The Grim (Ravens #3)

xxxi. like hell

A/n: So there are presumably ten chapters left since I redid a lot of the outline. That's not a lot. That's crazy. Also I'm home and have time now so prepare for a lot of updates this weekend because I can. (Take your time getting caught up if you're busy with Easter stuff, I get that.)

Wednesday night found Emma Gail Harlem alone in the assassin's bedroom for the very last time. She sat on the edge of her bed, toes planted into the floor, arms digging into her thighs, and rubbed the metal chip between the fingers on her right hand. It looked so small, that damned piece of technology that kept her prisoner. If she wanted, she could break it. And oh, how she wanted. How she wanted to see the wiring splayed out on her floor, how she wanted to smash it into a million pieces and scream and scream and scream until the device was unrecognizable.

If she broke it, they would know it was no longer attached to her. She wouldn't make it until the morning. And even if she destroyed it then, they would know, and she would never get away.

"Hey," a voice said from the doorway. She didn't have to turn around to know who it was, and didn't have to invite him in for him to enter. She felt the mattress bounce slightly as Ezra took a seat beside her. His callused hand ran over hers, and slid the tracker out of her loose grip. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she whispered, but then corrected herself. "I will be."

"Let's take a walk," Ezra suggested. "Get your mind off of this."

"Tomorrow's a long day. You should sleep."

"I'd say the same to you, but we both know that's not going to happen." At this comment, Emma finally turned to look at him, and her gray eyes softened as they met his. Ezra smiled softly, wrapping his arm around her exposed shoulders. "Besides, if they see the tracker moving tonight, they might be less suspicious in the morning."

"Alright," she nodded, pushing herself off the bed. She opened the small dresser on the opposite wall and dug out a wrinkled jacket from the bottom of the thin pile.

"You haven't worn that since you came here," Ezra noted, recognizing the pleated shoulders on the faux black leather.

She smiled as she slipped her arms through the familiar sleeves, felt the fabric fall in its familiar places. She rolled her shoulders back, and felt her heartbeat pick up. Her eyes gleamed with a defiant spark, a confidence she hadn't realized she'd lost. She had tried to bury all of her past, but in the past week alone stone after stone had been unturned. There was no more hiding, no more running, no more denying. Now she simply was.

"The real Lady Darkness is back, bitch."

With the tracker in her fists, both of which her wedged into the jacket's front pockets, she followed Ezra outside. The cobblestone roads were empty, illuminated by yellow streetlights and the infinite number of stars above. The couple kept their heads down until they came upon a small park bench near one of the only patches of green in the whole grim city. Once they were seated, however, there was no ignoring the heavens, the never-ending display of light pouring down on them from the sky above.

"I thought you hated the stars," Ezra said, drawing the girl in close to him, but gazing up towards the sky.

"I didn't see the point," she sighed. "I thought I could forget everything, separate myself from everyone I've ever known, but I can't. I can't keep ignoring it all."

"You don't have to," he said. "Your past shaped you. You don't have to push it away. All the pain you let manifest inside of you, that's unsustainable. You need that light, Em, that hope. It's an outlet."

"That was always you," she whispered, leaning her head onto his shoulder. She paused, listening to his steady breathing, to the one constant in a world spinning so fast she had come so close to losing all strength to hold on. "You were my hope."