“Mei, there are a lot of dead bodies here,” Lirin murmurs. “Did you do this?”
“No, the Tooth Fairy did.”
“I love that even fighting for our lives, you're still able to shower us with sarcasm,” Canto growls and manages to get to his knees.
A shadow moves. I can feel it, and then the Grim is there, and I stop fighting. I stop moving. My breath saws in and out of my body, but it’s not enough. I sway, my body aching and twitching. I’m covered in blood.
I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been, but I did it.
I kept them safe.
I tilt backwards, unable to stay upright.
Reeds’ hate-filled song plays in my mind, and I wonder if there will ever be anything I can do to change it to something less painful.
Chapter 15
Lirin
Ihold her in my arms while the Grim destroys what is left. It’s not until I move up out of the hole we’re in that I see the extent of what she has done. My strength is coming back slowly but steadily.
Canto whistles low in his throat.
I hug her more tightly to my chest, feeling how slight she is. She’s fragile like a bird, with hollow bones or something. How did she kill this many creatures?
Puppy whirls and changes back into his human form. He wraps us in shadows and drags us away.
I’m thrown out of the shadows and into a familiar beach house.
“Now that you are all here, let’s discuss this,” Diablos says in a deep, pissed-off voice.
“Get out,” Ronit says as he comes towards me. He looks down at Mei and then, to my absolute surprise, he brushes her hair back from her face and lifts her out of my arms. He goes and sits on the couch, just holding her and almost daring anyone to say anything.
“You left-”
“GET OUT!” Reed howls. “This was you and your stupid deal. You said get rid of it. Everyone went in and couldn’t get out. You and your lack of information almost got us all killed.”
“You should have spoken to the neighbours, you should have-”
Reed rushes him, but Wilder steps in front of him, and if there’s anyone we would fear, it’s Wilder. He is a legend among our kind. Especially while we are less than what we should be.
“Oh, relax everyone,” I say lightly. “We went down and got stabbed by the thing in the dark.” Memories of flashing pain and my body feeling like it’s burning up from the inside slam into my head.
“You got stabbed?” Puppy asks with a growl and looks at Diablos in accusation.
“Well, it was dark, and it was a big…thing.” I shrug. “To be fair, I don’t know what it was. It just hurt and uh…then we woke up in Nightmare,” I turn and look at Brio, winking at him, “haha, we got an excursion, and you didn’t. And it was hot, and there were bodies everywhere, and Mei was killing things, which was disorienting. But it took a moment for the tingles to go before I could even move.”
I look back at Mei, who is absolutely filthy.
“She saved us, I think. No, I know. She stayed, and she could have let us die, but she stayed.”
Why did she stay?
Reed startles hard and looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time.
“She dragged you both out of the tunnel. It was collapsing,” he murmurs.
“She dragged us?” Canto says sharply.
