call in the Order as backup, we will be unstoppable. No chance Jada will be able to kill us." He left the words hanging in the air, offering them to her.
For a moment, Alice was silent. "They'll take me to their mansion."
"They will."
"They'll take you off Warwick."
"They will." Ian didn't turn to face her. He simply waited.
After a heavy moment of silence, she spoke. "I would rather die than give up. Don't call them."
He spun to face her, but her eyes were closed and her head was resting back against the wall. The body language of a woman too exhausted to cope. "You're sure?"
She nodded. "It has to be us, Ian. We give it our all and either die or succeed. I can't walk away, and neither can you."
Grim resolution flooded Ian, but with it was a deep admiration for the woman before him. Her bravery, her commitment to her sister...she was like a ray of white light shining into his darkness. "I'm in," he said.
She managed a faint smile. "It's settled, then."
"Yeah." Ian resumed his pacing, his mind working hard now as he tried to predict all possible scenarios for the morning, and to establish a plan for each one. He had an hour or two to plan, and then he had to go into his healing sleep and regain his strength for tomorrow.
"Can you stop pacing?" Alice sounded tired. "You're making me dizzy with all your circling."
The weariness in her voice broke through his focus. He swore when he saw how pale her face was, and how drawn her features were. "You okay?"
Her head was still propped up against the wall, her green eyes at half-mast. "I killed a woman, Ian. I killed someone. I felt her life bleed out the moment I did it."
Ian remembered the first day he'd taken a life. It was never easy, even in self-defense. "You had no choice," he said, walking over to her. He crouched down in front of her and brushed a lock of her hair back from her face. "You did good. It's my fault you had to defend yourself. I should have been able to keep you safe."
"You were keeping me safe. You were keeping hundreds of Mageaan away from me." She shook her head, and tears glistened in her eyes. "I'm an angel, Ian. An angel of life. I'm supposed to protect lives and give people a second chance, not kill them."
Ian sat down beside her and leaned back against the wall, resting his shoulder against hers as he propped his knees up and draped his forearms over his legs. "Sometimes angels have to save their own lives."
"We're supposed to let ourselves be killed."
Ian snorted with disgust. "That's total crap. Break that rule, sweetheart, and feel good doing it."
But Alice didn't acknowledge his comment. "Did you see what happened with Chloe?" She closed her eyes and pressed her palms to them. "I can't do this again," she whispered. "All I had to do was give her an angel's kiss and I couldn't do it. She's dying right now because I could do nothing." Her shoulders started to shake, and Ian swore softly, his soul aching for her anguish. "Two women died today, and both of them were my fault." She looked at him, her face full of so much self-loathing that his gut clenched. "All I'm supposed to do is bring life to others, and I do the opposite. Do you know what it's like to want to save someone and not be able to?"
"Yeah, I do." To his surprise, she leaned into him when he answered her, as if the weight of the world was too much for her to handle alone. And it probably was. He knew exactly what she was feeling. There was nothing as horrific as the feeling of impotence when watching harm befall someone and being completely unable to do anything about it. "I was ten when my father killed himself in front of me."
Alice glanced over at him, tears still glistening in her eyes. "You saw it?"
"Fuck yeah, I did. I caused it to happen."
Her brow puckered in a small frown. "How? You were only ten."
"I thought I could save him from the curse." Ian threaded his fingers through her hair, grounding himself in her presence as he relived that moment from so long ago. "He'd explained to me about the curse. My grandfather had killed himself when my dad was a kid. He'd ordered my dad to restore the family