“But what if someone needs help? I’m going to check it out.”

“What? Wait, no-”

But before Micah could stop him, Ren was hurrying down the sidewalk and disappearing into the mouth of the alley. Micah groaned, wondering if his vow to protect the public extended to circumstances like this, but he obediently followed after the man regardless. He knew he’d have a hard time forgiving himself if someone actually did need help and Ren got hurt trying to aid them.

The alleyway was dark, the overflowing dumpsters casting foreboding shadows against the walls of surrounding buildings – like every other alley in Queens at night time. Micah walked the entire length of it, examining the nooks and crannies, even as Ren stopped somewhere behind him.

It was empty.

“I don’t see anything-”

Micah didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before something coarse was being pressed roughly into his face, over his mouth and nose. He stiffened, immediately swinging back an elbow and connecting with something soft.

Someone’s – Ren’s? – gut, judging by the grunt whoever had grabbed him let out. But neither the hand holding the… towel?... to his face, nor the arm that had wrapped itself around his chest released.

Micah threw his head backward, a satisfying crunch reaching his ears. He knew he’d managed to nail the fucker in the nose even before he started cursing. “Stop fighting,” Ren demanded, his voice pained, but angry – proving Micah’s theory about who’d grabbed him correct.

The man pressed Micah against the wall, trapping him between porous brick that scratched at his skin where his sweatshirt had ridden up and his own solid form.

He was surprisingly strong beneath the old lady sweater he wore.

Micah had avoided breathing in as soon as he recognized the fact it was a damp rag being held to his mouth and nose, but eventually, black spots started dancing in the corners of his vision from oxygen-deprivation, and he had no choice.

It had no smell or taste, but Micah knew instinctually, as soon as he breathed it in, that it was chloroform.

He fought valiantly against the darkness encroaching on his vision, and the sluggishness invading his body that made his limbs feel like 100-pound weights, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes – if even that – before he lost the battle.

The last thing – the last person – Micah thought of, before unconsciousness claimed him, was Damon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Micah’s head hurt.

It felt like someone had scooped out his brain and filled his skull with cotton, and the entire thing was sore – even his ear canals, even his eye sockets.

It seemed counterintuitive. Because how could his head be pounding so fiercely if it was only full of fluff? But that’s how it was.