Sweat blurred my vision, and I couldn’t see beyond my attackers and the pile of carcasses at my feet. They kept coming, and I kept getting more tired.
I barely blocked a swing. The edge of an enchanted sword sliced down the outside of my thigh, and I screamed.
Lunging, I decapitated the infected and killed the ungodly as it emerged.
But another infected appeared in its place.
Again.
Another infected appeared.
“Wake up, Sadie!” I screamed desperately, but there wasn’t so much as a twitch from the legs I bumped against as I fought.
Tears of frustration poured down my face because if she’d died, it was my fault. I’d killed her by knocking her out.
I sobbed as I fought.
Gasped for air around body-shaking sobs.
A sword swung low and cut shallowly across my shins—I didn’t react quick enough. As I collapsed to my knees, I focused on my shoulder muscles.
Wings exploded.
My shirt was covered in cuts and provided no resistance. It fluttered off me in shreds. Left hand swinging the sword to block blows that rained down from above, I clumsily grabbed a feather with my numb right hand. With every ounce of will I possessed, I ripped it off.
It burned like a motherfucker.
With no precision or accuracy, I flung the feather into the crowd. An infected screamed, and I took it as a good sign. I ripped another feather and did it again.
Again.
And again.
Bodies screamed as everything blurred.
Sweat mixed with tears, and I grabbed the brick wall to hoist my body up. A last-ditch effort. The final stalwart defense that my friend deserved.
I didn’t move.
My wings were too heavy.
Lying back against Sadie’s body, wings spread wide—a fallen angel who’d never gotten to fly—I dropped the sword and ripped at my feathers with both hands.
Flung them at the faceless bodies.
I knew in my gut that it was the end; there was nothing to analyze. No strategy left. I prayed they’d eat my heart, because I couldn’t live in a world without Sadie.
I hiccuped between gasps.
Tears streamed down my face as I flung feathers blindly.
In the end, I wasn’t strong enough; in the end, all the power in the world wasn’t enough to save us.
Please sun god, save Sadie. Take me instead, the world needs her lightness. I sobbed. The world doesn’t need any more darkness, and that’s all I can give. It needs her. So badly. She has so much goodness to offer. She’s too pure to end like this. I need her. Tears blinded me. I need her so fucking badly. I can’t live without her. I can’t. Please.
I wrenched a feather off my wing and flung it.
It clattered across the floor.
Shadows descended.
All around.
Hallucinating, I imagined the ground quaking beneath me. Portraits rattled as they fell off the walls, bricks rained down as the ceiling opened up, and a divine figure dropped from above.
The shadows turned toward the figure.
They stopped ascending.
I blinked.
I wasn’t imagining it.
The monsters had really turned around.
Before I could be grateful, a heinous sound, too unimaginable for words, made every muscle in my body seize in agony. I was paralyzed by it.
Then it stopped.
Blessed relief flooded through me, and I gasped for air. Sadie was limp and warm beneath me.
I blinked, blurry vision clearing.
A handful of infected and ungodly stood in the center of the room, and all of them were frozen still with their mouths open wide as their eyes danced with a strange kaleidoscope of colors.
I’d never seen anything like it.
A soft voice chanted.
I pressed shaking fingers to my eyes and dragged them away, but the scene remained.
I rolled off Sadie and crawled forward on my hands and knees through piles of substances I refused to think about. My heavy wings trailed behind me like a downed butterfly’s.
Head lifted high, I squinted as I peered between the legs of the infected.
I stopped.
Immediately I wished I hadn’t crawled forward, because now the image was burned into my memory.
Jinx was crumpled on the floor in a pile of bricks, and her one arm was dislocated at a horrible angle—but that wasn’t the scary part.
Her sunglasses were off, and her eyes glazed pure black.
Her one hand was outstretched, fingers bent in different broken directions as she pointed at the frozen figures and chanted, “Anima tua est mori.”
A gold cuff glowed brightly on her other wrist like it was leaking sunshine.
Light illuminated the mangled bodies that covered the floor, and the temperature in the already warm room skyrocketed.