WHY IS HE WIPING away my tears? Why do I like the feeling of his fingers on my face?
I try to blink away the tears blurring my vision. I must be seeing things because I swear he’s moving closer to me. Closer and closer. My breath catches in my throat and I let my lips part softly as if anticipating what’s about to happen.
He kisses me. He kisses me, and I like it. His lips are so soft against mine. He tastes like nothing I’ve ever tasted before, but at the same time, he’s somehow familiar. I want to explore this kiss a little longer to figure it out. Then I realize what I’m doing.
I withdraw from his lips and lean away from him. I’m so angry with myself. I can’t believe I was kissing him and that I actually enjoyed it. Now that I’m back to my senses, I realize just how wrong it was. My lips are for Rynne and Rynne alone. This demon can’t convince me otherwise. I’m holding on to the truth.
“Don’t touch me,” I say, but my conviction is lacking. “I have to help Rynne. I have to…”
I try to look over Arsen’s shoulder, but he’s too tall. I look around him instead, trying to see Rynne. Is he okay? Arsen didn’t kill him. He stopped, right? Then I catch sight of him. He’s no longer the big white polar bear I was expecting to see. He’s human again—or as human as he ever was. He’s hidden by some rubble, but I can make out the profile of his face. He isn’t moving. And I see blood. Lots of blood.
“Why won’t you just kill me?” I sob. “Why are you torturing me like this? Stop making me feel things that aren’t real! I love Rynne, and I hate you. I hate you more than anything!” I say the words just as much for Arsen to hear as I do for myself.
Arsen’s unraveling me. He’s toying with me like evil does. None of what I just felt in that kiss is real. None of it.
He catches my face with his hands and forces me to look at him. He says, “You’re in pain. Being near me is agonizing. You think about me even when I’m not there.”
Why is he saying that? He already knows all of this. My eyelids flutter as I try to fight back my tears. My mouth quivers with words I don’t know how to say. I’m lost. I’m confused and defeated. I nod in resignation to his words.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but then glinting silver blurs my vision and Arsen’s gone. I yelp in surprise when I hear something crashing to my right. It’s Arsen. He just smashed into a wall and someone in silver armor is holding him there. There’s a sword pressed deep inside of the right side of his stomach, pointing upward at an awkward angle. The blade has to be lodged somewhere in his lungs. He gurgles up blood, and my heart lurches at the sight. I can’t decide if I’m horrified or grateful to the terrifying woman holding him there. Arsen lashes out at her as soon as his fingernails turn into claws again.
Prying my eyes away from the fight, I focus on Rynne’s limp body just a few feet away from me. I need to know he’s still alive. I crawl forward despite the pain shooting through my body. I favor my arm that Arsen put in a sling as I move forward. But the closer I get to Rynne, the more I feel like I’m about to lose my nerve. He’s covered in blood. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. As far as I can tell from among the rubble, his clothes are gone and he’s probably freezing.
“Rynne,” I cry his name, but my voice is only loud enough for my own ears. “Rynne, please don’t be dead.” I feel hot tears streaming down my cheeks.
I glance back at the fight in time to see the silver-clad woman sent flying into another already-broken wall of the building. Arsen gives me one last fleeting glance before he disappears through one of the holes created by the monsters that fled after Arsen killed that other demon. That look in his eyes. He looks so desperate as he looks back at me. Then he’s gone.
Dragging myself forward to bridge the gap between me and Rynne, I reach out my hand for him. I have to know if he’s still alive. He has to be alive. I can’t lose him, too.
“Rynne!” I cry, hoping against all odds that he’ll answer me. He doesn’t.
Before I can reach him, feet scuffle around me, and two more people wearing silver armor pick Rynne up and carry him away.
“Wait!” I plead. “Where are you taking him?”
They don’t even turn around. I’m answered with a hand on my shoulder instead. It’s somehow warm, good. It’s the kind of touch I felt from my parents, the unconditional love they held for me. I shudder when I see the alien beauty of the woman’s face. She’s the one who was fighting Arsen and now she’s comforting me? She looks human, but she’s way too perfect. The subtle curves and features of her face are too delicate to be real, and yet she’s so powerful. The blood staining her light hair and the gouge in her armor do little to detract from her presence. Then there are her eyes. They’re bright, vivid, somehow like the demon eyes I’ve seen, but they feel like Rynne’s. Her eyes are a deep blue like the ocean, and their depths are just as mysterious.
“Everything is going to be all right,” she assures me, her voice soft and velvety like the petals of a rose.
“But Rynne, he—who are you people?” I’m shaking so much I wonder if my words are even understandable.
She wraps her arms around me and then pulls me up onto my feet. She scoops me up into her arms with no effort at all. Despite the cold, hard armor she’s wearing, I feel like I’m safe inside of one of my mother’s embraces. The way I’m being held is reminiscent of how my mother would take me to bed at night when I was little. She’s a complete stranger, but I’m ready and willing to trust her.
So, I let her carry me. I don’t feel like protesting, and I don’t know if it would accomplish anything anyway. This woman fought off Arsen. The way she feels, the way she looks, the fact that she’s wearing and wielding silver, she must be an angel. How else could she be so powerful? How else could she fight Arsen off like that? Rynne is an angel too. The silver soldiers are all angels. That explains why Rynne knows how to fight demons. Did he come here just for that purpose? To take hunters to the next level?
The beautiful woman catches me staring at her, and gives me a small smile. “We’ll take care of your wounds,” she informs.
We’re inside the lobby now. The place is barely recognizable after everything that happened. The screens that lined the walls have been busted and they’re shooting sparks. Some lights overhead still work, so it isn’t completely dark at least. Furniture has been thrown around. A lot of things are destroyed. Even the ground has cracks in it. I don’t see any fires anymore, so I guess that threat has been extinguished. It looks like the monsters have pretty much cleared out of the base too.
I take note of all the silver soldiers I can find. I count ten. They’re all attending to injured hunters. Some of the hunters aren’t moving. I try not to think the worst, but I know that many probably lost their lives tonight.
The woman carrying me sets me down on a bench next to another hunter being treated. Then she starts inspecting my wounds.
“You mostly have cuts that only need cleaning. They’ll heal on their own, but I’ll get some herbs to speed up the process,” she says. “It looks like your left elbow has been dislocated. It should be fine once I place it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as she gets to work and immediately pops my bone back into place. It burns for a moment, but her hands linger on my arm, and the pain goes away. Don’t these kinds of injuries usually need to stay in a sling or something?
She announces, “Finished.”
I open my eyes and see the woman smiling at me again. I have a million questions I want to ask her, but I’m tongue-tied. I can’t find the words to say any of them.
“Tasia!”
The woman stands up and leaves. I can’t even find it in me to ask her to stay as Divya takes her place. Fiona comes, too. I look at them both. I see some scratches and bruises. Fiona has a few stitches, but that’s it. I look beyond them and see that the rest of Gold Team is okay too—assuming Rynne is still alive.
“You’re both okay,” I whimper.
Divya hugs me gently. I feel her tears on my shoulder. I can see the relief in Fiona’s eyes, but she doesn’t hug me. She’s still the base’s commander, and the commander couldn’t save her base. She’s devastated and doesn’t know how to react.
“Who are these people?” Fiona wonders aloud.
“Angels,” I say quietly.
“What?”
“I think they’re angels.”
But if they are angels, why didn’t they come sooner? Why didn’t Rynne ever tell me the truth? What point was there in keeping this all a secret? Question after question keeps swirling around in my head, but the one question above the rest of them, the one I can’t find a single explanation for, is just this: why did Arsen save me?