Silver Lining (Diamond #3) - Skye Warren Page 0,24

in the abstract way it is for other people. We’re all trying to make it in the world. Elijah carves out heartbeat after heartbeat.

It’s my new mission to convince him this isn’t true.

“Elijah,” I say, and his green eyes meet mine in the blackened mirror. They’re so intense that I’m winded. What was I going to say to him, anyway? That he’s wrong about the world around us? That soon, we’ll be able to sneak out into the dark and disappear? I didn’t have a plan when I shot that gun and I don’t have a plan now. I just have a fierce, delirious need to prove to him that we’ll survive. We can survive anything as long as we’re together.

“I love you.” The words fall out of my mouth like stones to the bottom of the ocean, swift and sure of their way down. It isn’t a solution. It won’t protect us from bullets, but it doesn’t have to. It has a power all its own, and the love builds inside me until I’m bursting.

He whirls to face me, stunned for a single, breathless moment.

Three things happen at once in the pause before he speaks.

There’s a sound of wood splintering on stone. Elijah blinks, and when his eyes open again, something flashes through them, onyx through emerald. It looks like heartbreak but it’s gone too soon to pin it down. And he moves.

“What are you doing?” It’s a pointless question, wasted breath, because as soon as he’s between me and the bathroom door it’s obvious.

It’s so horribly, awfully obvious.

He was right.

I’m out of time to prove to him that we’ll be okay in the end.

We will not be all right. Love doesn’t conquer all.

Men swarm down into the basement, too many to count, a swarm of black shields and weaponry. They’re multiplying, shouting. My question is swallowed up in the storm of noise. Something loud explodes in the next room, toward the cell, but nothing heats or burns. A flashbang? I discover I’ve put my hands over my ears and I’m too late.

My entire skull rings with the noise.

Elijah’s shadow falls away from me.

He’s falling, too. There are so many people, too many people, and they’re coordinated. They knock him down and he gets back up. The bathroom is too small to fight in, far too small. The rim of the sink presses coldly into my back. I’m afraid to let go of my ears in case my brain spills out, but I do, I do, because I have to reach for him.

I get a fist into his t-shirt.

It’s ripped away.

A frustrated scream I can’t hear scorches my throat, fear corroding the raw flesh. They’re kicking him. Killing him. How is ever going to survive this? He won’t, not unless—

I lurch forward and throw my body down over his. There’s a chance if I can hold on.

There’s a chance.

I can’t hold on.

How many people have crowded into the bathroom? Six? Ten? Four hands dig into my skin. I don’t know what I’m shouting as they drag me away. I get one arm hooked through his. It comes to nothing. My nails rake across his bicep, leaving red trails behind.

He’s hidden from me by the black outfits and combat gear and I feel something like vertigo. Something like the disembodied horror of losing a tooth. They’re dragging me, carrying me, toward the stairs.

I’m not going to get back to him. If they take me out of here and I die, I won’t be able to get back to him.

I let myself go limp, the full weight of me pulling down toward the floor. My heel catches on the stairs and it sends a bolt of pain up through my leg. At least I have contact with the bottom step and I dig it in.

Sounds filter through the ringing in my ears. One of the men, cursing me out steadily and fluently. Knuckles meeting someone’s cheekbone. The grunt as a punch clears the air from someone’s lungs.

And a high, keening cry.

Me.

I’m the one making that noise, and it strangles itself into words. They’re having to work for this. A detached part of me is proud that I’m putting up a fight, even though it hurts like a motherfucker. There’s no way I haven’t undone all Elijah’s careful healing. Even that doesn’t hurt as much as being separated from him.

He’s still fighting, but they’re piling on now with me out of the way. “Leave him alone,” I shout, a hot tear dripping