Every Last Breath - Armentrout Jennifer L.. Страница 57

“I think it’s best that you two stay in the car.” Roth turned off the ignition, and then twisted back, eyeing our tagalongs. “Tony is peculiar. We don’t need to piss him off.”

Zayne glanced at the chicken. “You have to bring him a chicken?”

“Eh...” Roth didn’t answer.

“He’s really a kid?” Stacey asked, glancing at the house. A curtain swayed across a window near the door. “Like a kid, kid?”

“Yeah, he’s probably only nine or ten,” I explained, reaching for the door.

“Geez,” murmured Stacey, slowly shaking her head.

“You two going to be okay here?” I hesitated.

Roth snorted. “I’m sure they’ll be just fine.”

I shot him a look, and he turned an innocent stare on me while he reached behind him. “Someone hand me the chicken?”

It was Stacey who handed it over. “This is so weird.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered.

Roth waited for me on the other side of the Mustang, lightly placing his hand on my lower back.

“You feeling okay?” he asked as we stepped through the gate and passed the neatly trimmed bushes.

“Just a little sore,” I admitted, because saying I was 100 percent fine wouldn’t be believable.

Dipping his head, he brushed his lips over my forehead before we climbed the stairs. I glanced back at the car and found that Zayne had not stayed inside as instructed. He was standing beside the car, his back to the house. He was right there, but looking at him felt like I was seeing a recorded image of someone. He was there but not.

The door opened before we knocked, drawing my attention. The faint blue aura faded, revealing Tony’s mother. She was wearing a white cardigan this time, but the pearls I remembered were still clasped around her neck.

“I’m still not happy to see you,” she said.

Roth raised a shoulder. “And I’d say I’m sorry, but I still wouldn’t mean it.”

Good Lord, not this again.

“Let them in,” came the voice from behind the woman.

She stepped aside and there he was. First I saw the white glow around him, brighter than what clung to Zayne. A pure soul, totally rare. The urge I usually felt at seeing a pure soul was minimal, almost forgettable. The boy was all blond curls and had the face of a cherub. He was adorable—with the exception of the white pupils in the middle of his cobalt eyes.

Because those eyes were still freaky.

Tony glanced at the grocery bag Roth held. “Another chicken? Are you serious?”

“Hey. I hear Perdue is the best,” Roth replied.

“And I hear Tyson is not that bad, either.” Sighing, the pint-size seer gestured at his mom. “Take it.”

The woman, who was probably well versed in the bizarreness, took the bag. “It’s Taco Tuesday.

This will have to wait.”

“You bet it will.” The seer motioned us to follow him. The house smelled of pine and apples, making me yearn for Christmas. “You know, you could’ve allowed your friends to come in. Instead they’re out there, being all broody and probably creeping out the neighbors.”

“They’re probably the least creepy thing your neighbors have seen,” Roth pointed out.

“Depends on what you think is creepy, eh?”

I smacked Roth’s arm when he opened his mouth, obviously forming yet another retort; if I didn’t stop him, he never would. He shot me a look, but Tony let out a very childlike giggle.

We followed him into the living room. There was a massive tree all decked out with ornaments with a mountain of presents already tucked under it. Another video game was paused on the TV, but this time it didn’t look like a medieval game. There was a car and what looked like a police officer chasing after it.

Tony plopped down on a beanbag, and somehow he made that look like a throne. “I know why you guys are here.”

“Of course,” I murmured, sitting down on the couch.

He raised a blond brow as he glanced at Roth. “Just so you know, when you ended up chained in the fiery pits, I wasn’t laughing like I predicted.”

Roth’s eyes narrowed at the reminder as he sat on the arm of the couch beside me.

“Maybe just a low chuckle of amusement,” Tony added slyly.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a high-pitched giggle of amusement?” replied Roth. “Since you haven’t hit puberty yet?”

Oh dear.

Tony lifted a chubby hand and flipped Roth off.

“Ah, did I upset the wee, little baby—”

“Roth,” I sighed, punching his leg lightly. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Not true.” He winked at me. “I’m adaptable in any situation.”

Tony propped his legs up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. “While I think it’s great that you two have obviously come to terms with what you both are and your feelings for one another, I have better things to do than watch you two—”

“Tony!” his mom’s voice rang out from somewhere in the house. “Get your feet off the coffee table now!”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing as Tony rolled his weird eyes but did as he’d been told. His feet thumped off the hardwood floors. “You want to know how to kill the Lilin,” he said, staring balefully in Roth’s direction. “You know the rules. I cannot help one side over the other.”

“Screw the rules,” Roth ordered.

“Easy for you to say when it’s not your life that will be on the line,” the seer retorted. “The thing is, you both should already know the answer you seek.”

“We know how to kill the Lilin,” I said, scooting forward on the cushion. “Stab it in the heart or decapitate it, and we almost succeeded with a stab to the heart, but—”

“But you discovered a small complication?” He turned a woeful stare on his screen, as if spending a minute away from his game was torture. “A fatal wound to the Lilin delivers a fatal wound to you.”

I nodded.

“It’s expected. A part of you was used to create the Lilin, just as a part of Lilith was used to create both of you,” he continued, tilting his head to the side. Several blond curls flopped over. “All three of you are joined.”

That had been said before, but no one had mentioned the fact that killing the Lilin would also kill me. That little tidbit had been left out. Not that I was entirely surprised.

“We need to know how to separate the two.” Roth opened and closed the hand closest to me. “That’s why we’re here.”

“And I know that.” Tony barely dragged his attention from the paused game. “This conversation is wasting my time and yours.”

“Do you not care? I know your stupid game is important, but if we can’t stop the Lilin, you’re going to die. Everyone is going to die!” I shot to my feet, wanting to grab the little seer and shake him, but—but there was a part of me that understood he wasn’t being obtuse. We were the ones who were. Frustration pounded through me. “If we don’t succeed, the Lilin will jump-start the end of the world. Even you warned us of this last time we were here.”

“Last time you were here, I saw that there was a good chance for that to happen.” His pupils were at once a brilliant white. “Now I see that it will not happen. You will stop it.”

I tensed. “But—”

“You,” he repeated, eyeing me intently, “will stop it. And you already know how. The story is over.

The end.”

Roth sucked in a shrill breath, but I think I stopped breathing for a second. What none of us wanted to acknowledge in the hours after we’d gone toe-to-toe with the Lilin was now smacking us in the face again.

Killing the Lilin meant killing myself.

“You’re not helping us out here, bud.” Roth’s voice was calm, but anger and something else, something akin to desperation, were rolling off him, becoming a tangible entity in the room. “We need to know how to kill the Lilin without harming Layla.”

“And as I’ve said, you already know the answer to that,” Tony replied from his beanbag throne.

“You just don’t want to accept it.”