“He’s not self-healing.” Ethan hissed. “And I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Immediately Alex sobered, shoving Ethan away so he could take a look, but what good was a Siren?
“I’m slowing your heart.” Ethan pressed a hand to my neck. “Try to calm down.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “I’ll do that, I’ll just tell myself to calm down while I—”
A Dark One could always calm down, always compartmentalize. “Genesis, what color are my eyes?”
Face pale, she answered in a tiny voice. “Blue. They’re blue.”
Mason let out a little howl as he knelt by my side and took my hand in his, apparently my emotions were causing him to change as claws replaced hands.
“It’s fine,” I lied, unable to taste it in the air. “There is no better way to die, then in the presence of friends.”
Brave words for someone who didn’t feel so brave, because regardless of my human state—I would die as a Dark One.
I would be nothing.
Feel nothing.
Know nothing.
To die as a Dark One is to have never existed.
And for the first time in my existence, I wanted the pain that memory brought, because it meant that I had lived, that I’d suffered, that I had loved and come out on the other side better for it.
Genesis squeezed my hand just as Ethan shouted. “He’s coding!”
Suddenly Stephanie was at my side, shoving everyone out of the way. Was she glowing?
Why the hell was I seeing a light?
She slid her wrists along Ethan’s teeth so quickly Ethan didn’t have time to protest, and then knelt next to my head pressing her wrist against my mouth.
“It won’t be enough.” Ethan said sadly.
“It has to be.” Stephanie said through soft sobs. “It has to be. I love him. It has to work!”
I smiled. “Love—” Exhaustion took over. “You.” I reached up to caress her face one last time and failed as my hand slumped to the floor, right along with my body.
I stood near the edge of the building where darkness met light. It was the perfect spot for me to be standing, all things considered.
That was my life.
The perfect rapture of darkness—light flirted on the outskirts, trying to seep through, but I knew better than anyone its chances of succeeding were slim. I held out my hand, and my fingertips kissed the sunlight peeking through the clouds. I twirled my hand around and let out a defeated sigh.
“Cassius.” Sariel, my father and one of the head Archangels—the same angels that hadn’t appeared to the immortals for over three hundred years—spoke my name with such authority and finality that it was impossible not to feel the effects of the words as he released them into the universe. They slammed against my chest, stealing every ounce of oxygen I’d just greedily sucked in. “You have failed.”
“Yes.” I swallowed the lie, felt it burn all the way down my throat into my lungs. My cold, rotten heart picked up speed, maybe I really was dead inside like she said, maybe it was hopeless, all of it.
“I taste the lie on your lips, half breed.”
“So taste,” I fired back, as my eyes strained to focus on the light. The yearning to be light, to fully allow it to consume me, was like a fire burning in my soul. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
“You realize what this means?” The once purple feathers surrounding his bulky body illuminated red. My heartbeat slowed to a gentle rhythm as droplets of blood cascaded from his feathers in perfect cadence with my breathing.
“I do.”