Angel Blood

40- I'll Wait For You

I sag against Theo. My hands are throbbing, the wound on my arm thumping in tune with my heartbeat. I know that if I look at my knuckles, they'll already be swollen and beginning to darken into a mottled shade.

"Are you okay?" Theo says, loosening his grip around me.

I pant, trying to suck in air and calm my shuttering heart. "You can let me go now if that's what you're asking." Delia is dead. Theo's touch has somehow broken me from the blood-thirsty state I didn't even know myself capable of.

"No," he says slowly, as if scared to startle me, "I mean, are you okay?"

I frown...and then my eyes fall upon the heap on the ground and my heart stalls in my chest as I remember everything I'd been distracted with before bloodying Delia's face.

A choked sound cuts through the tense silence. It takes me a moment to realize that the ugly noise has come from my throat. I untangle myself from Theo, hobbling to my unsteady feet and collapsing onto the ground beside Sin's broken body.

I don't know what I expect to see—I guess Sin scowling up at me, tugging me close and inspecting me for injuries despite his own.

But his face is too lax, his lips slightly parted as if he'd fought to keep the breaths drawing into to his lungs. Those pewter eyes stare in front of him unseeing, his strong limbs splayed helplessly against the floor.

I can't breathe. I can't think. I just keep staring at him with wide eyes, trying to convince my brain to come to terms with what lies in front of me. To convince myself that this isn't a nightmare I'm only mere moments from awakening.

I don't realize I'm crying until warm fingers brush away my tears. Past the buzzing in my ears, I recognize the loud, horrified sobs that viciously shake my body and echo through the warehouse.

"Easy, Calli-girl," Theo murmurs next to me. I'm not sure when he sat down beside me. "Sin had a plan. It wasn't exactly...this, but," he winces, "I guess it's close enough."

My eyes flicker to him. They're so tear-filled that I can only make out a bleary form of him, a bitter laugh bubbling past my throat. "Really," the words wobble in my throat, too devastated to bring forth their intended bite, "this wasn't the plan?"

I know that this is only a taste of my grief. I know that once I give it time to sink in, I'll feel the sadness seep all the way to my bones.

It's the quiet, gnawing type. The kind that eats you from the inside out, leaving you only a shell of what you used to be.

"Well," he says, and I startle when I realize he holds something in his other hand. Something big and red and fleshy. "This part? This was all Sinclair."

My lips pull into a taut line. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Theo can be so casual about the idea of Sin sacrificing himself for my safety.

"You weren't supposed to get involved. Sin wanted you away from it all, to ensure they couldn't harm you anymore or take you once he was, uh," he grimaces, "incapacitated."

I brush the hair from Sin's face, embedding the feeling of his still-warm skin against my fingertips into my brain so I can turn the shiny memory around in my head whenever I miss him most. "How could you let him do something so stupid?"

"Fun fact about incubi," Theo leans forward, reaching his organ-filled hand into the gaping hole in Sinclair's chest, "they're hard to kill. Sometimes the upper-level kind can heal themselves as long as their heart remains inside of their body."

I stare at him, unwilling to let hope swell in my chest. "What?"

He pulls his empty reddened fingers out of Sin's chest, wiping his hand against his pants. "Delia was supposed to burn the heart. Obviously, she didn't get that far," he eyes my bruised knuckles. "You took care of that job for me."