Slayer(92)

But Cillian would pay the price. And I can’t leave him. Not if there’s a chance I can still save him. Mustering my will, I push aside all my Slayer instincts, quiet the fierce rush in my blood, and put my lips on Cillian’s. My lungs breathe for both of us. I hold back as much of my strength as I can to push gently on his ribs, reminding his heart—his wonderful heart—what it’s supposed to do.

“Please,” I whisper, forcing air into his lungs.

The silence in the room is deafening.

And then, finally, Cillian’s breath answers. He coughs violently, putting a hand to his chest.

“What—oh, my ribs.”

“Cillian!” I throw my arms around him, and he cries out in pain. “I’m so sorry!” I sit back, giving him space. “Your heart stopped. I had to do CPR.”

Rhys kneels next to us, taking Cillian’s hand in his own. “You were dead,” he whispers.

“No wonder I’m racked. It’s exhausting being dead.” Cillian closes his eyes and squeezes Rhys’s hand. “I really like being alive.” He coughs again, then cringes. “I think my ribs are broken.”

“That’s common after CPR.” I stare guiltily at the carpet. “It wasn’t because I’m strong. I was careful.”

A hand takes mine. Rhys pulls me in for a hug. He’s trembling. “Thank you.”

“I— Artemis!” I race down the stairs. The back window is shattered. I go through the door, running out into the yard.

Artemis jumps back down from the fence, sword hanging at her side. “I lost it,” she says.

“So there was a demon.” I don’t mean to be relieved—it’s terrible news—but it means my instincts, again, were right.

“Yeah. And we might have caught it if I hadn’t had to do it alone.”

I wince at the harshness in her voice. “Cillian was dead, Artemis. He was dead. And if I hadn’t hung back, he would have stayed that way.”

She drops the sword at my feet. “It wasn’t the right decision. Now that demon is out there, and obviously it knows about us. Knows about you.”

“How can you even say that saving Cillian wasn’t the right call?”

“Because you’re not a Watcher. You’re not a nurse or a medic. You’re a Slayer. And if you don’t figure out how to make hard choices, you’ll fail just like I did. Only all my failure did was screw up my whole life. Your failure? Means a demon is now running free. Your failures mean people die.”

I shake my head, confused and hurt. “What do you mean, just like you failed?”

Artemis folds her arms. “The Watcher test. The reason why I’m the castle errand girl instead of a full Watcher-in-training, like I should have been.”

“You never told me about it.”

“Because I didn’t want you to know!” Artemis paces, prowling in a tight circle around the sword on the ground. “They put us under a spell. But it felt real. I was absolutely sure it was all happening. And I had a choice. The choice was to save the world—or to save you. And I chose you.” She stops. Her shoulders, always so straight, slump. “I chose you, because how could I not? I saw your face when Mom took me instead of you. I could never bear to see that again. And how could they make me a Watcher knowing that, in the face of the hardest, most impossible choice, where only one option is right, I’d choose the selfish one?”

I’m so touched that she chose me and so horrified that she had to. And so angry that they put her through that, that choosing her family meant she lost the future she should have had.

I reach out to her. “Artemis, I—”

She shrugs my hand away and wipes under her eyes. I’m glad it’s dark. I’ve never seen her cry, and I know she wouldn’t want me to. “I can’t protect you anymore. You don’t need me to. And after everything I did, everything I gave to the Watchers, I haven’t been good enough, ever. I’m not a Watcher, and I’m not a Slayer. I’m too selfish.”

“It wasn’t selfish of you, Artemis. You love me. I love you. I’d choose you too.”

“Don’t you get it? You can’t! If you choose people you love over everything else, more people will die. And you probably will too. You have to be a better Slayer! You have to be the best one!”

“You didn’t even want me to be a Slayer!”

Artemis shakes her head. “You can’t give it up, though. And I can’t stop whatever’s going to come for you. I’m not strong enough. I chose you over the world and I’m terrified that I’m still going to have to watch you die. Slayers die. Nina, I’m going to lose you.”

She leans against the fence, sobbing. I run to her and put my arms around her. “You’re not. You’re not going to lose me.” All her anger, all her bossiness, her weird shifts between pretending I’m not a Slayer and demanding I be one. It’s because she’s been absolutely terrified this whole time. I don’t know what to say.

“Promise me,” she says, still shaking. “I don’t care about the world. Just promise me that if it’s between saving anyone else and saving yourself, you’ll save yourself. Please.”

“Artemis, I—”

“Promise me!” she shouts, no longer crying.