Someone’s warm, careful grip helped her scramble to her hands and knees. Even so, she barely made it in time.
Over and over, she retched into the brittle brown grass beneath her as the visions she’d just experienced unspooled in hermemory. The horror played out behind her scrunched-closed eyelids as she gagged and sobbed helplessly.
Somehow, her braid wasn’t in the way, she vaguely noted. Somehow, she had a firm, hot chest pressed along her spine and a strong, startlingly warm arm wrapped diagonally across her torso to support her. Somehow, someone was issuing quiet, firm instructions about water and coats and clean, dry cloths and witches’ charms.
She couldn’t concentrate on any of that. Not through the apocalypse.
“Hundreds massacred in a single blast,” she managed to gasp between bouts of violent sickness. “Vast burning pyres—”
“Gwen, shhh.” Hugh’s voice in her ear was low and quiet. “You don’t need to tell us this right—”
“—of Supernatural and Enhanced human bodies,” she barreled on, because he was wrong. She did need to tell them now, because they needed toactnow to prevent what she’d just unwillingly witnessed. “Entire species wiped out. No one left to mourn. Soon. It’s comingsoon.”
Hugh fell silent, but his support didn’t waver.
The next bit would require complete sentences, because he needed to understand, needed to believe her. So she held very still, and after a few seconds of deep breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—the nausea mercifully began to ease.
“I saw a classified battlefield briefing between a common human general and a fae commander.” Her voice was hoarse, but she spoke slowly. Clearly. “At one point, they referred to a longtime secret pact. They were…” She could hardly bear to say it. “They were laughing at the slaughter.”
As the general had laughed, he’d kicked the lifeless, ravaged body of a werewolf not even old enough to shift fully. But sharing that horrific act wouldn’t help anyone.
“Hugh…” The heat of his body sapped her remaining strength. She sagged in his hold and let her throbbing head hang limply. “You have to believe me. Splinter groups within the fae and the human government deliberately caused this tragedy, and you can’t report what happened to the Council yet. Youcan’t. Not until we’ve erased all the evidence of Supernatural involvement and know who to trust.”
If he went through official channels right now, details from the scene would inevitably leak, either the demons or fae would be publicly blamed for the bloodshed, and he’d doom millions—entirespecies—to extinction.
Their small group needed time to identify the fae and human conspirators. Time to figure out how to stymie those conspirators’ plans and bring them to justice without collateral damage.
Time he could deny everyone by his insistence on following the rules.
His slow inhalation pressed his chest against her back. He held her in silence for a long moment before responding.
“I believe you.” His voice was low, his statement unequivocal. “I won’t contact the Council until I’m sure we’ve removed all evidence of Supernatural involvement in the breach.”
Tears of profound, abject relief overflowed her aching eyes and dripped to the ground.
She hadn’t failed millions of innocent victims-to-be. Hadn’t failed her friends and neighbors. Hadn’t failed herself again.
Maybe Max hadn’t been a fool to send her on this mission after all.
Hugh’s free hand was braced on the ground, his arm tensed and supporting them both. Grateful, she leaned her temple against his firm biceps and let her eyelids slip shut.
“You’ve done your job, Gwen.” Gently, with the help of a stricken-looking Lorrie, Hugh eased her onto a blanket spread over the frozen ground. “Now it’s time for me to do mine.”
—
Someone—someone whoalmost definitely had small, charming horns atop his pompadoured head—had apparently assigned Lorrie as Gwen’s guardian. The now-cheerful troll had plunked herself down on Gwen’s blanket an hour ago, wet wipes and breath mints in hand, helped clean up all evidence of nosebleeds and nausea, then draped more blankets atop Gwen and urged her to rest. Then she’d consumed an entire whole-roasted snapper stuffed with lemon, garlic, and dill, which had simply…materialized at some point.
Trolls, man. They had tricks up their sleeve. Also beef Wellingtons.
“I’ll be here beside you the whole time,” Lorrie had reassured her, as if Gwen wanted the group’s resources wasted on babysitting her rather than tackling the breach site. “Sleep, Gwennie.”
She genuinely had no other option. Her debilitating vision and subsequent illness had left her utterly drained. And since Sabrina needed to save her energy for today’s tasks, Gwen didn’t intend to ask her witch friend for help this time.
In between involuntary catnaps, she watched Hugh quietly make his way around the breach site and use his phone to document it. Because, as he’d told them, “We’re tampering with the site to prevent a knee-jerk declaration of war againstSupernaturals. When we’re able to share the entire truth with trusted officials, though, we’ll need evidence of what we actually saw here. Once I’m done, I’ll send the photos to a secure site for safekeeping and clear my phone.”
Although Gwen appreciated his commitment to truth and thoroughness, his adherence to correct procedure meant they hadn’t yet searched inside Wall One for more fake signs of demonic guilt before Sabrina’s arrival. A fact that didn’t appear to impress the witch.
Despite the dark circles under her coffee-brown eyes, Sabrina’s long ponytail was as sleek as ever, the knife strapped to her thigh gleamed, and she wasted no time before getting started. After her brief check-in with Gwen and the trolls and a round of curt introductions with Hugh, she immediately knelt beside the guards and used her magic to heal the burn marks on their bodies and the faint rings of bruises circling their wrists and ankles.
