“Fuck it,” he mutters, wrapping his uninjured arm around my waist and pulling me tight against his side. “Let’s go, Skye.”
“What?” I blink. “We can’t just leave!”
Cassian doesn’t answer.
Not with words.
His grip tightens, and he yanks me toward the exit. Blood soaks the cuff of his sleeve, but he doesn’t even flinch. The others follow without hesitation.
Talon catches up first, limping slightly but fast. His jaw is clenched. His eyes, razor-sharp. Nathaniel’s right behind him.
“Wait,” I twist in Cassian’s hold. “He mightdiein there!”
I remember what Death said. The wraith hunts Grim Reapers. And apparently that’s what this boy is. She candestroyhim.
But Cassian doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down.
“What do you want to do in there, huh?” he snaps. “Ask that bitch nicely to stop trying to murder anyone?”
“No, but—”
“Our plan failed, Skye,” he cuts in. “We didn’t bind her. I didn’t take her down. You’re not strong enough to fight her. We need to fall back.Now.”
“But the kid—”
“He’s not just a kid,” Cassian says, still dragging me along. “He’s a fucking Grim Reaper. And some fucking pumped-up version of one at that.”
He turns the corner with me still locked to his side.
Behind us, the air splits open, like steel screaming against glass. Like a soul being torn from the world.
It’s the wraith.
But it’s also him.
The boy.
I twist around just in time to see it.
The hallway is boiling with shadow and smoke. His scythe glows now, bright and pulsing.
And the glow doesn’t stay contained. It spills from the blade in threads of silver-blue light, curling up his arm and across his shoulder like starlit veins running just beneath the skin.
What the fuck?
Cassian keeps moving. We’re nearly at the end of the hallway when the next pulse hits. It’s a wave of pressure, like time collapsing. My knees buckle, and his arm around my waist is the only thing keeping me upright.
“Come on,” he says, steadying me.
A second later, we’re bursting out of the building. Cassian doesn’t let go of me. He helps me into the car and slides into the backseat beside me. Nathaniel jumps into the front, with Talon right next to him.
Before I can catch my breath, we’re already speeding away.
“We need to go,” Cassian mutters. “Somewhere she won’t follow.”
“She’ll follow us anywhere,” I say quietly.
And I know it’s true. No matter where we run, that monster will come. I don’t know how, I just feel it in my bones, the same way I knew the boy we met today wasn’t lying.
