Page 96 of Now Until Forever
For a second, Eliana wondered if this was the influence of Elysium, but there was something about the woman’s demeanorthat told her she wasn’t currently high. Maybe she was even detoxing.
“Your hookup is dead.” Eliana kept her tone measured, just in case it helped the woman calm a little. “I can see how things are hard for you right now. You’re grieving, and we all say things when we’re grieving that we don’t mean.”
“Yeah? Thing is, I mean it.” The woman shifted her stance, her body language tense like a spring coiled and ready to explode. “He’s dead because of you.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.” Eliana shook her head. “I wasn’t there.” She turned her head slightly. “Patience, did you call 911?”
The older woman didn’t reply.
Ms. Dreamer from across the hall pounced, nails first. Coming at her with lethal intent faster than Eliana could blink. In a second, her back hit the floor.
Eliana expelled a breath that contained all the air in her lungs. She sucked in air, and the Dreamer grabbed her neck. Thin fingers squeezed her throat, pushing against the already bruised skin.
No.
Eliana pushed her away, but crazed energy lit the woman’s eyes. All she could see was that fiery gaze above her. The gritted teeth, a mess from the drugs she lived on. The sour odor of the other woman’s exhale.
She couldn’t breathe.
Eliana kicked her legs, trying to dislodge the woman. She gave up pushing, white spots flashing at the edge of her awareness. This woman was going to kill her, and she couldn’t even call out to Patience to…
Her hand found the bulge in her pants pocket. Eliana dragged the knife from its sheath and cut the fabric of her pocket in the process. She brought the knife up between themand pressed the tip to the woman’s neck, under her throat. Immediately, blood beaded on the Dreamer’s skin.
The woman screamed and her fingers loosened enough for Eliana to drag in a lungful of air—the breath that probably saved her life.
“Let me go.” Eliana grabbed the woman’s hair in her fist with one hand and held the knife against her neck with the other.
She prayed for the kind of control she needed to not kill this woman. Her life didn’t need to end right now. This woman didn’t deserve to die just because Eliana felt threatened.
She gritted her teeth. “You’re going to let me go.”
With one jerk of her hand, she tugged the woman away from her using the grip she had on the woman’s hair. The Dreamer swung backward, her arms coming up. Eliana’s knife left her throat, and the woman grabbed for it.
Eliana swung the knife out of reach, and the tip swiped across the front of the woman’s bicep in the process, just a fleshy limb with bone beneath the skin and not much else.
The woman screamed and fell back. Her legs tangled with Eliana’s, and she clutched her arm. Blood seeped through her grimy fingers.
Eliana yelled, “Patience!” and turned to see the older woman was closer than expected. Holding her phone, her eyes wide on the scene in front of her. Two women on the floor. “Did you call 911?”
“They’re on the way, dear.” Patience thankfully didn’t sound shaky. Maybe she thought Eliana had all this under control.
“Get me something to stop the bleeding, please.”
Patience brought her a hand towel.
After returning the knife to its sheath, Eliana crawled over to the other woman, still trying to fully inhale with each breath. She’d done it. She had actually cut this Dreamer—could havekilled her. She nearly took a life today, because the Shrine Board of Governors had given her a knife and she’d actually used it.
Was that who she wanted to become?
Chapter Thirty-One
Carlos dumped Eliana’s bag on the floor by the front door at his house. It was nearly nine o’clock at night. She’d been admitted to the hospital now twice in just a few days—and had given him an earful as to how she felt about that all the way home. That, and the fact that Patience was still there. At least until the older woman’s blood pressure came down.
“I amnotsleeping in your bed.” She set her hands on her hips.
He stared at her for a second. “Well, the couch will be a little crowded since I’ll be sleeping there. Unless you want to snuggle. You did say it was comfy.”
She looked about as exhausted as he felt.
