Page 86 of Our Vicious Descent
Elise nodded without hesitation.
Layla dropped her hand, giving her one final smile. “Then go.”
The Saint turned and began to walk back out of the room.
***
Layla watched Elise leave. She took with her all sense of hope and security. Watching her removed every self-preservation instinct Layla had. She had underestimated just how much it would devastate her—Elise Saint turning her back on her.
A thick, bittersweet scent filled the air. When Layla whirled to face Karine, she found the ancient reaper holding a vial of a dark purple substance. Karine bent to roll it across the floor toward Layla, who picked it up once it hit the toe of her boot. She took thefull dose in one swallow. Just the taste had Layla hunching over. The ancient reaper smiled through her pain, watching Layla with calculating eyes.
The following sensations took over so quickly, Layla had no time to process having just been poisoned. Its essence was too similar to the bittersweet drug that Stephen had been developing off Thalia Gray’s research all those months ago. The same thing Layla had put all her trust into. From the beginning of the investigation with Elise, when she had still been driven by hate and a darkness only the worst knew, to now, when having her priorities shifted by one person had given her a completely new outlook.
Already, the cure worked in a different way from anything else Layla had been infected with. Her body tensed at first before it slowly relaxed, inch by inch. Her nervous system, once on constant high alert, faded into a passive voice in her body. Any thoughts of blood became more repulsive than necessary cravings. When she ran her tongue over her teeth and felt normal human incisors and flat molars, tears sprang into her eyes.
Above all the other changes to her once-damned body, the thing Layla clung to was the levity. She had not felt this light in years.
There had never been anything as beautiful as her newfound humanity. Layla was almost positive she could die happy in this state. Almost. There was still something missing—a piece of her that she had found only in reaperhood, something she had assumed she would never deserve because of her damned soul.
Her heart pounded more intensely than it had in years, but it did not match the rush of devotion she felt whenever she had Elise by her side.
Layla dropped her hands, noticing the warm blood pulsing in her veins. Once Elise popped into her head, the realization of her new humanity became a dull, secondary thing. It was nothing if she could not share it with the one she loved the most.
With her senses dulled and largely inefficient in comparison to her reaper ones, Layla could concentrate only on what was right in front of her. Her heart skipped a beat when she faced the doorway again and prayed to find the pale outline of Elise.
***
Elise liked to believe she knew better, but her heart always got the best of her. Life-or-death situations had never taught her anything different. Historically, she was not the prime example of self-preservation. So, when she turned away from Layla, Elise could only listen to the voice screaming at her to turn back.
She had never been good at listening to voices compelling her. Especially when they involved Layla. The first one being her father, begging her to forget the girl of her childhood. As if Elise could tear the roots that had grown around the ones that threaded through her life. The second voice being her own when Layla came back into her life in the form of a death-kissed reaper. Elise had wanted to curse herself a few times for falling back into the hopeless depth offeelings stirred up by Layla. Now they were a blessing and something that had kept her going through countless tribulations over the past few weeks. Turning away from Layla had been a choice. The wrong choice.
The only altar Elise promised her devotion to was one that had her facing the other half of her soul.
Some might have called it madness; Elise could only see it as love.
She turned around.
First, Elise locked eyes with Layla, whose expression displayed several breathtaking emotions. There was hope intermingled with relief and pure adoration. All things Elise had found devastatingly beautiful on her, all things Elise knew she deserved.
But then Elise’s eyes found Karine and the taloned hand she held poised for Layla. It had been raised for a while now, as if she was hoping Elise would have turned back for her. But she knew the reaper had always planned to end things this way.
As a human, Elise was not fast enough. She never would have been. But she still tried. Elise lifted her gun and fired it at the lone human crouching in the locked cell. The bullet reached her a split second after Karine’s talons sank into Layla’s back. Blood sprayed between them. It landed on Elise’s face and chest first, seeping into her mouth before Layla stumbled. Elise caught her as she fell. Her knees hit the floor, and she cradled Layla against her while numbness overtook every part of her body. The only thing she felt was Layla’s blood pooling around them, warm and wrong.
Karine cursed and crumpled on top of them just moments after her human anchor fell. The laced bullet would never have pierced Karine’s evolved body, but it had torn through her human anchor’s flesh like a blade through thin ice. Any activity tethered to her blood was poisoned now, a dying war that would end with Karine’s waning ancient strength. She grabbed for Layla with trembling arms, but Layla spat a mouthful of blood into her face, stopping her. With a taste of Layla’s tainted blood in her mouth, the ancient reaper finally reared back and collapsed, all color leaking from her gaze until cloudy white eyes stared, empty, at the ceiling.
Elise tried to turn Layla over in her arms to see the wound on her back, but Layla whimpered, her teeth gritting together. “Don’t.”
“You’re not healing.” Elise allowed Layla to settle back against her chest, her own rising and falling rapidly. “Layla—”
“It worked, Lise,” Layla said softly. All the strength behind her words had gone, but Elise recognized the tinge of joy. “The cure worked.” Layla clasped Elise’s hand in hers and stared up at her with tear-filled eyes. “You see me now. I’m back.”
Human again.
“I’ve always seen you, Layla,” Elise said, her voice breaking.
Layla did not have to say the words for Elise to know what this all meant. The amount of blood pouring from her wound was impossible for a human to survive. But the relief in Layla’s eyes prevented Elise from cursing it immediately. She would have bled for Layla for an eternity if she could have. If Layla had asked her to. This was not how things were supposed to end, with Laylableeding out on the floor, with only broken possibilities remaining between them.
While the background fell away behind her, Elise heard faint explosions starting in the distance. The building began to shake around them, debris falling from the ceiling.
