Resigned, Riley took his seat, yanked off another sweatshirt that would never be the same, and sat in her black tank and jeans while Bran studied the wound.
“I’m happy to tell you it’s not nearly so serious as Sawyer’s, and I won’t need to use the knife to drain it.”
“Yay.”
“Beer?” Sawyer asked her.
“Tequila. Double shot.”
“You got it.”
It hurt, and hurt enough that once she’d knocked back the first shot, she held up the glass. “And again.”
As it eased, she downed the second, sat while Bran treated her lesser cuts and gashes.
“All right now, your turn.” Sasha pointed at Bran. “Now you sit. Anni, let’s heal the healer.”
“Wouldn’t mind a beer myself.”
Doyle pulled out one for Bran. His curse healed him, he thought. The others? They healed each other. He stood there, as separate as he’d been during that horror in the cave. Turning, he headed for the door.
“Nobody leaves,” Riley snapped.
“I want some air.”
“It’ll have to wait.”
“You don’t give me orders, Gwin.”
“Then I will.” Her voice cool as she treated Bran’s wounds, Sasha glanced toward Doyle. “Nobody leaves until we talk about what happened.”
“What happened?” He wanted to peel it off as he peeled off the bloody cloth around his hand. “We walked into a fight, not unexpected, and we walked out again.”
“That’s hardly all. She blocked you from us,” Bran continued. “She used that place, and your memories of it against you.”
“Mind-fucked you, dude. Or tried,” Sawyer qualified. “And we couldn’t get through. Like a wall, or a freaking force field. Us on one side, you on the other with . . .”
“You saw him?”
Riley decided on one more shot. “A man—boy really. Young, bleeding. We couldn’t hear, but you were talking. It’s like you were in a trance. The minions, they swarmed, but they left you alone. You were . . .”
“Trapped,” Sasha said. “I think the whole reason we were drawn there was to separate you, to pull you away from the rest of us. To take you back to before.”
“If you could go back, I asked you, and save him, would you?”
Doyle shook his head at Bran. “It wasn’t him.” Doyle gave up, sat. “It looked like him, sounded like him. And at first . . . It was being back, it was having another chance. I couldn’t hear you, and even when I saw you fighting, it seemed vague and unimportant. To save my brother, to take him home, it’s what mattered.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Riley demanded.
“He said to save him I needed to strike you down. Your blood for his, and he’d be spared. I’d failed him before, but I could save him now. Just do this one thing. I’ve killed more than my share. What’s five more for the life of a brother I’d sworn to protect?”
“He asked you to do an evil thing,” Annika stated.
“That’s right. And I knew what I already knew. It wasn’t Feilim. He’d never have asked it. Never. He was full of heart and sweetness. His name, it means ever good, and he was. He . . . He was like you,” Doyle realized. “So I did what I had to do.”
“What?” Riley slapped down the shot glass. “One minute you were standing there in a trance, the next you were wading into the fight like a madman.”
“I put my sword through his heart.”
“Its heart,” Sasha said gently. “Its heart, Doyle.”
“Yes. Its. And its heart had my brother’s face.” He shoved up. “And I need some goddamn air.”
Sasha set the balm aside, kissed the top of Bran’s head. “If you don’t go after him, Riley, you’ll disappoint me.”
“He wants to be alone.”
“What he wants and needs are different things.”
“I don’t know what to—”
“Then figure it out, but go after him.”
“Hell.” Riley grabbed her ruined shirt, dragged it on as she went out.
“You’re wise and kind, fáidh.” Bran drew her hand to his lips.
“I know what it is to feel apart. And I know what it is to love when love seemed impossible.”
Riley didn’t feel particularly loving. In Doyle’s place, she’d have kicked and punched at anyone who got in the way. She reminded herself she could take a punch, shoved her hands in her pockets, and crossed the lawn to where he stood at the cliff wall.
“I’ve said all I have to say. I don’t want to talk to you, or anyone.”
Fair enough, she thought, and said nothing.
“Go the hell away.”
Going the hell away would be the easy route, and preferable, she admitted. She took the hard one, sat on the wall, looked at him in silence.
“I’ve nothing to say to you.” His fury lashed out, stung him more than her. “I don’t have to justify anything to you, to anyone.”
When she said nothing, her silence only enraged him. He gripped her by the shirt, dragged her off the wall. “I did what I had to do. That’s all there is to it. I don’t need anything from you.”
He’d yet to wash off the blood—but then neither had she. His face was rough and shadowed beneath a couple days’ growth of scruff. And his eyes were shattered.