Page 90 of Tempest’s Torment

I keep moving, the phone is pressed so tightly to my ear it hurts. I make it down another floor. Almost there, but then I freeze.

"Lilah."

I stop and everything inside me turns to ice. Not because I don't recognize the voice, but because I do. I haven't heard it since Connecticut, I haven't wanted to hear it since the cabin. Since Lucy.

Slowly, I look down and see Evan standing at the bottom of the fire escape.

He smiles. "Hello, Lilah."

My fingers clamp around the railing, and Kai is saying something through the phone, but I can't hear him. All I can hear is Lucy screaming and all I can see is blood, the knife, and her hand reaching for mine.

When you get out of here, live enough for both of us.

"Lilah?"

Kai, God, I suck in a breath. "Evan."

Silence, but when Kai speaks, his voice has changed, harder, darker, angrier. "Get back inside."

I look toward the window above me where smoke pours through it now. "I can't."

"Lilah, listen to me. Do not go down another fucking step."

Evan's smile widens and then he moves slightly to the side, revealing Jinx. He's on his knees against the wall, blood covers one side of his face, his hands are behind his back and there's a man standing behind him with a gun pressed against his head.

Oh God. "Jinx."

His head lifts. "Lilah, don't."

Evan looks up at me. "Come down."

"Fuck you."

He laughs. "Still got that mouth."

"Kai—"

"I'm here."

Evan looks at Jinx and then at me. "Come down, Lilah."

"No."

The man behind Jinx presses the gun harder against his head and Jinx closes his eyes. "Don't fucking do it," he says.

My stomach twists as Evan sighs. "You always did make everything difficult."

"Let him go."

"You come down, he walks away."

"Lilah, no." Kai's voice is hard in my ear. "You stay exactly where you are."

I look at Jinx. Blood drips from his chin onto his cut. He came here because of me, he's hurt because of me, and I know what a gun sounds like when it goes off in a small space, Omen taught me how to use a gun. I know what it looks like when someone you love stops breathing in front of you.

I can't do it again. I can't watch another person die.

"Lilah." Kai knows; I hear it in his voice. "Don't."