Chapter 64 64
Kaelen's POV:
When we arrived to the safe house, I carried her inside and laid her on the bed in the back room. Pulled the blanket over her because she was still cold, too cold, her fingertips turning blue. I touched her hand and my healing kicked in automatically, warmth flowing from my palm into hers, but whatever the drug was doing to her body, it wasn't something I could just fix with a touch. It was deeper than that, chemical, woven into her bloodstream.
But the color came back to her fingers. That was something.
I sat in the chair next to the bed and pulled out my phone. Two texts from Marcus: "Scene handled. Gas leak explanation. No civilian casualties." and "Stay with her. I'll be there in an hour."
I typed back: "She's breathing. Still out."
Then I called Marlen.
She picked up on the first ring. "Kael? What happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. It's done."
"Done? What does that mean, done? Are you hurt? Is Annabeth—"
"She's hurt. But she's alive. We're at a safe place."
Silence on the other end. Then Lucian's voice in the background, muffled: "Is he okay? Is he—" and Marlen shushing him.
"How... how bad?" Marlen asked. She was using her calm voice, the one she used when things were really bad and she didn't want Lucian to panic.
"I don't know yet. She was drugged. Some kind of... I don't know. She's unconscious."
"Can you heal her?"
"I'm trying. It's... it's not that simple. It's a drug, not a wound."
More silence. Then: "Do you need us to come?"
"No. Stay at the motel. Please. I need to know you're safe."
"We are. Lucian ate all the Doritos from the vending machine and now he's watching some cooking show with the volume too loud but we're fine. We're safe." She paused. "You killed someone, didn't you."
It wasn't a question. Marlen had always been able to read me, even over the phone, even through the things I didn't say. Especially through the things I didn't say.
"Yeah," I said. "I did."
She was quiet for a moment. I expected... I don't know. Horror, maybe. Disappointment. Instead she said: "Good."
I almost laughed. Almost.
"I love you, Mar."
"Love you too, idiot. Take care of your girl."
I hung up and looked at Annabeth. She hadn't moved. Her breathing was steady now, a little stronger than before. The bruise on her temple where someone had grabbed her hair was turning dark, and there were red marks on her wrists where they'd held her down.
I touched the bruise on her temple very gently. The healing warmth spread from my fingers, golden, and the purple edges of the bruise started to fade. I couldn't fix whatever was happening inside her, couldn't burn the drug out of her blood, but I could fix this. The small things. The visible damage.
My hands were still stained with ash and someone else's blood. I should wash them. Should clean up, should eat something, should do literally anything other than sit here staring at the girl I loved while she lay unconscious because I hadn't been fast enough.
But I didn't move.
The fire trucks arrived at the Meridian about twenty minutes later, Marcus let me know. Then he texted again: "Gas line rupture. Official story. Building evacuated. No casualties reported."
No casualties. Just the Order operatives who would never report to anyone again. Just the burnt remains of men who'd hunted my kind for centuries, who'd stuck a needle in Annabeth's throat and called it a partnership.
I looked at my hands. At the blood drying under my fingernails. At the fading cut on my palm where I'd grabbed that knife, already healed, just a thin pink line that would be gone by morning.
I'd killed people today. Actual human beings. With my bare hands and my fire, the gifts my mother said were meant for healing and protection, never for violence. She'd told us that when we were kids, me and Lucian sitting cross-legged in the living room while she braided Marlen's hair. Golden dragons protect. We don't destroy...
But my mother hadn't been in that room. My mother hadn't seen Annabeth limp in a stranger's arms with a needle in her neck. My mother hadn't felt the bond go dead.
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the edge of the mattress, close enough to feel the warmth of Annabeth’s body through the blanket. Close enough to hear her breathe.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. To her, to the dead men, to my mother, to whatever part of me had died in that hotel room along with them. "I'm sorry I wasn't faster."
She didn't answer. Obviously. But the bond flickered, just for a second. A tiny spark of warmth in the void where she usually was. Not conscious thought, not emotion, just... presence. A reminder that she was still in there somewhere, fighting her way back to the surface.
I closed my eyes and waited.