The Devouring Gray(59)

His mother found them eventually—some of the nearby houses had heard screams—and she took them both away. By then, Justin’s fingers had been scraped raw from trying to break Isaac’s shackles.

Later, Augusta had told him that the Sullivans’ ritual was a bloodletting, a test of strength and fortitude that proved they deserved their powers. But something had gone wrong during Isaac’s ritual. Four Sullivans, including two of Isaac’s brothers, were dead. Their bodies had been disintegrated to ashes and charred bones—nothing else was left. And his mother was in a coma.

Within weeks, the remaining Sullivans were gone. They left Isaac behind, signed over to Augusta.

Justin accepted the truth his mother had told him, and yet there was another truth, too, in the scar on Isaac’s neck, in the evidence he had seen that horrible night.

The other Sullivans had scars on their shoulders, on their chests, on their backs.

You did not draw a knife across someone’s throat as a test of fortitude.



“Get away from him,” Justin said, stepping between Pete and Theo.

Isaac sagged on the ground beside them. Justin had a brief flash of concern that he might be unconscious.

“If you’re supposed to protect us,” said Pete venomously, “why does it seem like he’s all you care about?”

And then his fist was swinging toward Justin’s face, and Justin realized, too late, that being a founder wasn’t going to protect him this time.

That being a founder made him a target.

The punch connected with Justin’s jaw, jerking his head backward, sending a splash of spots before his eyes as he reeled from the impact. And it was only then, as Justin stumbled into the wall, that Isaac’s eyes snapped open.

Isaac grinned. “Bad move.”

Pete’s and Theo’s eyes widened as Isaac unfolded, his arms and legs spreading toward the ceiling like bits of ink spilling across a canvas. He was still wearing his apron.

“Run,” Justin said to them.

Yet the boys just stood there as the air around Isaac’s hands began to shimmer. Within moments, the entire Diner was glowing; a maelstrom of reds and blues and purples bouncing off broken plates in violent, fragmented patterns. Isaac stepped in front of Justin, his outstretched arms shielding his friend. Pete and Theo exchanged confused glances, their eyes shifting uneasily between the boy in front of them and the door behind them.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Justin bellowed. “Run!”

But he was too late. Isaac’s hands clamped around the boys’ wrists. The screaming started a second later, as first Pete, then Theo, fell to their knees, howling.

Justin stared, horrified.

Words would not help him here. And all he could think of was what Theo had said: Maybe it’s you we need protection from.

He could not let this happen.

He sidestepped Isaac’s arms, wincing at the sight of Pete’s and Theo’s skin flaking away from their hands, and stepped into the center of the shimmering air.

“What the hell are you doing?” snarled Isaac, his voice barely audible over the screams.

Justin reached forward and closed his hand around Isaac’s exposed forearm.

The heat felt good at first, like basking in the sun. But quickly, the warmth became unbearable on his nose and cheeks. Yet Justin did not flinch. He did not move. He kept his eyes locked on Isaac’s until his friend’s gaze flickered away, and the room around them snapped abruptly back to darkness.

Isaac would die before he hurt him. Justin knew that the way he knew his own name, the way he knew how to breathe.

Pete and Theo collapsed to the ground, wailing at the stripes of raw flesh on their wrists, but a quick glance in their direction told Justin that their injuries were just surface wounds. Isaac hadn’t reached muscle.

Justin was still holding Isaac’s arm. He let go, stepped back. Isaac’s eyes flickered down to their broken grip, then back up to him, his expression strangely disappointed.

“Get out,” Isaac told Pete and Theo roughly. They scrambled to their feet and bolted, urine dribbling down Theo’s leg.

Justin and Isaac were left alone in the ruins of the Diner, staring at each other.

“He called you Prince Charming,” Isaac said finally, when the silence between them had gone on for far too long.

“What?”

“Pete. Prince Charming. You. Isn’t it interesting that they think you’re the one who always saves everybody?”

Justin kicked at a bit of broken glass. “Well. Don’t I?”

Isaac tugged the ever-present book out of his back pocket, shaking his head at the singed pages.

“I’m not some charity case with a tragic past that you have to keep out of trouble,” he said, brandishing the novel like a weapon.

“And I’m not some weak kid you have to babysit.”

“I never said—”

“Neither did I.”

This was how it was between them now, how it had been since Justin had failed his ritual. A constant struggle for who was the saved and who was the savior, reversal after reversal. Each time their roles flipped, Justin could feel himself trying a little less hard to pull Isaac back from the brink.

“So.” Isaac stuck the book back in his pocket and yanked off his apron. “I’m fired, right?”