The Demon's Scion

Chapter 46 ⁓ Need You

"What is it?" Hannah breathes, rising. She's close to hyperventilating. Kane looks shaken, and that means whatever has happened is bad. She can't fathom why, after everything they've been through and survived, she'd begun to think of them as invincible.

Kane's in full gear. Leather jacket, boots—the only thing he's missing is his sword. "The fucking moron..." 

He embraces her, and Hannah gasps softly, crying and not understanding why—just that Kane's trembling, and it's scaring her.

He tells her everything that's happened while she slept unaware.

In the kitchen, Reid had taken her hands and danced with her. His blue eyes were full of an emotion that left an ache in her heart, but she didn't know what. Now she knows it was guilt and fear he was carrying.

Because Reid did something so stupid, she wants to punch him, but also heroically self-sacrificing. It's the only way that they'd save Francine in time—they only have days and aren't a step closer to finding a way to Shadow Peaks and Azrael. Tonight showed that. They had the crystal, but that's all.

They've been stuck playing Azrael's game. Every step forward they've taken has been by that monster's hand.

Hannah sits on the edge of the bed. She looks at the letter in her hand, the paper shaking.

Kane refuses to relax, pacing with heavy stomps of his boots and constantly running his hands through his hair restlessly. It's making her nerves even worse, but she knows it's his way of doing something when he can't. The urge to fight must be overwhelming for him to hold back.

Hannah asks tightly, "Have you read it?"

Kane scoffs. "Skimmed." He exhales shakily, pacing. "I was...angry."

"Do you want me to read it aloud?"

Kane finally stops his endeavour to scruff the planks of the floor with the indents of his boot soles. He leans his lower back against the edge of the desk and nods.

Hannah reads the letter aloud: "Yes. I'm aware that I'm an idiot. You're going to kick my ass, yada, yada." She lifts the paper gingerly. "It literally has written, yada, yada."

Kane doesn't reply, continuing to glare holes into the drapery of the closed window.

Hannah clears her throat. Looking back to the paper and concentrating on the handwritten words past the blur of tears that's overtaking her eyes. "I know threats of violence are your way of saying I love you."

Hannah smiles tearily at Kane's snort, because it's true. She continues, "I tried to think of alternatives. There's none. Azrael has a month on us, and every day that passes, he's building his army. Alma's our only hope of getting to the monster before he's unstoppable."

Breath hitching, Hannah looks up, and Kane's staring at her, green eyes miserable. Reid's right. Neither of them can deny that. But couldn't he see that he wasn't worth this sacrifice?

She looks back at the letter, heart heavy, and continues, her voice cracking slightly, "Alma won't give me to Azrael. Not for at least a day. He hates me, and he'll take the opportunity to show me just how deep that dislike goes. Now, all you have to do is find me, and we'll have Alma and everything he's hiding."

She squints at the bottom of the page, where the nice penmanship has been written smaller with obvious haste. "Hurry, I'll never forgive you for letting that Pond scum break me."

Hannah laughs in disbelief, lowering the letter to her lap. She has tears streaming down her cheeks. "He's such a dork." She lifts her gaze, and Kane's staring at her with closed-off coldness. "What are we going to do?"