I nod slowly. But even as I do, I’m not sure I understand. Didn’t Talon admit to having killed people too? And yet here Cassian sits, vigil at his bedside, hands still shaking from the compressions that kept him alive.
Perspective is a funny thing.
I’m debating whether it’s worth digging into this when Talon makes a noise from the table.
“Guys?” he rasps.
His eyes are closed. His breathing is labored. But he can speak.
That’s a great sign.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, coming closer. He makes another hoarse sound, one that might be offensive if it had more energy behind it.
“Like shit.”
I reach up and gently pry one eyelid open, shining the penlight across the pupil. The left eye responds. The pupil contracts sluggishly, but it responds. I move to the right.
The right pupil is blown wide. Slow.
I shift the beam across it.
No reaction.
The sclera looks duller than before, the faint pattern of blood vessels that were tortuous earlier now smeared and indistinct, like lines drawn on damp paper. A flush of subtle hemorrhage has begun to cloud the lateral edge, creeping in at the margins.
“Can you see me?” I ask.
Talon blinks a few times, unfocused, and squints at the ceiling. He turns his face toward my voice—instinctively, perhaps—and his gaze drags over me.
“Um, I think so…” he mutters.
Then he looks past my shoulder. His breath stops.
“What is that?”
“What’s what?” I turn around. Nothing.
“The…” His throat works. “The thing in the corner. The… person. No. Not a person. I don’t—that’s—“
Cassian looks there and smirks.
“That, my friend,” he says, “is the fucker that wanted to reap your soul. A Grim Reaper.”
I watch them both. Cassian has a lazy, knowing grin painted on his face. Talon has an expression I have never seen on his face before. Frankly, I didn’t even think he was capable of one like this.
Wonder.
And my heart does that thing again, that sharp electric lurch, that makes me feel alive.
I’m not looking at a man who’s hallucinating. I’m not looking at a man who’s confused, or oxygen-deprived, or grasping at the residue of a near-death experience.
Iknowit.
I’m looking at a man who can see something I can’t.
Something I built this experiment to find.
And now I want to see what he sees too.
