“Here, give me the light,” Jared said. “Now, the rest of you, get out of here. Emergency over. Give her some air, okay?”

There was a shuffling noise that didn’t travel far.

“Seriously, people. You’re not helping. Leave. All the way out.”

The shuffling was slow at first, but then became more productive. I could hear many footsteps fading away in the room and then disappearing out of it.

Jared waited until it was silent again.

“Okay, Wanda, it’s just you and me.”

He waited for some kind of answer.

“Look, I guess that must have been pretty… bad. We never wanted you to see that. I’m sorry.”

Sorry? Geoffrey’d said it was Jared’s idea. He wanted to cut me out, slice me into little pieces, fling my blood on the wall. He’d slowly mangle a million of me if he could find a way to keep his favorite monster alive with him. Slash us all to slivers.

He was quiet for a long time, still waiting for me to react.

“You look like you want to be alone. That’s okay. I can keep them away, if that’s what you want.”

I didn’t move.

Something touched my shoulder. I cringed away from it, into the sharp stones.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

I heard him stand, and the light—red behind my closed eyes—began to fade as he walked away.

He met someone in the mouth of the cave.

“Where is she?”

“She wants to be alone. Let her be.”

“Don’t get in my way again, Howe.”

“Do you think she wants comfort from you? From a human?”

“I wasn’t party to this —”

Jared answered in a lower voice, but I could still hear the echoes. “Not this time. You’re one of us, Ian. Her enemy. Did you hear what she said in there? She was screaming monsters. That’s how she sees us now. She doesn’t want your comfort.”

“Give me the light.”

They didn’t speak again. A minute passed, and I heard one set of slow footsteps moving around the edge of the room. Eventually, the light swept across me, turning my lids red again.

I huddled myself more tightly together, expecting him to touch me.

There was a quiet sigh, and then the sound of him sitting on the stone, not as close beside me as I would have expected.

With a click, the light disappeared.

I waited in the silence for a long time for him to speak, but he was just as silent as I was.

Finally, I stopped waiting and returned to my mourning. Ian did not interrupt. I sat in the blackness of the big hole in the ground and grieved for lost souls with a human at my side.

CHAPTER 41: Vanished

CHAPTER 41

Vanished

Ian sat with me for three days in the darkness.