Winter, Glimmer, and Vine, who had rushed toward him. “Where’d he go?”
Glimmer was shaking her head, mouth covering her face as she stared at Nikki. Mace shifted his focus to Winter. “Where’s Raven?”
It took her a moment to answer. “He hasn’t come out.”
“Vine!” Mace dropped Nikki in the younger boy’s arms. “Don’t let anyone back in. The place is loaded with explosives.” He turned and bolted for the lab door; his foot cleared the threshold just as a blast hit him like a cannonball to the chest and threw him backward to the ground. A giant fireball erupted from the door and spewed over his head. For a moment, he thought the incinerating heat might melt his skin. Around him, screams rent the air and pandemonium broke out, people running in all directions. Before him, the lab was a hallowed cave of smoke, flames, and debris.
Mace crawled over the shards of glass that littered the area, his eyes fixed on the burning doorway. Raven was still inside. He’d lost his soul mate and his brother in the same day.
Smoke billowed over Mace’s face, enveloping him in its darkness. His only thought a futile prayer running through his head. “No. Please. I can’t lose them.”
There was noise behind him. An irritating one calling his name, pulling him from the blackness. Mace fought it. This new darkness was beautifully simple. But the sound kept tugging him. First a request, then an order. He wished whomever it was would stop and let him enjoy the dark, inky sea he was sinking into, but then he recognized the voice.
The next voice was Winter’s. “Mace, it’s Nikki. She needs you.”
Sheer will caused him to drag his eyes open and reject the dark he had wanted to succumb to. Vine and the others were there, and through the noise and the haze they helped him stand and stumble to the spot where Nikki’s body lay. People parted as he neared her. Her pale form looked asleep there on the green grass, almost like she was waiting on a kiss to awaken her. But Nikki was gone. And even though he knew — had begun to accept—still, his mind continued to pray.
Many were standing around him as he knelt to her, and he could barely stand entering an atmosphere so heavy with sadness. Someone had arranged her hair so it framed her face perfectly. A tremor, small but noticeable, made its way through the crowd that had all but closed the two of them in. Mace took Nikki’s hand in his. He bent forward and put his head on her stomach. And one more time, he prayed.
He couldn’t stop himself; his spirit was determined. He’d pray every minute of every hour of every day of every year if that’s what he had to do to survive in a world without Nikki.
Someone gave his hand the lightest of squeezes. A collective gasp exhaled from the crowd. Someone whispered “Stop,” and his head moved against Nikki’s stomach again. But he didn’t remember moving an inch. Mace shot to his knees and stared down at her open eyes.
“Stop praying, Mace. I’m here,” Nikki whispered.
Everything went black around him. Someone — Vine? — caught him by the shoulders and held him fast while he tried to breathe.
He blinked away the haze, looked down at his hand locked in hers. She squeezed, little more than a tremor, but she did indeed move. Mace stared at her hard. Am I hallucinating? Am I just seeing what I want to be true? Then came her voice, a little stronger in tone.
“I was with him. It was beautiful. We walked by the River of Life and I drank. He took my hand. You know what he said?”
Mace couldn’t speak. Alive … she was really alive. Vine bumped his shoulder. And he remembered she’d asked him a question. He shook his head, the only response he could manage.
Nikki moved, which caused her to wince. “He said, ‘You can’t stay here.’ And I was frightened, because I knew Halflings weren’t promised heaven. But he told me that wasn’t why. I couldn’t stay because you, Mace, wouldn’t let me.”
And then Nikki passed out.
Nikki awakened to unfamiliar smells and the sound of someone shuffling across the room. She tried to focus.
“Mace!” someone hollered. A familiar voice. Lilting and beautiful. Vegan.
Mace appeared at Nikki’s bedside and snapped his wings closed. He dropped to his knees and kissed her hands, her hair, her face. For a moment, she thought she was