Page 5 of Malice

“Wren?” he croaks out and I push against Xavier’s chest, looking through the smoke. Antonio is wobbly as he gets to his feet, looking at his wrists. I don’t know how much he remembers or what state he’s in. And how the demon was able to bring him back is beyond me, but it’s not something I’m going to question.

Ever.

Zeke leaps over the flames and goes to Antonio, putting his arm around his shoulders and helping me leave.

“Gia,” I say in protest. “She was in here.”

“Take her,” Xavier tells Theo, who’s back by his side. “Do not let her go.” He says something in Spanish to his brother, and puts me in Theo’s arms. If I wasn’t drugged up, I would so use magic to put him to sleep and then would drag his unconscious body out of here. Being passed around like a baby is not okay.

Theo holds me tighter and not nearly as gently as Xavier. Another lower-level demon rises from the pit, possessing a body on the stairs. Zeke and Antonio leave first, not stopping until we’re at the end of the parking lot of the warehouse.

“Put me down,” I grunt, trying to break out of Theo’s hold.

“Why, so you can run into a burning building and pass out?” Theo retorts. We both know I won’t win a battle of strength against him.

“I want to check on my brother.”

“Fine.” Theo lets me go and, normally, I would have been able to catch myself. I’m too loopy to land gracefully, so I fall, hitting the ground hard. “Oh, shit,” Theo says under his breath; he didn’t mean for me to crash onto the ground like this. Pain radiates through my left hand, going all the way to my chest. My stitches were ripped open and the flesh around it burns like a motherfucker.

Antonio is standing still, rooted to the spot. He keeps looking at his wrists and then at the building, which—holy shit—is going up in flames.

Xavier.

For the first time, I’m glad I’m on the ground because everything spins around me and it’s not from the drugs. The weight of it all is crashing down on me, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I just did to get my brother back.

“Wren,” Antonio starts, voice thin. “What happened? I don’t…I don’t remember. Maybe?” He tips his head and then quickly inhales, eyes widening. “Oh, fuck.” He pitches forward, on the verge of panicking as everything rushes back to him.

“Hey,” Theo says, tone gentle enough to surprise me. Antonio looks up, and in a split second, Theo has caught his gaze. “You are fine. Calm. Pay no attention to anything else you hear. Until I tell you otherwise, your mind is at ease and you are only recalling happy memories.”

“Yeah.” Antonio’s entire body relaxes. “I am.”

“I’m kinda jealous you can’t pull that trick on me,” I say as I struggle to get to my feet. Theo comes over and helps me, and we walk to Antonio together.

“I don’t understand what just happened,” Zeke starts, looking at the bloody wounds on Antonio’s wrists. Like Theo and Xavier, he’s able to control himself around blood. “He should be dead. He was dead. There was no heartbeat.”

“That’s a very good question.” Theo rounds on me, eyes narrowing. He heard Xavier and echoes what was just asked. “What did you do, Wren?”

My lips part as I inhale, ready to tell him, but then something explodes inside the warehouse. My heart plummets to the bottom of my chest and cold fear washes over me.

Xavier!

Turning, I stumble a few feet toward the building before Xavier comes running out, moving at vampire speed. He stops right in front of me, hands landing on my shoulders. He smells like smoke, and there’s a smudge of soot on his cheek.

“I told you not to let her go,” he tells Theo as he pulls me in for a hug.

“Gia?” I whisper in question.

“She wasn’t there,” Xavier tells me. “No one was. Whoever took her must have left prior to the fire.”

I close my eyes, both relieved and frustrated. She’s alive—for now. Who the fuck knows what the Order is going to do with her. Xavier steps back, looking me up and down. Then he takes both my hands and inspects the wounds. The torn stitches on my left hand look nasty. Grit from the warehouse floor sticks to my torn flesh. This is going to be a bitch to clean.

“Hey, did you guys know there’s a building on fire?” Antonio asks, as calm and casual as if he was telling us about the weather.

“We should do something about that,” Zeke quips, sucking in air between his teeth. “Before the whole fucking town burns.”

“I can call the fire department,” Antonio says, patting his pockets. “Huh. Seems I’ve lost my phone.”

“The portal,” I start, shaking my head as I look into Xavier’s eyes. His jaw tenses and I can tell he’s holding back what he really wants to say. “Water won’t put that fire out and sending humans in…we…we can’t do that. They’ll see a literal crack in the earth that leads to hell.”