ColorBlind (Book #2 of S.H.A.D.E.) ✔

Reunited

11.

First, I leave Jade resting outside by the door, and pray that the parameter of the house, which is concealed by a patch of trees, is clear of any more Demons.

Then I move as quickly as I can through the house, letting Copper's tormented screams guide me his way. I am frantic. I want to make his agony stop.

I run full tilt down the hall, the horrible sound coming from a door to my left. Resisting the urge to bust through into the room, I lean against the door, pressing my ear to the wood in an effort to make sense of what is happening on the other side and how I should respond. Copper cries out again, ending in pants that sound exhausted from constant pain and screaming.

"Now look at that. You have none left." My jaw clenches as I recognize that voice, but hear it in a completely new way. A sick way, a morbidly pleased way.

It's Danny, and I'm gonna kill him.

"I could start on your toenails this time, but you're tougher than I thought, for a pretty boy," he continues. "So I guess we'll start removing extremities. How attached are you to your fingers, Copper?" He ends in dark laughter.

I still have the gun from the other Demon. I take it out of my waistband and take it off safety.

"Fuck you," Copper pants, his voice slurred.

"Come on man, just tell us all you know about S.H.A.D.E., about Ebony. Then you can forget any of this happened," he snickers, "literally."

"Let Ebony leave. She's nothing special," Copper says. "She was a nightmare to work with."

"She cleared six floors of Demons back at the Kenway. That's pretty damn special. Come on, I know she's hot, but not losing your fingernails hot!"

"Shut up."

"No, no, I get it man. Some nights, I thought about her over there in the apartment next to me. Sometimes I listened to the shower running... you know how it is-- temptation? And what could she do to fend me off?"

I never felt so utterly repulsed in all my life.

"You piece of living shit! You fucking stay away from her!" Copper spits, and I hear him struggling against whatever is constraining him.

Danny clicks his tongue, enjoying Copper's anger. "Maybe, if you don't tell me everything right now, I'll go down to that basement and show her what it's like to be with a Demon."

I kick the door open, stare Danny in the eye, and put a bullet straight into his brain.

His body jerks as it falls, and he lands in a heap on the floor beside Copper, who is tied up to a chair that looks like it should be in a dental office.

His face is completely swollen and discolored from bruising, his lips split and bloody, and he is missing his fingernails.

I gasp when I see him, choking on a sob. I rush over and start wrenching the restraints off his arms and legs, my shaking hands making the task difficult. When he is free I take his face into my hands and examine it all over.

"Ebony, it's okay," he says, like I am the one that should be comforted.

I turn around and stomp and kick at Danny's corps, pissed off and still reeling from disgust at his words.

Copper restrains me and pulls me into a hug, and I finally notice that I am hyperventilating in my rage.

"It's okay, it's okay." he kisses the top of my head, a gesture that finally balms my wrath. I let myself sink into him and circle my arms around his waist, doing my best to get it together for him.

In his arms, I feel every injury, every reminder of these awful past hours, but I can't imagine what hell he's just been through. "We need to wrap up your hands and patch up your face." I marvel at the calmness of my voice.

"No time. We're leaving now. There are others, and they will return soon." He lets me go, but takes my hand instead, moving us towards the door.

And then I remember Jade.

"Copper," I say, but he continues to hurry me down the hall with his pace. "Copper, wait!"

"We have to get out of here," he repeats, looking at me incredulously.

"There's something I have to tell you!"

"Ebony, it can wait!" he insists as we reach the living room, him hustling me to the door that will take us out of this place.

"It's about Jade!" I yell, but I am too late.

Copper opens the door, and there she is, just coming to, on the step in front of him.

The hand holding mine starts to tremor wildly, and I watch his eyes grow wider and wider with realization.

She looks up, first in half-recognition of his busted up face, but then her own features erupt in the same paralyzing realization.

Her lips part, as if to speak, but a sound of relief flies out of them instead and she stands, moving to him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

He drops my hand.