roof, Syn. Why don’t you go say hello,” Alden interrupted, scrubbing his hand down his face at Ivory and Stanislav’s choice of words.
“Really?” I asked. “Need a lift, old man?” I offered softly.
“I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes. I need to make sure all the doors are locked.”
Nodding to Alden, I took one last look at Stanislav and Ivory before I materialized on the roof. I studied the dark silhouette that stared out over the ruins of the city with his arms crossed and legs spread apart. He’d dressed in low-hung jeans and a black button-down shirt with new tattoos covering his arms. I slowly closed the distance between us, silently watching as his dark head lifted, inhaling my scent.
“Fancy meeting you here, Synthia,” Adrian said without turning to look at me.
I stopped beside him, leaning my head against his shoulder while I surveyed what used to be our city. It was beautiful, chaotic destruction that wouldn’t be easy to fix. Garbage littered the streets, debris thick enough to wade through marring some of them. Flames danced from trashcans, billowing smoke into the night. The entire city was lit by the stars as if darkness had descended and swallowed the light.
“We could have stopped this from happening if we’d all been here together,” I said thickly, fighting my emotions while staring at the remains of a once beautiful city.
“No, we couldn’t,” he returned, wrapping his arm around me. “We’d just end up another dead creature they destroyed.”
“We could’ve fucking tried,” Adam growled, forcing our gazes in the direction where he’d materialized without causing a disturbance. Adam’s arm wrapped around my waist, too, and together we stood in silence, staring out over the destruction of the city. “It wouldn’t have been this bad. Not if we’d been here to fight the demons when they first came through.”
“You’re wrong.” Adrian shook his head. “Vlad had people out battling the demons, and they never returned. Vampires just vanished, and you think we could have stopped this? No, we’d have died trying to prevent what was inevitable because we would have refused to stop fighting, even if we were losing. It’s who we are: fighters who continue to fight for the underdogs.”
“I could have…”
“Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. It doesn’t matter anymore, Syn. You had shit going on, hell, we all did. Lucifer did this by setting a trap for Lena to walk into Hell. He opened the Hell gates to escape his prison. Now we take it all back. We push them back into Hell from where they escaped, and we close those fucking doors for good.”
“Look at you three. Would you look at you three assholes,” Alden stated, watching us as he came through the one door that led to the roof. “Out of all the enforcers in this guild, who would have thought you would be the last three standing?”
“We did,” I stated offhandedly, and when Adrian and Adam snorted, I swatted them. “I knew we would survive. I knew we would because you taught us that losing was never an option and giving up isn’t something we carry in our blood. We had a damn good teacher.” I laughed and looked at the three men on the roof with me. “A fairy, a vampire, and a goddess walk into a bar…”
“Sounds like a horror show in the making,” Adrian snorted.
“Yeah, there goes the fucking bar.” I turned, staring at the sadness in Adam’s eyes that had also entered his tone. He felt it, but more than that, we all felt Larissa’s absence at the moment.
“Eventually, we need to speak about the body you took,” I muttered, turning sad eyes to Adam.
“Not today, we don’t. Today we celebrate reopening this guild’s doors. Today is for the living, not the dead. I can’t believe you did it.” Adam smiled, changing the subject.
“We did it; we all did it.” I hugged them all tightly, staring back out over the city that had raised us. “Today marks the first day of the new