“No?” He flicked a glance at me, his blue eyes haunted. “You don’t know what it’s like when the craziness grips me.”
“You don’t think I know what it’s like to start to lose your mind and your control? We might be complete opposites in a lot of ways, Bishop, but this much we have in common. Sometimes we lose a battle. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the war. Only if we stop fighting is it really the end.”
His jaw tightened. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Damn right, I am.” My surge of anger over his fatalistic attitude had helped chase my own away. “No maybes about it. We’re going to fix me and we’re going to fix you. Somehow, someway.”
“FYI, I’m not kissing you, too,” Kraven said to him. “So you can just forget it.”
I shot the demon a look. He wasn’t fooling me with this nonchalant, joking facade of his. Whenever he dealt with Bishop, there was an edge to him—to both of them. Something dark lurking under the surface. Barely restrained animosity.
I continued to wipe at my mouth to remove the taste of Kraven’s lips, disturbed that the kiss had lasted way longer than it had to due to the unexpected mind meld. I looked around. “Something about this area triggered me. Like, out of nowhere. I’ve never felt anything that horribly immediate before.”
Bishop also scanned the street as if searching for clues. “And now? How are you feeling?”
“Better. Just—” I turned my gaze to his “—don’t come any closer to me right now.”
Something slid through his eyes then, something vulnerable, before it disappeared and his expression hardened again.
Then something else caught my attention.
A woman slowly shuffled down the street toward the abandoned house at the end of the block. She was making a mournful, whimpering sound. My blood ran cold. It sounded like she was in desperate pain.
And she sounded exactly like I had only a short time ago.
“She’s a gray,” I said, my voice catching.
At the house, she grasped hold of the bars of the gates and shook them, as if attempting to break them down to get to the house.
Bishop and Kraven shared a look.
“I can’t go back there,” I whispered. “Whatever’s happening to her...it happened to me, too.”
The gray was openly weeping as she clawed at the gates, her shoulders racking violently with her sobs.
“I’ll take care of her,” Bishop said.
My gaze shot to him. I knew exactly what he meant. And it wasn’t to send her to a psychiatrist to work out her problems. A chill went through me. “But she’s so helpless right now. You’re just going to kill her?”
His face was tense. “I’ll talk to her first. But if she’s lost herself...if she’s gone into stasis...we know what that means. She can’t think straight.”
I couldn’t help it; I reached out to grab his arm. “Neither can I sometimes.”
He looked down to where I touched him, his expression tormented. “You’re different.”
“You sure about that?” Kraven asked without any humor.
“Yes,” he hissed. “So let me deal with this.”
The demon waved a hand. “Be my guest.”
I watched tensely as Bishop turned to walk toward the woman. He didn’t reach for his dagger—not yet—but I knew he wouldn’t hesitate if he had no other choice.
I wanted to have an argument for why he couldn’t do this—that the woman was pathetic and helpless and needed assistance. But I knew there was no help for her. What I saw wasn’t a woman who could be reasoned with, but a monster out of its mind with hunger. One who could hurt others—one who could infect others.
She was part of a dangerous disease that needed to be cured.
And there was a beautiful angel of death moving steadily closer to help end her illness.
But before Bishop got within twenty feet of her she cried out, clutched her head and collapsed to the ground. A scream caught in my throat as I watched her begin to literally melt right before my eyes. It was like something out of The Wizard of Oz when the water hit the wicked witch of the west. Smaller and smaller, she sank into the ground...until there was nothing left but a pile of clothes.
It took less than a minute.
I was trembling violently as I faced Kraven. His expression was grim, but not surprised like my own.
“That’s happened before.” My voice quaked. “Hasn’t it?”
He nodded. “Ever since the Source was killed, this is what’s been happening to some of the grays we come across. The Hollow doesn’t open up for these ones—they’re just gone. Makes our jobs a hell of a lot easier, but...” He glanced at me, his lips thinning.
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. As a gray, it could happen to me, too.
“Bishop briefed us on stasis,” he continued. “This chick obviously wasn’t strong enough to handle it.”
You change or you die, Stephen warned me.
This was door number two.
That poor woman. Once she was a girl like me who’d been kissed by someone who made her heart beat faster.
Now her heart didn’t beat at all.
“This proves it. We need to find Stephen tonight,” Bishop said when he returned to us, his expression hard and determined. “There’s no more time to waste.”
Kraven scoffed. “Drop everything and try to find gray-girl’s soul so she’s not the next one to melt into a puddle of sludge?”