Diel cast a glance away to see Dinah watching them too.
Diel looked back at Sela. He knew his brother wasn’t leaving him alone without an answer. A truthful one at that. “Dreams,” Diel confessed, realizing too late that the gym had become silent and his confession to Sela had been heard by everyone else.
Gabriel was at his side in seconds. “What dreams? Are you okay?” Gabriel scanned Diel, then focused on Noa’s iron-clad hold on his hand.
Diel felt it then, like a spear being thrown from across the room, slamming into his head with unexpected force. He winced, his eyes snapping closed, and the headache returned. Hot-poker pain sliced behind his eye, more than a migraine, a debilitating wave of blistering heat that he couldn’t withstand.
Diel didn’t even know he had slumped to his knees until Noa’s hand tightened on his in a futile attempt to keep him standing.
“Brother,” Diel heard Sela’s voice call out from beside him, over the hissing in his ears, over the thudding of his temples. “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
“Diel …” That was Gabriel. “We’re here, we’re all here. You’re going to be okay.”
Diel felt as though his soul was being severed from his body with a blunt blade. But Noa’s hand on his was the anchor that kept him from being sliced apart; she was the magnet to which he stayed compelled. So he held on tighter. He fought. He fought against leaving, against someone unknown taking hold of his brain, his senses, his self.
“Help me lift him,” Sela ordered, and Diel had the distant sensation of being moved, of floating. He focused on the hand still clutching his. Noa. He focused on Noa. Her hand suddenly slackened in his. Fear gripped him in a vise. He fought through the fog and pain in his head, opened his lips and bellowed out for her. “Noa!”
“I’m here, baby. I’m here.” The sound of her voice calmed the nerves that were threatening to erupt and burn him alive. Diel was placed down on a soft surface, but he didn’t let go of Noa’s hand. He knew he would be lost to the sinkhole in his head if he did.
“What’s wrong with him?” That was Sela talking again. He could hear other voices talking over one another, both male and female. Panic. Breakdown … psychosis … self-protection … Diel kept catching words without context, no sentences, just a sea of jumbled letters that managed to break through the dark shield around his mind.
“Stop,” a familiar voice said quietly. The grip on his hand tightened. “Fucking stop!”
The room around him seemed to shimmer, then quieten. He could hear his heavy breathing, feel the beads of sweat running down his cheeks and off his forehead. Then—
“Baby, come back to me.” That voice. The voice he loved so much. It seemed to always find him in the darkness, no matter how deep he fell. So he reached out for that voice. In the fog, he reached out, endured the agony to hold on to it. To follow it out of the darkness. “Come back to me. Fight,” the voice said again, giving him more to hold on to, a solid hand to find purchase. “Come back to me, baby.”
Tensing all his muscles and using all the strength he could muster, Diel screamed and broke through the inky, slick surface to find the source of that voice. He blinked his eyes open and flinched at the blistering light. He breathed and breathed, clutching on to the hand.
Noa … Noa … Noa …
He forced his eyes to remain open, enduring the pain, and roved his blurred vision around the room to find her. She was suddenly above him, bringing welcome relief. Diel’s hands shook with exertion, but he held on tightly to her, held on like his life depended on it—in that moment, he was sure that it did.
“Hello, pretty monster,” Noa said, smiling widely. Diel could tell, even in his foggy state, that Noa was trying for humor. But the crack in her voice betrayed her worry; it told him just how fucked he truly was. Diel scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand, and the blurred veil fell to semi-clarity.
Sela was beside him, cheeks pale and mouth tight. Gabriel was beside him too, then … all his brothers were there—Bara, Uriel, Raphael, Michael. He rolled his head to Noa. Next to her were the Coven, a flanking force of witches.
Noa pushed the sweaty strands of hair off his forehead, then leaned down and kissed his damp skin. Diel tugged her hand closer, but when he looked into her eyes, he knew she saw how little strength he had left.
“Hold on,” she begged, as if reading his mind. “Please … just let us try something.”
Diel sank back into the … bed, he was on a bed. In his bed. His pillow and sheets still smelled of Noa.