I sighed. If you insist

I nudged Malachi’s arm. He quietly took the phone back and tucked it into his pocket; then he returned to rubbing at his skin. The blood had fallen away in dry flecks, but his hands were raw. I sat very still and watched my Lieutenant, who I ached for … who’d just killed a boy. An innocent one. One I’d promised to save.

Sorrow swelled in my chest, crushing me from the inside out, filling my lungs and lodging in my throat. Was Nick in the Countryside now? Or had he gone somewhere like the Blinding City? Jim had said it was a place for addicts. But Nick had seemed so young. So in need of gentleness and mercy. I wanted to believe that’s what he would get, but I’d seen enough to know it might not turn out that way. It made me want to scream with grief, even though I’d only known him for a few minutes. It had been long enough to feel him tremble in my arms, to see how hurt he was, and to have his hopeful, shy smile burned into my memory.

He was the reason we had to succeed against the Mazikin. They were taking the homeless, the street kids, the ones no one noticed or cared about. They were using people who had already suffered so much, and they were condemning them to hell.

“Henry,” I said, “I need you to drop us off at the Station, and then go back to the nest and watch it. If they try to clear out, you have to let us know. We’ll hit it tonight, but you’re right—they could move before then if they know we’re after them.” And considering how we’d left two corpses in the basement—along with my phone and my knife—it seemed like a distinct possibility. Especially if that female Mazikin had reported to Sil that we chased her last night. Like an idiot, Jim had actually asked her if she was a Mazikin. Which meant that at this point, they probably knew that the Guards of the Shadowlands had followed them to the land of the living.

“I can go with Henry,” Malachi said as he stared at his hands. He’d stopped rubbing them, but was now grasping his knees so tightly that his knuckles had turned as pale as his face.

“No, you can’t,” I replied. It was the easiest decision I’d made all day.