“I’ll talk to her.”
He watches me for a beat, long and steady. “You watching her?”
“Every second I can.”
He gives a short nod, grim and approving. “Good. Keep doing that.”
I push off the counter and head for the door, but he calls my name before I get there.
“Cassian.”
I pause, glance back.
“If this escalates, if you even think it’s heading that way, you bring her here. No debate. Understood?”
There’s no room for argument in his tone, but he doesn’t need to say more. I nod, once. Solid. Certain.
“Yes, sir.”
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s honestly surprising how many clothes hospital patients just leave behind. Cassian walks down the corridor carrying a large box filled with them, the magical scythe-dagger clutched awkwardly between his teeth like some kind of feral delivery man.
“You know,” I say, as we push open another door and step into the next dim, crumbling room, “you could just give me the dagger.”
Right away, I spot a pair of dusty sneakers half-hidden under one of the beds.
“Have a little faith that I could fight the wraith off if she shows up,” I add.
His only answer is a muffled grunt. We’ve already argued about this. He made it clear earlier, if the wraith appears, he can drop the box and get the dagger from his teeth to his hand faster than I could even move in this still-clumsy body.
And now that we’ve stepped past the protection wards, we’re officially in no-man’s-land. Last night, the guys only had enough time and energy to ward the main room and one bathroom of thehospital. Everything else, these halls, these rooms, is exposed. Unprotected. Right now, we’re in the kill zone.
Still, I handled the wraith once, and I’m positive I could do it again.
Somehow.
Cassian kneels beside the bed, nudging the sneakers with his knee before setting the box down. He finally pulls the dagger from his mouth and sets it gently on the ground beside him.
“Just keep your eyes open,” he says, voice low but sharp. “We’re almost done.”
I glance inside the box. Every item we’ve found is old, worn, and either smelled like mildew or was clearly used and not washed. Some pieces look like they’ve been sitting out long enough to be considered vintage, and not in that good way. No, they’re crusted with dust, spiderwebs tangled through sleeves and laces.
“This isn’t even close to done,” I say. “There’s nothing here I can wear. Nothing that fits. Nothing that isn’t falling apart or doesn’t feel like it’s soaked in someone else’s death.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s counting backward from ten. His eyes flick down to the neon orange disaster I’m currently wearing, then to the box. His mouth tightens into a thin, frustrated line.
“I don’t know what you were expecting, Skye,” he says at last, every word edged with restraint. “This isn’t some curated thrift shop. There’s no backroom with racks sorted by color and size. No tag that says ‘like new.’ We’re in a rotting hospital. Half this crap should be crawling with something.”
“Well, that’s even more reason for me not to wear it,” I mutter, arms folded tight across my chest.
He shoots me a sharp look; sharp enough to nick. Then, another sigh. Longer. Quieter. The kind of sigh that says,If Isay what I’m really thinking right now, I’ll regret it, and so will you.
We’ve spent the last thirty minutes rummaging through rooms, picking through abandoned belongings like scavengers. And yeah, I’ll admit it, maybe I should’ve figured out after the first few tries that I wouldn’t be able to stomach the idea of wearing clothes left behind by the dead.
It’s stupid, I know. Hypocritical, even. Not so long ago, I was one of those dead people. But that’s exactly why it stings. Iknowwhat it feels like to be erased.
I remember what Mark did to my house. The repainting. The redecorating. The way he tossed out my things without a second thought, telling Jessica it was fine. Like none of it meant anything.
