Before our eyes, the wings turned gray and began to crack, the feathers peeling away like old paint on a piece of wood. Gemma made a strangled sound and then shut her eyes against the sight.
Cole lunged at Kimber, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her so her head rolled around on her shoulders. “Stop it right now.”
And just like that the wings disappeared. Cole shoved Kimber away and went to Gemma’s side. She stood there looking more naked and unveiled than ever.
“Hey.” Cole reached out and touched her cheek. The contact seemed to snap her out of whatever memory she was trapped in. She blinked and pulled away from my brother and fixed her steely gray eyes on Kimber.
“You should have walked away when you had the chance.”
“Bring it on,” Kimber said, stepping forward. I gave Sam a worried look and he frowned.
“Kimber,” Cole said with deep warning in his tone.
A dagger appeared in Gemma’s hand and she sent it spiraling through the air right at Kimber’s face. Just before impact it stopped midair and Kimber smirked as it turned itself around and went barreling back toward the woman who launched it.
Gemma dodged it with ease and came forward to take what I assume was a more hands-on approach with Kimber. Kimber saw her coming and seemed to take a deep breath and pull energy from everything around us. I almost felt the ground and air around us draining like a battery.
“Kimber, no!” I cried, leaping forward just as Kimber threw the swirling energy ball at Gemma, who skidded to a stop and stared.
Then Cole was there yelling her name and shoving her out of the way.
Gemma wasn’t hit.
But Cole was.
He dropped out of the air and landed on his side, where he lay unmoving.
I don’t know who screamed louder, but we all raced to his side, Gemma making it there before the rest of us, and she gently reached out and rolled him onto his side.
His eyes were closed. His face was pallid.
Gemma raised her hands above his chest as Kimber wailed his name over and over again. She tried to lunge at him, but I shoved her back, fury making my body shake. “Don’t you dare even think of touching him or, so help me God, I will burn you where you stand.”
Her face paled as she stared at me. “I didn’t mean—” she began, but I turned my back, not the least interested in what she had to say.
We all stood there silently and watched as Gemma healed my brother for the second time. My heart slowed until I thought it might stop, but it didn’t, and every single time it did beat, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest with a five hundred-pound weight.
We waited.
We waited.
And then Gemma looked up at me, her eyes rimmed with red. “A very long time ago I learned the hardest thing I’ve ever learned.”
She fell silent and looked away.
Then she looked back up at again. “It’s even harder now.”
“What?” I said, my voice barely audible.
“You can’t heal someone who’s already dead.”
Kimber began to wail, falling to her knees, trying to crawl toward Cole, reaching for him.
“Don’t touch him!” I screamed, and then Sam was lifting her away, carrying her out of my sight.
I stood over my brother, who Gemma just announced to be dead, and heard nothing but a buzzing in my ears and saw nothing but grief that was so all-encompassing I thought I might die too.
Gemma laid her head on Cole’s chest and did something I thought I’d never see.
She cried.
And as she lay across him, I prayed she’d cry harder, that she would cry for both of us, because I couldn’t. The tears wouldn’t come.
All I could do was stand there.
All I could was stand there and stare…
At my brother… my dead brother.
Chapter Twenty-One
Heven
How do you say good-bye to someone who was supposed to live as long as you? How do you sit at a funeral and listen to a priest talk in past tense about someone who is still so vividly alive in your head?
I couldn’t.
I got up in the middle of listening to what was supposed to be an uplifting, comforting sermon about Cole and I walked out of the heavy double doors, not even glancing once at any of the stares I drew.
These people had no idea.
They had no idea of the damage death had done to my life.
They had no idea what the aftermath was for someone who’d lost every single one of their family members except for one. One that now sat in the church, hunched at Sam’s side, with tissues fisted in both hands.
The cold air was a blast to my face when I finally made it outside, but I barely noticed as I went down the church steps and wandered to the middle of the parking lot. I stopped and turned, looked up, and stared at the figure sitting on the roof.
She was dressed in black—black coat, black jeans, and black leather boots that came to her knees. Her face was unnaturally white against all that dark, and I realized she looked exactly as I felt. Drained. Drained of all feeling and life. When she saw me staring at her, she stood and went down the back sloping part of the roof and jumped out of sight. I wandered back to the steps and sat down, pulling my coat a little closer around me. I looked up at the gray cloudless sky and I wondered if Cole was watching us.
Gemma appeared and she sat down next to me, saying nothing. Being next to her comforted me because I felt like my brother left part of himself here and that part now resided inside Gemma. Slowly, I leaned down until my head was resting on her shoulder. She didn’t try to pull away and so we sat there, staring out at the empty cars and not speaking.
After a while she broke the silence.
“I’m really glad he got a funeral. The last time…” Her voice broke and she was silent a moment before continuing. “When Callum died I couldn’t tell anyone. I had to bury him there in the forest and no one could give him the good-bye he deserved.”
“My brother didn’t deserve this.”
“I’m going to kill her.” It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a question or a hope. It was a fact.
“I know.”
“He was wrong,” she said after a while.
“About what?”
“He told me it wasn’t over between us. He told me he was going to prove it to me.” I heard her swallow, the saliva in her mouth scratching down her throat. “I really wanted him to.”
I put my arm around her, pulling her a little closer to my side.
“Part of me is so sorry. So sorry I hadn’t just given in and had a little time with him. But the other part of me, the other part is glad because I know he’s in heaven and he won’t be punished because of me.”