Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Kyle also thinks of a sadistic necromancer with a connection to Tristan.
And Raya saying Kyle has only heard the start of the horrors that Tristan has done.
All of the pieces fit, yet for some reason, he can’t bear to put them together. That all of it is connected.
What has Kyle’s life become?
In a room further down the hallway of the clinic, a different situation unfolds. “Leave me impaled, if you must,” groans Raya, “just save the life of the human, please—”
“He needs a hospital,” repeats the town doctor, stressed. “We need to transport him to Flagstaff. We don’t have the means—”
“We can’t leave here,” says Doctor Mei. “He will not survive, for one. Second, there are vampires outside this town looking for a way in as we speak. Third—”
“What are your credentials exactly? I do not know you.”
“While we continue to argue,” Mei replies curtly, “this man’s chances of survival plummet.”
“And the second I remove that sword from his abdomen, he bleeds out in my clinic.” His voice hardens. “He needs a hospital, like I said. This young man’s blood will not be on my hands.”
“His blood is on all of our hands.”
Kyle hears all of this from Kaleb’s bedside, his ears pricked to the drama down the hall as he waits for his brother to wake. He can’t bear Kaleb losing a friend while asleep, that he won’t know until it’s too late that his friend took a fatal wound to protect him.
And if things get worse with Nico, Kaleb will have never had a chance to say goodbye.
“Babe.”
Kyle shakes his head, not turning to Elias at the door. He can already feel the bubbling sea of anxiety inside his boyfriend with barely a flick of his Reach. “I can’t. I can’t deal with another thing. Can’t make another decision. Not until my brother wakes up.”
Despite Kyle’s state of mind, it’s a comfort when Elias draws up behind him, wraps him in his arms, and holds him tightly. “I know,” he murmurs against the back of Kyle’s neck, puts a gentle kiss there, continues to hold him.
Kyle closes his eyes. “Is … Is Kaleb’s friend gonna die? … Is Nico … Is Nico gonna fucking die?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re saying he will die if they take the sword out. Raya will be fine, we heal, we aren’t as fragile as humans. But he needs a hospital, a real fucking hospital with better facilities.”
Elias’s emotional state tightens right up, hardening like mud into stone. “I know … but …”
Kyle turns, facing him. “We don’t have that option, do we? Is it true, what Cade and Layna are saying? About their spell?”
Elias blinks, astonished. “How’d you hear them at all? You’ve been in this room the whole time.”
“I hear everything. My senses are through the roof. I swear I can hear a snake slithering somewhere in the parking lot and ants chewing through the drywall. Is what they’re saying true?”
Elias sighs, dropping his arms. “Y-Yes,” he finally lets out. “It seems to be the state of things right now. The barrier is … really more of a wall. It keeps anyone from getting into Nowhere …”
“And also keeps us from getting out,” Kyle finishes, getting to the point. The look in Elias’s eyes confirms it. Kyle turns away, eyes wide. “We’re … We’re trapped here now.”
“Trapped and safe,” says Elias.
“And dying.” Kyle clutches his brother’s hand tighter. “What if his wounds become infected? What if he gets worse? What if he needs a hospital, and we can’t—”
“They gave him lots of antibiotics,” Elias reminds him. “He just needs time and rest. He’ll recover. He’s proven himself strong for this long, hasn’t he?”
“And that poor girl’s boyfriend.” Kyle’s eyes drift to the wall, as if he can magically see through it to the lobby, to where all the surviving humans are gathered. “He didn’t even want to come. He didn’t want to come and … and now he’s dead.”
“Babe …”
Suddenly it’s too much. Kyle turns, buries his face in Elias’s chest, and lets out a holler of frustration that gets swallowed up the moment it’s freed. But no amount of hiding within his man’s warm body can stop his ears from picking up every word down the hall. The doctors arguing. Nico’s moaning. Raya’s uncomfortable grunts and occasional interjections. All the survivors in the lobby who keep whispering and praying to one another. The disquiet in the entire town as the citizens wonder where the eerie haze in the night sky came from, a haze that even partly obscures the stars and the moon, as if their town now floats in the middle of a sea of flying sand and nothing, as if Nowhere has become a sick joke of its own name, a place that can never again be found by any natural means—a place that is, literally, truly nowhere.