Chapter 13: The Blood Price
Riley’s boots scraped on the basalt, each step away from the water feeling like a victory. Paul was a slight weight in his arms, trembling but pliant, his face buried against Riley’s neck. The cottage was maybe five minutes up the path, dark and quiet. Sanctuary.
Then Paul squirmed.
It was a weak, twitching movement, like a fish on a line. A small, aborted noise escaped him—not a word, just a stifled gasp of effort.
Riley stopped. “What? What is it?”
Paul’s head lifted. His eyes, glowing faintly like banked coals in the moon-touched dark, were not looking at Riley. They were looking back. Past Riley’s shoulder, towards the shifting crowd on the shore, towards Bev Keane and the three men now isolated in a pocket of accusing silence. The low hum of angry voices was building again, a different tenor now—not fearful, but vengeful.
“No,” Riley murmured, understanding dawning. He tightened his grip. “No. They’re done. It’s over.”
Paul shook his head weakly. He made another sound, a desperate whimper trapped in his throat, and pushed against Riley’s chest with what little strength he had left.
Riley didn’t want to turn back. Every cell in his body screamed to get Paul somewhere safe, to clean the sand from his wounds, to hold him until the shaking stopped. But the look on Paul’s face—an ancient, pleading torment—anchored him. He let out a frustrated breath, fogging in the cold air, and turned.
“Alright,” he said, his voice rough. “Alright, just… stop. I’m stopping.”
He took a few steps back toward the fray, his arms still cradling Paul. The crowd’s focus snapped to them. Warren Flynn saw his son returning and moved forward, his face clouded with confusion. “Riley? What’s—”
“He has something to say,” Riley cut in, the words tasting like ash. He looked down at Paul. “So say it.”
Paul’s voice was a shredded whisper, but it carried on the salt wind. “Let them go.”
A beat of disbelief. Then Sarah Gunning barked a laugh. “Are you kidding me? After what they did to you? Now you’re giving sermons?”
“Not a sermon,” Paul breathed, each word an effort. “Justice. Not… this.” He gestured weakly with a bleeding hand towards the simmering islanders. “Not a rock or a rope in the dark. Let the law… the real law… have them.”
Erin watched him, her head tilted. “He’s right,” she said, though it clearly cost her to admit it. “We drag them up the cliff now, we’re no better than what we just stopped. We’re just the other side of the same coin.”
Sheriff Hasan, his face a mask of controlled fury, wiped blood from his lip. He stared at Jed, Harris, and the younger Braithwaite, who were huddled together, their bravado gone. “The cell,” Hasan said flatly. “It’s one room, but it’s stone and it has a lock. We hold them there. I’ll get on the radio first thing, get the mainland cops over here. They can sort this mess.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Some nodded, the ingrained habit of lawful order reasserting itself. Others, like Sarah, scowled. “So we just tuck them in for the night? After tonight?”
“Yes,” Paul whispered, his eyes closing. “Please.”
Warren looked at his son, who gave a single, tight nod. “Hasan’s cell it is,” Warren announced, his tone brooking no argument. “Get ‘em moving.”
The relief that washed over Paul was palpable; he went utterly limp in Riley’s arms, a soft sigh escaping his broken lips. Riley felt a fresh, protective fury burn in his chest. He turned again, finally putting the shore and its ugliness behind him.
It happened as the men moved to comply.
Hasan grabbed Bev’s arm. She went rigid, then compliant, her head bowed as if in defeat. As Jed was shoved forward past her, she stumbled against the Sheriff. It looked like an accident, a product of the rough handling. But her hand, quick as a striking eel, dipped to Hasan’s holster.
The snap of the safety was loud in the lull.
“Die faithless!” she shrieked, the gun swinging up, not at Paul, but at the broader target, at the man carrying him.
At Riley.
There was no time to think. Only to react.
A blur of white shirt and dark blood moved faster than humanly possible. It was a soundless burst of motion that left the air cracked in its wake. Riley was shoved so hard he stumbled back, landing hard on the sand, the breath knocked from him.
The gunshot was a monstrous, flat crack that bounced off the rocks.
Riley looked up.
Paul was standing where Riley had just been. He swayed for a moment, a look of vague surprise on his pale face. Then he looked down at his abdomen, where a dark, blooming rose was spreading across the white cotton of his shirt. He brought a hand to it, as if checking the reality of the stain.
He coughed, and a fine spray of crimson misted the air.
Then his knees buckled.
“NO!” The sound tore from Riley’s throat, raw and animal. He scrambled forward as Paul crumpled to the sand. He caught him before his head hit the ground, pulling him into his lap. “No, no, no, Paul, look at me, look at me!”
The wound was a ruin. So much blood, welling up hot and relentless under Riley’s pressing hands. It soaked through the fabric, through his fingers, a dark river on pale skin.
Chaosis. Bev was swarmed, the gun wrestled away, her screams of fury dissolving into guttural curses as she was dragged bodily up the path. “You’re all damned! He’ll rise and drag you all to hell! You’ll see!”
Riley didn’t hear her. The world had narrowed to the weight in his arms, to the slowing flutter of Paul’s pulse under his thumbs, to the awful, wet sound of his breathing.
“Sarah!” he screamed, his voice breaking. “Help me!”
Sarah was already there, dropping to her knees, tossing her coat aside. She ripped Paul’s shirt open, his soft, pale stomach now a marred canvas. She pressed the bunched fabric hard against the hole. The blood seeped around her fingers, warm and slick.
“It’s bad, Riley,” she said, her voice clinical, a lifeline in the panic. “Really bad.”
Paul’s eyes were open, staring up at the stars. He was trembling violently, a low, continuous whine coming from him. He couldn’t form words. His hand twitched, seeking.
Riley grabbed it, lacing their bloody fingers together. “Stay with me. You hear me? You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to leave.”
Tears fell from Riley’s face, landing on Paul’s cheek, cutting tracks through the grime and salt. He was sobbing, ugly and unrestrained, his own breath coming in ragged hitches. This was it. After everything—the angel, the blood, the fever, the fear—it would end here on this fucking shore, with a bullet meant for him. Paul’s last act. His final, stupid, beautiful sacrifice.
Paul’s whining softened. His terrifying tremors began to still. The struggle was leaving him, a terrifying calm descending. His gaze drifted from the stars to Riley’s face. There was no fear in it. Only a deep, weary apology.
Then, a shadow detached itself from the deeper blackness of the rocks.
It landed with a soft rustle of feathers on the sand beside Paul’s head. A raven, its plumage a void black that swallowed the scant light. It tilted its head, one obsidian eye fixed on Paul. It didn’t caw. It didn’t flinch from the blood or the chaos.
It simply stood there, a silent sentinel in the midnight.