Page 123 of Endless Terrors
Heilel knelt in front of me, his hand dangling off his knee. “That’s one of the things I love about you. Your fire.”
I stopped struggling and stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t love me. Caring about someone means you don’t want to hurt them, you asshole!”
He arched a brow. “And what makes you think I want to hurt you, Fortuna?”
I made a sound that was meant to be a laugh. “I get it now. You’re just insane. All those centuries stuck in the dark fucked you up. I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on it, though. Either you’re an incredible actor or I was an incredible moron. I’m pretty sure it was the latter.”
I’d barely finished speaking when movement over Heilel’s shoulder drew my gaze. I felt myself begin to frown. There was something behind him. Keeping low, creeping closer. When I realized what I was looking at, my stomach dropped.
Oliver was crouched in the grass.
There was a knife in his hand, and he was about to bring it down and plunge it into the devil’s back. Don’t do it, I wanted to scream at him. Not for Heilel’s sake … but for Oliver’s.
Heilel spun so fast that I didn’t even see it.
He looked at Oliver and raised his arm. It was positioned in such a way that I knew, in a burst of terrible intuition, that he was about to decapitate my best friend.
Before I could scream, beg, or bargain, Heilel’s hand froze. Oliver had frozen, too. The two of them stared at each other. It was almost as if they’d met before. To make the picture even stranger, Oliver’s winged doppelgänger stood near them, encased in stone.
“Now you,” the devil said, “are fascinating.”
Oliver’s lip curled and his eyes blazed like heavenly fire. “Let her go, or I’ll obliterate this place with both of us still inside.”
“I shall make you a bargain, strange creature,” Heilel replied, completely unperturbed by the threat. I saw him lean forward, and he put his mouth beside Oliver’s ear. Heilel said something else, but the words were too low for me to hear. Ice formed in my veins. What could Heilel possibly have to offer Oliver?
“Don’t listen to him, Ollie,” I called urgently, renewing my efforts to break the wooden bars. “You can’t trust a single word he says!”
Neither of them seemed to hear. Heilel was still speaking, and something he said made my best friend glance at me. His eyes were full of longing. Before I could tell Oliver not to do anything stupid, he refocused on Heilel and, after another beat of hesitation, gave a single nod.
I knew, then, what the devil had promised him.
Heilel put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. He leaned forward and spoke again. I kept wrenching at the bars of my makeshift cage, trembling with adrenaline and rage. When Heilel was done, he stepped away from Oliver and looked at me. I froze, staring back at him, and I was holding the roots so tightly that pain vibrated through my hands. But then his gaze shifted. I followed it, twisting around to look out a different side of the cage. Confusion swirled through me.
A door had appeared.
It stood there, held up by nothing, and it reminded me of one of the memories I’d found in the dreamscape. That memory hadn’t ended well, I recalled with a sinking stomach. There was nothing ominous about the door itself, and yet every instinct I had was screaming that I didn’t want to open it … or anyone else to, either.
I spun back around, learning forward to peer through the bars. Heilel had already walked away from Oliver, and his blue eyes were intent on the door. Something about his expression made me think of what he’d said earlier.
This is the moment I’ve been dreaming about for centuries.
Horror filled my throat, brought on by a surging sense that something terrible was about to happen. “Heilel,” I said hoarsely. “Heilel, wait. Just wait.”
He walked past me. I said his name again, louder this time, with a frantic edge. I yanked the roots. Heilel didn’t even look back. It was like he couldn’t hear me at all. Was he in a trance? At the exact moment I opened my mouth, he wrapped his long fingers around that round, old knob, and twisted it.
Slowly, the door creaked open.
My mouth went dry. On the other side, I could see a familiar hospital room. Emma was still unconscious in the bed, and there I was, fast asleep in a chair. It was jarring to see myself, my real self, and I lost precious seconds staring. I blinked, recovering, but it was too late.
Before I could try to stop Heilel, he stepped through. The door swung shut behind him with a resounding slam that made me flinch.
And then it vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Someone was shouting. Someone was saying my name.
There was no time to speak to Oliver, or process what had just happened with Heilel, because the door had barely closed before everything was rushing away. I felt a world-tilting sensation, my head spinning, and then the blur of darkness and color became solid again. Within seconds, I was back in Emma’s room, still in the chair beside her. Someone else was here, and they were speaking to me, but the words were a meaningless hum. Thankfully, I recognized his scent.
