Within These Wicked Walls(89)

“Why?” was all I asked.

“In case I can’t finish.”

He knotted it off, but his hands were shaking. I took the needle from him to thread it with the final color.

I yelped at a knocking on the door, jolting my heart. Now that we had a moment to breathe in the thick of battle … I was terrified. Not of death itself, but of leaving everyone behind where I couldn’t look out for them. Of not saying everything. Not doing enough.

“I love you, Jember,” I blurted.

“Don’t get emotional,” he said, taking the needle back to work. “We’re almost done.”

“I wanted to say it, in case I die.”

“You’re not going to die. Keep your head, Andromeda.”

There was a loud snap as the solid wood door cracked a little.

“You called me your daughter earlier,” I said, as the door cracked again. “Did you mean it?”

The door flew open, breaking and sending splinters flying as it slammed against the heavy desk.

“Not now,” Jember said, his voice tight.

Again, and the desk legs screeched against the floor.

“Did you?” I asked quickly.

Again.

“Yes, I meant it,” he said.

Again, but this time the hyena’s snout could fit through the space in the door.

“Then I love you, Jember. You’re my father, and you’ve done what you could. That’s all I could ever ask for.”

Jember was a despicable excuse for a human sometimes. But he took care of me, cared about me, in his own way. And if I was going to die, I wanted it to be for the boy I loved, for the girl I called friend, and for my father, not for a man I resented for withholding love from me.

Besides, his effort to keep me alive was love, if that’s all we had.

And that’s all we had.

So, I would love him, because love made me braver … and I would die brave, if nothing else.

The hyena snaked through the opening and rushed toward us, colliding with the shield I had nailed on the wall. Jember worked, without acknowledgment to anything, as the hyena broke the shield closer and closer. I couldn’t tell which amulet it was trying to work against, the one on the wall or Jember’s. But it was getting closer far too quickly.

And the amulet didn’t feel finished.

“Only a few loops left,” he said. “Get ready to take over.”

“Let me fight it,” I said. “You have no energy.”

“With what weapon? Use your head, girl.” I looked around quickly, my heart constricting. Oh God. I’d forgotten to grab the bat again after I’d pried the amulet off the wall.

The hyena rammed us and Jember winced as he handed me the needle. He didn’t have much shield left. “Finish it. I don’t need energy to shield you.”

“Shield me?” My heart dropped into my stomach. “Jember, no—!”

The hyena rushed, a dark swift shadow, and I knew in my heart the next time it charged the shield would shatter. There was no time for anything else. I had to finish this.

Two loops.

Jember’s body canopied me into the corner, his forearms resting on either wall.

Another.

I heard claws on wood and a savage sound. Jember cried out in pain and my fingers faltered. “No,” I begged, but no one was listening to me. He whimpered and huddled over me, blocking out the light, but I could still hear the clawing and tearing, Jember panting over me, my own heart sprinting, splats of liquid on the hardwood.

But I could also sense the last two loops.

Jember screamed again just as I finished one, and his body moved to let in more light. It was only a second, a breath. But I saw the hyena’s green eyes glint at me, even as its jaws were sunk securely into Jember’s side. It threw Jember across the room, and I leaped up and ran to the desk, climbing on top of it, watching it the entire time. I saw blood drip from its mouth. Saw it charge at me.

One more loop, Andi.

Saw it leap—

I knotted the last loop and screamed as a body slammed into me, arms wrapping me tight. I caught my hand on the desk, staring at a naked chest.

A chest. A human chest.

“You did it,” Magnus’s beautiful voice whispered, trembling with relief.

I wrapped my arms around him, and then shoved him away abruptly, remembering where I was.

Remembering where Jember was.

Saba had put herself together and come in sometime—I had never processed when among the chaos. She had a cloth bundled at the wound on Jember’s side, but already I could tell it was soaked. I tore off my sweater as I ran to Jember, dropped to my knees, and pressed it over the wound with both hands.

“Finish the job,” he said through gritted teeth.

“The Evil Eye’s not going anywhere.”

“Exactly. You have to bar it from coming back.” His gloved hand grabbed mine, trying to remove them. “There’s no point.”

“You’re not dying.” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, and it immediately crushed my adrenaline, the wall that had been blocking everything but survival giving way. I could feel tears burning the backs of my eyes, my hands trembling as I pressed. “You can’t die.”

“If you’re going to leave the area, make sure you get the chest of supplies from home, first.”