Void(108)

“They know,” he said quietly, his eyes on the tarmac ahead. “We will come get you once it’s safe. Go, Devicka.”

I took one last lingering look at him. I memorized the angular shape of his face. His sharp jaw. The haunted look in his eyes. Then I turned and walked away. And I left my heart behind.





Chapter 28





Two months later.



My fingers dug into the hard rock, gripping the grooves as my feet landed on another shelf of the mountain. Sweat poured down my face as the wind whipped my pale blonde hair around me. I’d been climbing every day since arriving on this damn island. It was the only thing that made my restless soul feel at ease.

I reached for the next groove while situating my feet. I didn’t have a harness. I knew it was reckless, but I couldn’t stand the thing. I just wanted to feel free. I was still half risk demon, after all.

Clouds overhead cast shadows on the side of the mountain, and I could hear the waves of the ocean down below. One slip could send me plummeting to its depths. Normally, a risk like this would send my entire body into bliss. But not anymore. It was a dull exhilaration.

Since arriving on the island, Dad had worked overtime to get me to feel again. It was the most time we’d spent together in the last decade. Bike races through the curved road circling the island. Cliff diving off into stormy waves. Reed didn’t understand my need to feel the adrenaline, and had to purposely clamp a hand over his mouth every time I took on a new risk.

Two months.

Two damn months of waiting without word.

Two damn months without my bonded— Well, they weren’t my bonded anymore. Without my Void, the magic binding us together had disappeared too. The doubts inside of me kept piling up. What if as time went by, they realized that they didn’t want me anymore now that my power was gone? Maybe the only thing that had been pulling them to me was my magic and nothing else. Now that I was powerless, maybe the attraction had disappeared for them. They might have moved on, agreed to leave me behind on this island for the rest of my life.

My hope that I’d see them soon had dissolved into a sadness I couldn’t cope with. I missed them. I still wanted them. The connection I felt toward them wasn’t just based on power. Somehow, I’d come to care for them apart from that. But it was too fucking late, and they didn’t feel the same.

My foot slipped at the next step, but I dug my toes in, keeping my weight balanced on the lip of the rock and braced my palms on the nearest handheld. The wind froze the tips of my ears and nose. My nails were all jagged, my fingers calloused. It was fitting, considering that was how my heart felt.

By the time I reached the top of the mountain and hauled myself over, my lungs were working overtime to get me much needed air. I laid back on the hard, rocky peak, letting my eyes squint up at the dying light.

“This is the fifth time this week,” a sudden voice said. I would’ve flinched if I hadn’t gotten used to my dad always popping up lately wherever I was.

I sat up, dragging my jellied legs under me. “I might not have supernatural powers anymore, but I’m still your kid,” I told him, yanking out my hair tie and brushing out the tangles with my fingers before tying it back again.

My dad looked completely out of place up here on the mountaintop with his Armani suit and slicked back hair. But to my surprise, he sat down on a rock next to me, even if he did look at the dust with a bit of distaste.

“This isn’t because of your risk blood, daughter,” he said, his eyes scanning the view. We were so high up that I’d passed some clouds along the way.

“I don’t know, I’d say this was a pretty big risk,” I said dryly as I pulled the water bottle from my pack and drank from it generously.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”

I swallowed hard, but the water turned to rocks in my throat. “Tell me,” I said, my voice barely loud enough over the wind.

“The transition went well. Better than I expected, but the paragons planned for everything, it seems. They knew where they needed to gain loyalty, and they did it. Their smear campaign against the old council members worked. The four of them took their final positions today.”

I felt a mix of pride and despair at hearing that. Since I’d been here, my dad had kept me up-to-date on what they’d been doing. Two months was all it had taken to calm down the masses and get them on their side. The paragons had revealed what Judge Braxton and the council members had planned to do with amassing power. Nobody took kindly to that. Supers didn’t like hearing that their leaders were planning on draining the powers of others to take for themselves. Now, the paragons weren’t paragons anymore; they were the council members. Judge Braxton was dead, the ex-council members had been exiled to a human life, and I was still here, clinging to a rocky reality.

“That’s...good,” I choked out, though it sounded more like a question.

That just confirmed the doubts I’d been having. Because if everything was settled, that meant that they really had left me here. They didn’t plan to come back at all. And why would they? Without the bond of our powers, they’d have no desire to come for me.

“Don’t look so sad, Devi,” he chided. He knew I was devastated by the broken bond, but talking guy problems with my dad wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do, no matter how free-spirited he was.