"Where's Eleanor?"
He brushed a damp curl away from her eyes. "Mack shot her." Surprise flitted through the bright amber depths. Like him, she hadn't expected Eleanor's end to be so simple, so human. "Then Evan's safe?"
"We all are."
She reached up and touched his cheek with a trembling hand. Her fingers followed the line of the cut stretching from his eye to his chin, then hesitated when she came to his neck and the steadily flowing tide of blood from his ear.
"You're hurt," she whispered, concern and love evident both in her gaze and the emotive swirl surrounding her.
It hurt him more than any wound could—simply because it was something he was willing to give up, something he would never have again. He took a deep breath and tore his gaze away from hers, watching Mack walk across the clearing instead. Her confusion rolled around him, as sharp as a knife. He ignored it and smiled at Mack grimly. "Nice shot."
Mack nodded, stopping near Maddie's feet to study them both with a critical eye. "Sorry about the ear."
Jon shrugged and stripped off his coat, wrapping it around Maddie. Now that her internal heat had disappeared, she was beginning to shiver. Her skin felt like ice; hypothermia was only a step away.
"It's a nick, nothing more. You called an ambulance?"
"Yeah. Looks like you both need one." Mack stopped to light a cigarette.
"How, exactly, am I going to explain this?"
Jon glanced across at Eleanor's body. She was still more cat than human, trapped even in death by the white ash dagger. Like Hank, her body was beginning to disintegrate. By the time the coroner got here, there'd be little left.
"Don't try. Report the facts and let them come up with their own conclusions when they see her."
Mack exhaled a long plume of smoke, then turned. Several men had entered the clearing, the paramedics among them.
"Help is here," Jon said, smiling down at Maddie. Her fingers wrapped around his and held on tight. Her touch, though icy, ran heat through his soul. But it was the accepting gleam in the tears in her eyes that was almost his undoing.
"Promise you won't leave without saying goodbye," she said softly. Such a simple request, and yet one that would take every ounce of his strength. It would be far easier to walk away now and never see her again. He stared at her face, trying to imprint every small detail in his mind.
"I won't leave without saying goodbye," he said, and felt some of the tension ease away from her body.
But even as the medical officers separated them, he wasn't entirely sure he spoke the truth.
Twenty
"Maddie, are you listening to me?"
Maddie jumped, then rubbed a hand across her eyes and smiled grimly. She hadn't heard a word Jayne had said in the last five minutes, but she wasn't about to admit that.
"How's Evan coping?" she said, fiddling with the phone cord in an effort to gain a few extra inches so she could rest back against the pillows. Jayne's sigh was a sound of frustration. "You weren't listening." She grimaced. "Sorry."
"Evan's fine...mostly. He's still not talking to Steve, though."
"I don't really blame him." Her stupid brother-in-law wanted to take Evan to a psychologist. He couldn't accept the fact his son was gifted, preferring to think there was something mentally wrong with him. He was so like their father it was scary. And in her case, the only winner from her experience had been the psychologist's bank account.
"The police did recommend it," Jayne said softly. "He's still having nightmares."
"Nightmares are natural, Jayne. It's only been three days since he escaped Eleanor's clutches."
Three days, she thought, in which she hadn't seen Jon.
She bit her lip, letting her gaze move to the window. A sparrow scooted busily from one tree branch to another, chirping cheerfully. She wished she felt an eighth of his happiness.
"Still, it can't hurt," Jayne murmured.
Anger flared. "Oh for God's sake Jayne, get real," she snapped. "You know as well as I do that visiting the psychologist did nothing for me except make everything worse. Here I was, a kid with this amazing ability to see the future and light fires with just a thought, and that psychologist and our father made me feel like an abomination. Do you really want that for Evan?" The phone hummed with silence for several seconds. Then Jayne sighed. "No."