Page 34 of Rescuing Air

“You don’t know that. She’s stronger than all of us combined and the world needs her to save it. I’m a fuckup, always was, always will be, but this, this I can do for her,” Parker explained through gritted teeth. “Please get in the truck and leave. Don’t let her see me go down. Once I do this, I’ll have broken another oath and it will kill me, dragging me down into hell because I lost all rights to go to Heaven. Don’t make me beg, Brayden. Take care of our girl. Be her rock and hold her together. You’re the only one who can do that.”

My eyes burned as I realized he was right. We couldn’t take him with us and I refused to let Lailah watch as Parker paid the price for setting us free. There were no words that I could say to comfort him. All I could do was what he asked of me. Jay blared the horn and waved at us, leaning out of the driver’s side door. “Get the fuck in. We’ve got to go!”

Parker pulled me in for a hug that I returned, squeezing him tightly. I let go and pulled myself into the truck and pounded on the cab wall so Jay knew we were all clear.

“Wait!” Lailah demanded. “Parker isn’t in yet.”

She rushed to the back of the truck but I snatched her around the waist, pulling her to my chest. “He’s not coming, Angel. He’s keeping his promise and making sure you get out of here alive.”

“No! No, not like this, never like this. I won’t allow him to take the easy way out. He promised that I could yell at him when all this was over and he would listen to every word I said. He can’t stay back because that would be breaking a promise,” Lailah rambled, frantically trying to fight my hold on her. “I won’t forgive him. If he stays there and leaves me again, I won’t ever forgive him.”

I watched as Parker stood there crying, watching Lailah fight to get back to him, but all he did was smile and raise his hands to make the symbol of a heart over his chest before collapsing to the ground.

“What just happened? Why isn’t he getting up? He should be getting up and fighting to get to me. If he lays there much longer, we’ll get too far and he won’t be able to find us,” Lailah babbled, on the verge of hysterics.

Dragging her back from the sight of Parker crumpled on the ground, I pulled her down with me as I sat. She stopped fighting me as she continued to say nonsense, rocking back and forth as tears hit my hands, falling from her cheeks. None of the others said anything, even though questions were written all over their faces, but I didn’t even know what to say to them at this point. When she stopped rocking, I pulled her onto my lap and cradled her. She pressed her face into my neck, like a child, as I held her. Parker had paid the ultimate sacrifice to get us out of there, knowing he wouldn’t be coming with us. Whatever his agreement was with the Dark Lord, he made it with the understanding he would never follow it and instead used it to his advantage.

I lost track of how far we drove or how long we were on the road, but the early morning light shone into the back of the truck, telling me it had been hours. Jay pulled into a motel parking lot and cut the engine, waking Lailah and the others up. There was no way I could fall asleep and not keep an eye on things back here. In truth, I was waiting for the breakdown I knew was going to happen once I explained what happened to Parker. We’d seen Lailah in a lot of situations but I truly meant what I said to Parker. I wasn’t sure she would make it through this and be able to look us in the face. I don’t know that I could look at myself. I hadn’t even tried to find a way to work around the fact that Parker just sacrificed himself for all of us. Instead, I just let him die. What kind of person did that make me?

Jay appeared at the back of the truck with a hotel key in his hand. “I got us connecting rooms. Figured we could all use some sleep before we make our next move. Wait... where’s Parker?”

“I think it’s best if we get to the room before I explain that,” I answered.

Hudson handed off Jay’s mom to him and we made our way to the second floor into room seventeen. Lailah didn’t speak. She just trailed after me listlessly, eyes blank as we entered the room and I sat her on one of the beds.

“Okay, what the hell is going on and why is she like that?” Jay demanded, his voice sharp.

“Parker didn’t get into the truck,” she whispered. “Why didn’t he get into the truck? We were leaving, all of us. He promised me he wouldn’t leave me again and that we would make it through this. That he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

The four of us stood around the double bed, looking at her then each other, unsure of how to even react. Jay turned to me, his hands on his hips. “Explain.”

“I don’t know the whole story, only what he told me moments before we left. It appears he made an oath with the Dark Lord. What the oath was, I don’t have a clue, so don’t ask. He told me he never planned to follow the oath, only using it to get Lailah and us out of there alive. If he broke the Oath, it would kill him and send him to hell,” I explained, watching Lailah out of the corner of my eye as I talked.

“Dead... did you just say he’s dead?” she asked, her voice cracking, more tears streaming down her face. “No, you’re lying Brayden. It’s not good for you to lie. Tell me the truth, where is Parker? Is he going to meet us here later?”

Now that Parker was gone, I was the only one who could deal with this. He’d been right that Lailah saw me as her rock but I didn’t think that was what she wanted at the moment. No, the person who was missing was her heart, the man who could always make her smile or laugh with a stupid joke. Even if I wasn’t who she needed right now, I had to make good on my promise to Parker and try to hold her together, even if she didn’t want me to.

“Angel, he isn’t coming,” I told her as I kneeled in front of her. “He kept his promise and made sure you got out of there alive. If he hadn’t done what he did, I don’t think we’d be free right now, and God knows if we’d have ever made it out of there alive. Parker saved all of us because he loved you and would do anything for you.”

That statement finally made her snap.

twenty-one

Lailah

Dead.

That’s what Brayden just said to me.

Parker was dead. He died to get us out of that prison of hell.

No—I refused to believe that. There was no way he could be dead after all we did to stay alive. Parker wouldn’t betray me again by making a deal with the Dark Lord even if it was to ensure my freedom. Obviously, Brayden was wrong, and we needed to go back and get him or make sure he had a way to find us.

“Angel, he isn’t coming,” Brayden said, kneeling in front of me. “He kept his promise and made sure you got out of there alive. If he hadn’t done what he did, I don’t think we’d be free right now, and God knows if we’d have ever made it out of there alive. Parker saved all of us because he loved you and would do anything for you.”

Fuck that!

“Stop talking about him in the past tense! He isn’t dead and there’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. Parker is mine, and I didn’t tell him he could leave me!” I roared, shooting to my feet and knocking Brayden on his ass. “Say he’s dead one more time and we’ll see who’s going to join him in the afterlife!”