’m not.”
“Just teasing.” Drake smiles halfheartedly, then lets out a sigh. “Anyway, I can save the Nico guy.”
