Stephen’s eyes lost the opaque sheen and returned to their normal color. Again, I felt that strange crackling sensation slide over my skin. It made my heart race knowing it was caused by a bodiless fallen angel with a touch of death.
I exchanged a look with Jordan, who was rubbing her bare arms. She’d felt it, too.
“That was seriously freaky,” she said, her voice trembling.
Jordan was what Cassandra originally thought I was. A human with supernatural intuition. She saw what others didn’t. She sensed the invisible. She saw the unseen.
I guess we did have way more in common than I’d originally thought.
“Too much pain,” Stephen groaned. “Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”
My gaze shot to him as he crawled toward Zach, reaching a hand up beseechingly. “I hate what I’ve become. I hate that I hurt her. I’m sorry, Jordan. I’m sorry for everything. I want it to end. Please, kill me.”
“Stephen, no!” Jordan gasped out. “What’s wrong with you?”
“The angel—” I grabbed her arm to keep her from moving closer to him. “He took Stephen’s will to live—just like what happened with Julie. Bishop, do something! He’s going to hurt himself!”
Connor and Bishop both moved quickly to grab Stephen and they pulled him back up to his feet. But now Stephen, loose from being restrained, used that super-gray strength of his to fight, shoving Connor with enough force that he flew back, landing hard on the pavement.
“You’re not hurting anyone else tonight.” Bishop grabbed the back of Stephen’s shirt.
“Kill me then,” Stephen begged.
“Sorry. It’s not that easy.” Bishop slammed the gray into the wall of the warehouse hard enough to knock Stephen out. He sent a look in my direction and raised a dark eyebrow. “Too violent for you?”
I fought to breathe normally, and repressed a nervous laugh. “I’ll allow it.”
The barest of smiles moved across his lips. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
“Go team,” Kraven said drily. “So what happens now? When he wakes up? Do we have a suicidal gray on our hands?”
Bishop shook his head. “My bet is it passes. The will to live, happiness in general, is not a measurable entity. It’s an emotion, a mental state. It’s possible when he wakes up he’ll be back to normal. We’ll take him to St. Andrew’s and monitor him.”
Stephen was incapacitated. Jordan and I had escaped. Any broken bones had been healed.
We were lucky. It really could have gone much worse than this.
“I’m so sorry. It was my fault.” Zach shook his head. “I had him, but he slipped away from me.”
Connor had pushed himself to his feet. “I’m fine. A couple bruises. Nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, forget it,” Bishop said. “He was possessed. You’re lucky he didn’t attack you, too. His strength is off the charts.”
“But I’m the one with the dagger.” Zach looked down at the golden weapon in his grip. “I should have been the one to stop him.”
“Like I said, forget it.”
“I can’t. I can’t forget it. It’s always this way. I have potential, but I don’t live up to it. My father told me that once. Nothing I did ever impressed him. Nothing.” He let out a shaky sigh. “He was ashamed of me. It made me ashamed of myself. I hated him so much. I—I can’t believe that hate didn’t turn my soul dark and heavy. There were times that I wanted to kill him.”
I’d completely stopped breathing. “Zach...the angel...did it touch you, too?”
He turned his anguished gaze toward me. Tears began to streak down his cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. I thought I was strong, but I’m not. Trinity is doomed. We were set up to fail. Do you know what happens then? The city will be destroyed—wiped off the face of the earth because I failed. I have nothing to live for. Nothing!”
“No, Zach! Don’t!” I screamed.
But it was already too late.
Zach turned the dagger toward himself and plunged it into his chest.
Chapter 23
There was nothing we could do to stop him.
“Zach!” I screamed again, but the sound of my voice was swept away by the thunderous roar of the Hollow opening up.
Zach dropped to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before collapsing completely.
“What—what is that?” Jordan shrieked. “What’s going on?”
“Stay back.” I held out my arm to block her from coming another step closer. Panic shot through me as Bishop started moving toward Zach. “What are you doing?”
He met my eyes, his expression grim. “The dagger.”
Oh, God. The Hallowed Blade...it was still in Zach’s chest. And the Hollow was reaching out for him with its fingerlike tendrils of darkness.
Bishop was ten feet away from Zach. I was farther back, but even I felt the powerful suction.
My throat hurt, and I realized it was because I was screaming. Losing Zach like this was bad enough, but Bishop was risking everything to get the dagger back.
“Leave it!” I yelled. “Don’t get closer to him!”
But Bishop rarely did what I wanted him to do.
I hated that dagger, an instrument of death that had taken Zach and was about to take Bishop, too. I started to move closer to stop him, but Jordan held tightly to me to keep me back.