Darker Than Night - Amelia Wilde Page 0,2

so reasonable. This is what I came here to do. I did not anticipate that it would melt my skin off, but I lower Brigit down to the stretcher nonetheless. Carina moves to the other side and blocks the rest of them so that I can get my arms out from underneath her.

“Let’s go,” says Carina, and if I was burning alive before, now the flame has reached my bones and taken them all out.

Because this bitch has double-crossed me.

She motions in the others and there are too many for me to stop. Three of them tangle up with my feet while they start to wheel Brigit away.

“Sir,” one of them says, an insolent gnat begging to get his nose broken. “Sir. You can’t come this way.” The stretcher disappears through a set of swinging double doors and I am still being harassed by these assholes. The door gives way beneath my hand and sets off an alarm. Four of them, in front of me now, a fifth diving in to join the fray.

I can’t let her out of my sight.

It’s controlled chaos back here, much like the main floor of the whorehouse on a party evening, and I see its patterns like I’d see the whores turning in their neat circles around me. Brigit, surrounded by scrubs so that all I can see are her feet, is getting farther away.

“We have to stop you,” one of them says, a tremble in his voice. “Sir, we have to stop you.”

Another set of doors.

They take her through.

The last part of my carefully constructed facade turns to ash. The ashes burn.

“I’ll kill you,” I warn the one who’s bold enough to put himself between me and the doors. “I’ll kill you now.”

“You can’t go back there, sir. It’s against hospital policy to let visitors go into the operating suite—”

“Get out of the fucking way.”

“Sir—”

I sweep them all to the side with one arm, with more power behind it than I intended. One goes flying into the side wall. The double doors open again and Carina comes out, running again. “Let me see her.” I grab for the front of her white coat. She lets me have it, but she’s not the only one coming. The controlled chaos is turning to actual chaos, and I know, I know, that I should sit down and let them do their jobs. I know. But I can’t let it happen. I can’t die like this. I can’t die with my heart stopping in another room, not for the second time. Not tonight. Not now.

I drop Carina and push through, a laugh bubbling up and escaping. It’s everyone in this emergency room against me, and I cannot hear a thing they’re saying. None of it matters. Let them keep coming forever. Let them keep pulling at my arms, my clothes.

A door with a window looms up in front of me and through the window I can see her feet again. Where are her shoes?

I wrestle an arm free to open the door.

My palm never makes contact.

A hand comes down on my shoulder and wrenches me straight backward. Who the fuck—

“Back up, fucker.” I hate the voice in my ear, hate it with every bit of my soul. “Let them help her.” Hades gets one arm across my chest and this time, this time, I’ll kill him. This time, I won’t let him go back to his precious little mountain.

I go for his hands first, but he’s in his right mind and I’m not. It’s a wrestling match in the middle of the hall, all the hospital staff backing up. I stomp on one of his feet but he only swings me to the side, one arm pinned under his. We collide with a short man in scrubs and I reach for the guy’s throat—I’ll kill him too, every one of these people keeping me from Brigit—but Hades slaps down my hand.

“She’s dying,” I shout at him, at everyone. “I’ll kill all of you if you don’t let me see her, you fucking animals, I will raze this motherfucker to the ground with all of you in it—”

“A coin for the ferry,” Hades says, his hands moving quickly. Lightning speed.

“What the fuck are you talking about, you piece of—”

He puts something between my teeth and clamps his hand down hard over my mouth. A pill. He’s given me a pill. Panic explodes, shattering what’s left of me like glass, and I fight him like a man possessed. But