Page 32 of Raven's Dawn

“Why the fuck are you just sitting there?” Warren’s voice.

I turned around, but the man I saw was unrecognizable.

Wet maroon drenched every inch of him, from the dark hair on his head to his bare feet. None of us looked our best, but the only other time I had seen so much blood on a person was when we had brought Jake back to life. When he had to be literally bathed in it to return to his body.

“We’re just catching our breath—” Luci began.

“You said as soon as this was over!” That had to have been directed at Luci, but he was looking at me. By the time I was on my feet again, we were standing inches apart. Before I had time to respond, to ask what was going on, he grabbed me by my shirt and hauled me into him. “How can you just fucking sit there?!”

It was without thought.

I took hold of the wind and lunged it at him.

He tore my shirt as he collapsed onto the soil.

When he smacked the ground, a punch kicked through my chest. But not my chest. His. At once, I felt the wind I had knocked from his body escape through mine.

Before I had time to recover, he was on his feet again. “Do that again?—”

“Put your bloody hands on me again?—”

Someone was between us. A hand planted on my chest and another on Warren’s before I even realized whose.

“Knock this shit off.” Jeremy’s voice rang like a crack of thunder. His wide blue eyes glanced at me, then settled on Warren. “He doesn’t even know what you’re pissed about.”

I sure the fuck did not.

“How?” Warren veered around Jeremy to look at me. His pale blue eyes were so cold they burned. “How do you not feel it?”

“Because what you’re feeling is guilt.” Jeremy gave him one hard push in the chest, knocking him back a few steps. This time, he didn’t advance again. “They’re okay. If they were hurt, you would both feel it. You’re not feeling the lack of their presence, Warren. You’re feeling guilt because—if we don’t find them—you think it’s gonna be your fault.”

“If we don’t find—” I stopped myself.

I looked around.

Rain was nowhere in sight. Neither was Ezra. Jake sat on a log a few feet from Amara. Ramona stood a few feet behind Jeremy, watching this fiasco carefully.

Overhead, ravens flew circles, croaking as they often did, as I’d grown used to over the last year or two.

But Rain and Ezra were gone.

I scanned for their energy, just as I had with my eyes for their bodies, but I didn’t feel it nearby either.

“I—I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head quickly. “Where are they? What the fuck?—”

“You were right there!” Warren stepped in again, and Jeremy returned his hand to his chest. “She was touching both of us when those fuckers took her, and you didn’t fucking feel it? You didn’t notice they disappeared into thin goddamned air, Graham?”

No.

I didn’t notice.

The sun was up now, but I didn’t remember it rising either. The last hour was like a VCR stuck on fast-forward. I saw glimmers of people I knew, things I understood, but mostly, there was nothing to make sense of.

All I could do was shake my head.

“Because he was focused on surviving,” Jeremy snapped. “Now stop fucking patronizing him so we can find them.”

“Already did.” Across the meadow, Laila sighed dramatically, propped her hands on her hips, and frowned at Warren. “It was my first priority once they were all dead. You would’ve known that if you took a deep breath and used your brain, asshole.”