“I can’t—I can’t…” she whined.
“We can do this. We’re almost there.”
His side suddenly felt lighter, like he’d dropped his dagger. He glanced at his sheath. It was gone. As he turned back to Maggie, he saw her force it into her abdomen.
“Maggie!” he exclaimed.
The blade pierced halfway into her before she began trembling in his arms.
Hayde, bewildered by her actions, rested her across the floor. Her arms fell to her side and she gazed off, as if into another world. Blood rushed down her dress and dripped onto the floor beside her.
Kid hopped over the sill, back into the room.
“Maggie?” Kid said softly, kneeling beside her.
Hayde gazed into her eyes, which filled with tears. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just can’t. I can’t. It hurts… so much.”
Hayde opened his mouth to say something, but what could he say?
Maggie’s quaking subsided, and as a fierce gleam entered her eyes, she bounced up from the floor and snatched Hayde’s arm.
“Don’t tell him,” she pleaded. “Don’t tell Kinzer. This isn’t how I want him to remember me. This isn’t… this isn’t…”
Her gaze shifted wildly about as her trembling returned.
“I-I won’t,” he replied.
“Promise you won’t tell him!” she insisted, her eyes still drifting, but her expression filled with fury.
“I promise,” Hayde said, knowing he couldn’t begrudge this woman who’d endured so much pain her last dying wish.
“Maggie,” Kid cried. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “Maggie, I’m sorry.”
Her eyes glazed over.
She lay limp in Kid’s arms. He took a moment before laying her across the floor and sobbed.
“Kid, you have to get out of here.”
“I’m staying with you.”
“Just go back to where we were. I’m gonna find Kinzer, and we’re gonna get the fuck out of here, okay?”
Kid nodded and started for the window. Hayde snatched the back of his collar and spun him around so they were face to face.
“And if you ever tell Kinzer what happened here tonight, I swear on every dead immortal’s life I will make you take my dagger like you take a fucking cock. You got that?”
“I won’t say anything, okay. Whatever."
Hayde released him and let Kid abandon the house.
Hayde knelt beside Maggie and gazed down at the poor creature… this poor, pathetic creature who’d so unfortunately been swept into all of this. In that moment, Hayde truly understood what Kinzer had meant about mortals. They were no different than immortals. They felt pain… they felt grief… they felt overwhelmed. And worst of all, like Maggie, they were nothing more than a pawn in the Almighty’s twisted game. In her, he finally saw what Kinzer had been trying to get him to see all along.
He gripped onto his dagger to dislodge it from her abdomen.
***
Just as they’d planned, Kinzer made his way down the hall, back the way they’d entered.
