out, my throat clogged with worry.
Blake nodded stiffly and I stepped past him, opening the door to the bathroom and closing it behind me before I headed to Kyan's door and pushed it open.
"Kyan?" I asked gently, my stomach churning as I saw him lying on the bed on his back, shirtless with sweat collecting on his brow. He coughed heavily and I shoved the door closed behind me, panic bleeding through me as I spotted the rose-shaped rash on his arm, swirling across his skin.
"No," I denied this was happening as my whole world crumpled in on itself. He can’t have the virus, he can’t be sick!
"I'm alright," he said, his voice raspy and I shook my head, climbing onto the bed and pressing the back of my hand to his forehead.
"You're burning up," I said, blinking back tears, trying not to let him see the fear in my eyes.
"Is he okay?" Blake called anxiously from the bathroom.
Kyan coughed heavily again, pushing himself up to sit. "I'm fine," he insisted, but I took his hand, turning it over and finding the rash there across his wrist.
I didn't want to voice it, couldn't bear to say it, but Blake called in again, desperate to know if his friend was alright.
"Kyan," I breathed in horror. "You're sick."
His jaw gritted and he cupped my cheek as his eyes darkened, a cold acceptance filling them that terrified me even more.
I climbed into his lap, clutching his face and making him look at me. "You won't die," I growled and the fog cleared from his eyes. "Kyan Roscoe doesn't die like this."
He nodded, giving me a smirk despite the virus taking hold of him and promising him a single week of life at most if he was one of the unlucky ones.
Sixty percent of infected people die from the virus. I could hear the news reels in my head, the death toll growing every day. But I never thought it would strike here. I never wanted to believe it could touch my Night Keepers.
"It would take more than the Hades Virus to kill me, baby," he vowed and I nodded several times, not letting myself entertain the idea of losing him.
Tears ran hot and thick down my cheeks as I held him and kissed him to seal that promise between us. He would not die from this.
"Tate!" Blake barked in desperation.
"What's going on?" Saint called from beyond the other door and I jumped off the bed, throwing my weight against it as he tried to open it.
"Kyan's sick," I half sobbed, but drew in a deep breath for my strength so the next words came out slightly steadier. Though when they did, they were so final that they resounded through to my soul. "He's got the Hades Virus."
I paced back and forth before the fire, clawing my hands through my hair as my breaths came hard and fast and I fought against the urge to scream my fury and frustration at the injustice in the world at the top of my damn lungs.
I wanted to reach out and grab the nearest thing and smash it and then grab the next and smash that too. An endless cycle of carnage to vent some of this hopelessness worming its way beneath my skin.
The entirety of the last three days had been like this, ever since we’d realised that our brother was infected and my world had constricted around me so tightly that I could barely even think anymore.
"Breathe, Blake," Saint commanded as he typed away on his damn computer like the world we knew wasn’t burning down around our ears. Like he actually believed he could research a way out of this.
"I knew this would happen," I snarled, still carving a path into the carpet as I spoke, unable to stop. It felt like if my body was no longer in motion then every atom in me might just tear themselves apart from each other just to avoid this crushing pain that was consuming me.
"Kyan is in the top bracket for recovery from this," he said calmly. Too fucking calmly, like he was a creature without a heart or a soul. And if I'd actually believed that he cared as little as it seemed then I would have been beating the shit out of him myself, but I knew this was just how Saint functioned. The more his body demanded an emotional reaction from him, the more the conditioning his father had put him through would