Demons and Kings

Chapter 13

Memphis was panicking. Eyes wide, fingers digging into my arm with enough force to bruise, his nails tearing at my skin once, twice as his hand slipped and he had to reach out to stop me from tripping over the edge along with my mind.

Distantly, some small detached part of me thought that his reaction was rather unfair. Where I was numb keening shock, he was quick paced action. Ready to help, to do something – anything to right the wrong that had just happened. Shouldn't that be me?He was still calling my name, over and over because I couldn't hear him. I couldn't have answered even if I had wanted to.

My skin felt cold, my limbs like lead, and I could hardly concentrate over the sound of someone screaming. For a second, I thought it was Carol – that it was the same terrified sound she had made as she tumbled off the ledge, one I was sure would haunt me. It was only after the stinging pain of Memphis' hand crossing my cheek did I realize the sound had been coming from me, loud and unending and out of control.

I stopped, choking on it as the pain brought with it a startling moment of clarity. One where I could fight off the irrationality and breathe and think, just for a second, that it was going to be okay, that the fall hadn't been high enough to kill her on impact and she knew how to swim, so all I had to do was follow the current and she'd be there. But it was still just a moment, and I was reluctant to fight against the other emotions that were currently threatening to drown me.

Just like Carol probably - most likely - was.

"Evelyn."

Warm breath was puffing against the side of my neck, ragged and shallow. The press of his jewelry on my flushed skin was cold and I shook against him, tremors I couldn't make stop no matter how hard I tried. He was dragging me away from where Carol had fallen, unrelenting in his grip about my waist. But I wasn't moving, I didn't want to. I struggled against him, trying in vain to dig my heels into flat stone, to look over the edge again for a flash of blonde hair I knew I wouldn't see. I knew I wouldn't see. I knew. I knew. I knew.

Not once had she broken the surface, or come up for air, not once. The water wasn't shallow enough to have sent her crashing to the bottom, not with how quickly the Nile had begun to flood, and the current while strong, was not debilitating.

She had wanted to go home. Oh god.More than anything, more than I myself had wanted too. She would either be found further down the river... or she wouldn't be found at all.My stomach rolled at the admission and I bit back a gag. It was all my fault, Ryan had been telling me for years how... delicate Carol was. Or was it temperamental? My mind wandered again to the fits she would throw, to the one that got us here.

Memphis turned me to face him, a hand tangling in the hair at the back of my neck as he tilted my head to look into my red-rimmed eyes. "Evelyn, we will find her."

He sounded so concerned and desperate it was almost sweet. His hand at the back of my head was gentle, fingers massaging my scalp in small circles that eased my nerves and left me a limp, sad, sobbing mess. It was nice I supposed, and it was so unlike him. Although to claim I knew him at all was a stretch within itself.

Either way, I was suddenly exhausted, and my struggles tapered off to quiet compliance. He sighed, a great burst of air that ruffled my hair and brushed a knuckle against my cheek, wiping away a tear. My absolute lack of composure had clearly thrown him for a loop, enough so that his usually abrasive personality had all but vanished, leaving something altogether softer in its place. It was a nice change, and I spent a dazed second looking at him in utter disbelief. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if maybe he felt different, for he certainly looked the same. It was just too difficult to believe that such a strong shift of character in so short a time wouldn't leave a visible mark.