The vortex arrived next, and feeling its pull, Asher scrambled to escape its reach. This wasn’t right—it was too close—too powerful.
But how?
He had whipped the black rock a hundred miles across campus—more than a sufficient distance, yet it opened just outside the library, as if it had boomeranged back, or…
Someone betrayed him.
“Cobon!” he screeched, but his brother ignored him, and there was no time for revenge anyway. He was caught in the slow, unyielding pull—an iron filing to an electromagnet, powerless to escape the grasp of the Aether.
In desperation, he grabbed Hailey tight.
The Aether would incinerate her body, but he could keep her soul…hold her there with him forever. He couldn’t fathom letting her go—not now—not when he was so close to winning her heart.
This will hurt her.He pushed the thought away, and she cried out.
“Asher…?”
Her slight, barely conscious voice pleaded for reassurance as fear once again etched in her eyes…those big, bright, uncertain eyes. He gazed into those innocent eyes with a plea of his own—a regretful, aching want for forgiveness for what he was about to do.
“No!” he shouted against his selfishness. His eyes ignited into a firestorm as the Aether drew him in—he couldn’t bear to let her go. But to save her delicate, human body, he had to.
For the briefest moment he dared to hope. He hoped he might find her again, and he thought of the gem, dug out of the Earth—its awful power; its terrible allure. But there was no time. No time to encourage her. No time to warn her.
“I love you, Hailey,” he breathed.
As the vortex pulled them both outside, he grabbed her roughly by the head and pressed a deep, mournful kiss onto her exquisite mouth, pouring all of his hate, all of his love, all of his heartache and regret into her. Scrambling against the increasingly powerful haul, he drew a great breath and with it, as muchenergy as he could muster. And he shoved her away…far away…miles away…away to safety, out of the Aether’s reach, and out of his arms—forever.
Chapter forty-three
Something Borrowed
“’Tis the cruelest of all pains, to love, and not be loved again.” — Dryden
Not for the first time, it was Sunday in the ole dungeon, and Holly was staring out her new window.
It was a tired story: Holly had attempted an escape; Cobon had chained her to the wall in the basement as punishment; she’d given him the silent treatment for 3 days; and so today Cobon would bring Holly a gift.
For you, my dear, he’d say, and Holly would feign intense interest and contrition until Cobon-the-Envoy-abomination-from-bad-breath-Hell let her upstairs again.
That was the plan—feed the ego of the psychopath, regain his trust, and live to escape another day. But as with so many of Holly’s brilliant plans, this one went sideways the second the Envoy arrived.
“Not the usual routine today, my dear,” he began, and Holly resisted the urge to look at him.
This wasn’t the routine at all, and that was bad. She sat in her corner, lips pressed shut, shackled hands clasped together, as she fixed an impassive stare through her painted cinderblock wall. Last night, she’d drawn a window there with her own blood.
Totally worth the pain of a self-inflicted bitewound.
She imagined her family pub on the other side of that window. So close…
Well if he wanted a new routine, then she’d give him a new routine. It would be another day of silence while she regrouped, which would make him angry, but it was the only bargaining chip she had.
“Would you like to open your gift now?” His voice sounded different, younger, brighter, relaxed even as he stood in the doorway.
She imagined her Uncle Pix’s voice coming through the blood window. He was just closing up. It’d been a busy night, and so Hailey had stayed late with him, and they were chatting about the guitarist who’d played. He was no good, and Pix wouldn’t have him back, but Hailey defended him, and she couldn’t wait for Holly to come back home so that she could tell her all about his version of The Rattlin' Bog…when Holly got home…
Holly froze that triumphant image in her mind as she waited patiently for Cobon’s quit-ignoring-me tantrum, but once again he deviated, striding toward her, and her heart quickened.
“Oh but you’ve hurt yourself again, and we can’t have that, not now especially, not ever, but I won’t take your teeth, no, that may discourage you from speaking, and we can’t have that, either.”
