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Valdys crouches beside me, reaching for my arm, but I swat his hand away. “He’s gone, Cali. Only takes a minute for the pill to kick in, and I’m sure his body went into shock before then. He didn’t feel much pain, I promise.”

“I can’t leave him alone down there.” Sobs rip through my chest, and I rest my hand on the hatch, the entrance to the tomb that now houses a piece of my heart. “Cadmus.”

Arms slide beneath me, lifting me up, and I curl into Valdys like a child as he carries me. The pain that moves through me like a thick poison tells me I’ll never be the same. With Valdys, I never once lost hope that I’d see him again. I never once thought he was lost to me forever. Not even as I watched those doors slide shut, sealed with no hope of getting inside.

This time, I know for certain. I won’t see Cadmus again in this life.

Chapter 32

Cali

It’s a somber walk back to Gregor’s house. All of us beaten. Exhausted. The pain behind my ribs is one that’ll never go away. I’ve run through the last hour so many times, as if a different outcome inside my head will materialize into Cadmus trekking back with all of us, making his usual smartass comments along the way. Physical pain is one that often promises an end. But the pain of loss is eternal. It’s the heart’s way of reminding us how fragile it is. How easily it can shatter.

Arms wrapped around his neck, I hold tight to Valdys, recalling all the nights I cried myself to sleep for him. Those were the nights Cadmus slept close, while still keeping his distance. He’d distract me with some benign conversation about the trees, or the sky, or someone we encountered in our travels that day. Conversations I found irritating at the time, but what I wouldn’t give to hear them again now. His mind was always troubled, always searching for distraction, but in those moments, he put his own preoccupations aside. For me. To be there for me, the only way he could.

I hope the pill he swallowed finally brought him peace.

“I remember the precise moment when I realized we were locked inside that hospital.” The sound of Valdys’s voice is a welcomed distraction. “All I could think of was you. How I’d never get to hold you again. Hear your voice. See your face. Protect you.” He clears his throat, and I know the words are hard for him, too. “But I remembered that I left you with Cadmus at that waterfall. I knew he would die before he’d let anyone harm you. That was the only comfort I took with me. The only thing that kept me alive. Was knowing you’d be safe with him and Titus.”

As more tears gather in my eyes, I wonder how many a person can cry before they dry out. If there’s an endless supply of agony, or if it all comes to an end at some point.

“He kept me safe.”

“As much as they fucked with his head, I think his feelings for you were a source of clarity for him. Maybe the only clarity he’s ever known.”

I bury my face in Valdys’s chest, letting his words absorb beneath my skin, past my ribs, where they stab at my heart. Perhaps, in time, his feelings for me would’ve waned, and we would’ve grown apart. But now, they’re a permanent piece of me, locked in a place I’ll visit someday, when the pain of his absence doesn’t hurt as much. When I don’t stand to be crushed beneath this horrible weight.

We finally reach Gregor’s house, and Valdys sets me down. Rhys strides up the stairs, and before he can so much as knock, the door swings open to Legion soldiers.

“Where’s Wren?” Rhys growls and lurches forward, where he’s stopped short by the line of guards.

Valdys and Titus stand at his back, but at sounds from behind, they swing around, and I turn to see more Legion soldiers gathered in Gregor’s yard. Dozens of them. All armed with guns.

“What the fuck did you do? Where’s Gregor?” Rhys plows through the Legion soldiers gathered in the foyer of the house, who eventually step aside. All of us file in after him, and Valdys threads his hands in mine, his body massive beside the soldiers we pass.

“Fucking traitor,” one of the soldiers says from behind, and I turn in time to see him spit on Brandon. “Siding with the fucking rebels.”

“You bastards let them die in there!” Brandon’s voice cracks as he rips the dogtags from his neck and throws them in the soldier’s face, where they clatter to the floor. He swings out at him, knocking the soldier in the face, and two more guards take hold of him.

Valdys steps past me with a calm and easy stride, pinning one of the two soldiers by the throat against the wall.

“Stand down!” The one Brandon punched shouts at him. “Fucking Savage!” His words have no effect on the Alpha, who clenches his jaw, watching the guard suffocate in his grasp. As another soldier raises his gun, I dash forward and place my hand on Valdys’s outstretched arm.

He releases the soldier, who slumps to the floor, choking and gasping for breath.

Giving Brandon a nudge from behind, Valdys urges him ahead and keeps his eyes on the surrounding Legion officers, as we follow after Rhys.

One Legion soldier, bold enough to step in front of the line of Alphas, stands with his gun strapped across his body. He jerks his head for Rhys to follow, and I get the feeling if he didn’t move immediately, Rhys would’ve plowed through him, too.

He guides us into the library, where Gregor and Wren sit strapped to a chair, gags in their mouths.

“Wren, are you hurt?” Rhys asks the question through clenched teeth, and the way his shoulders are bunched, hands balled to tight fists, tells me he would rain hell on these men if she answered yes.

She shakes her head.

A man steps from behind a few of the Legion soldiers guarding Wren and Gregor. His clothes are fancy, too clean and new for him to have lived even a minute out on the Deadlands. His face is pale, shadowed in a salt and pepper beard that, along with the few grays in his hair, tells me he’s older. From his mouth hangs a cigar, like the ones Doctor Ericsson smoked from time to time, and the scent of it fills the room with the rich choking aroma I’ve grown to associate with evil men.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks Rhys.