Haunt (Regenerate #5)

Chapter 21

I jolt awake. Immediately, I take in my surroundings, trying to gauge how long I've been gone. Anthony and the knife guy are still where I left them.

"I expected that to take longer." It's the drawling voice of the mercenary.

"How long?" I ask. It's a little weird to me that they're still exactly where I left them. It felt like I was gone for hours.

"About fifteen minutes," the mercenary says. "If you're wondering why I haven't killed your friend, I wanted to see how this would play out. If Nightmare is stuck wherever it is he goes, then there's no one to pay me. Seems like it would render killing him useless."

"Thanks, I guess." I glance over at Nightmare, who's slumped over against the wall. His eyes are glossed over, unblinking.

The mercenary gives me a wry smile. "I suspect I'll be seeing you again."

He turns on his heel and leaves. If Anthony wasn't still bleeding out, I'd go after him.

"You got out," Anthony says.

"You got stabbed."

"About that... Maybe you could see if Lorna's finished up with what she's doing? I could use her medical expertise."

"You can't use her com?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "It's offline."

"Sorry." Lorna has appeared in the doorway. "Com got caught in the crossfire. What happened to you?"

"Got stabbed and was basically useless," Anthony says.

Lorna starts examining the wound as I go round up some of the non-powered members of the House of Night. Just as I've knocked up the last one, I hear somebody enter behind me. I spin around, ready to attack, but it's just Jess.

He surveys the limp bodies on the floor. Probably people he knows. He doesn't seem to care, though.

"You got him," he says. "You beat Nightmare."

I feel sick to my stomach, thinking how I did it. I just nod in response.

"How did you do it?" he asks. It sounds like he's trying to be unaffected by it all, but not really succeeding.

"Manipulation," I say. "I threatened the one thing he cared about. You. Not that I meant it."

"Doesn't matter," Jess's tone says that he's done talking about it. "You did what you had to."

"So what's next for you?" I ask instead.

He shrugs.

"You have useful powers," I say. "We could probably find something for you to do on our team."

"I'm done being used," Jess says.

"That's not what I meant..." I start to say, but he's already blinked out of sight. Despite the threats I made in Nightmare's realm. I'm not sure I could actually take him down, even if I wanted to.

Mia coms me a moment later to say that Mark is stable and we're ready to head back to base. I hadn't realized how tense I was until she'd said those words and suddenly I could relax.

He's going to be okay.

He's going to be okay.