The Grim (Ravens #3)

xxvii. convoluted neverland

Skylar Jordan was seated outside against the back entrance of the motel room, the radio connecting her to her home city in her left hand, her elbow propped against her bent knee, and a gun behind her back. Since Sebastian's attack, the group had been beyond cautious of letting anyone out on their own, but by the mid-afternoon the following day, she needed to speak with President Emilia Grey. For almost two hours now she'd been out in the fresh May air, banging her head against the wall to finish the negotiation process.

    However, when she saw three figures approaching, their bodies silhouetted by the sunset, she scrambled to her knees, tightening her grip around the pistol. Whatever the president had just said missed her completely as her heart began to race.

    "Ms. Grey," she said, "Hang on one second." She slowly rose to a standing position as the trio seemed to slow down at the same pace as all the world around her. When they finally neared, however, she let out an audible sigh of relief, for it was only Donny, Emma, and Ezra. While she only trusted one person in that whole crowd, she knew that everything was relative, and that the latter two were a far more welcome sight than she'd suspected.

    "Is that Grey?" Donny asked, nodding to the radio in her hand.

    "Yeah," she nodded, and then turned to Emma. The girl's hood was drawn up, casting shadows over her face, but Skylar could have sworn that it was covered in bruises that mirrored her brother's. "I take it you won?"

    "I did what I had to," she said, her voice far too casual for a person who'd just murdered another. There was a reason that Emma Harlem put Skylar on edge; no one else could be so cold.

"Why did you come here? Aren't they tracking you?"

At this, Emma straightened her spine and Skylar could tell that under the shadows covering her face, her eyes were gleaming in the hazy light. She lifted up the sleeve on her left arm, revealing a blood-soaked gauze bandage. "Not anymore."

Skylar's eyes widened, transitioning from the injury to her confident posture. "You're actually insane, aren't you?"

Again, she shrugged. "I did what I had to."

    "Go inside," Skylar sighed, shaking her head in disbelief that such drastic measures could be taken while maintaining such a twisted display of nonchalance. "Your brother's gonna want to see you."

    With Emma's hand already on the doorknob, Ezra turned to Skylar. "Nobody's made any moves against you since last night, right?"

    "No," she said. "Were they supposed to?" She of course noticed the short conversation played between the eyes of the prisoners of the city, although she couldn't make anything of what they said. Ezra simply assured her that they hadn't heard of any new plots against them, but she couldn't help but think he was covering up a much larger story.

    Skylar didn't follow the group inside, as she did have to return to her conversation with her president, but listened for just a brief moment to the audible sighs of relief when the group saw that both Donny and Emma had returned from the battle.

    Inside, when the trio entered the room that was painfully too small for the eight people it would now entail on a regular basis, they were met at first with what felt like a momentary silence that broke within the first second. When his eyes landed on his sister, whatever aches and pains still plagued Sebastian's body disappeared, and with a surge of adrenaline he bounded to the girl, drawing her close, a gesture which she returned.

    "I thought you were gone," he whispered as his right hand pulled down her hood. There was no hiding the truth now, no pretending the scars on her face or the dark black eye did not exist. But Sebastian's eyes were closed, and for that she was thankful.