I come to a moment later, dazed and in pain.

The entire side of my body that was facing the house is blistered and burning, my healing powers struggling to repair the damage. It’s agonizing, but I’m too in shock to fully process it. I stumble to my feet instead, searching for Carver and Lucian. Instead, I see Morana’s mansion in flames. The entire wall of the ballroom we’d just left has been obliterated, open on a smoking crater. I walk towards it, like a moth drawn to flame. My ears are ringing too loudly to hear the screams of the injured and dying, the crunch of rubble and broken mirror under my feet, but I can smell it. The char of burned meat, the stink of blood.

The vampires who had been closest to Jolie’s cage are in pieces. I can’t tell which bits are Morana from the rest. Whatever exploded was enough to reduce even her and Jolie to twitching parts. They are still alive, in more pain than I can imagine in my wildest nightmares, pieces slowly drawing back together. They will reconstitute, but it will be slow and horrific. Others, younger vampires without an ancient’s powers, are nothing but ash now, or blackened corpses skewered with silver shrapnel from the shattered mirrors. Further away from the blast, vampires with wounds that would have been mortal on any human drag themselves away from the carnage, wailing in agony. For all Morana’s pretentious preaching about Dante, this seems more a vision of hell than anything I saw at the party. I am the only one standing amid the dead and dying.

Lucian stumbles into me, pulling me away from the nightmare. He’s as badly burned as I am, but it’s an injury we can recover from, unlike the others around us. I remember the kind man in the hallway and shudder, hoping he was far enough away from the blast to have survived. If we hadn’t been in the garden, I don’t doubt that I at least would be dead. Lucian and Carver probably wouldn’t have survived either.

“Where’s Carver?” I ask Lucian, dazed and struggling to focus. “He was right there, he was right beside us.”

“I don’t know,” Lucian replies, his voice shaking, tripping as he tries to walk on a leg that’s more char than flesh. “I don’t know. We have to go. We need to leave, now.”

“But Carver-”

“You’re more important,” Lucian interrupts. “Carver will be alright. We have to get you out of here, now.”

“But Carver-“

Lucian stops, grabbing me by my less burned shoulder. His eyes are wide with fear, for me, for all of us.

“If you die here, it was all for nothing,” he says.

I don’t have the strength to argue any further. Leaning on each other for support, we flee the garden. I can’t help searching every flowerbed we pass for any sign of Carver, but I see nothing. By the time we reach the back wall I can hear angry shouts coming from the ballroom. The survivors, Morana’s soldiers who were dispersed throughout the house, out of range of the blast, search for someone to blame. And I can’t imagine whoever set that bomb won’t also be closing in to take advantage of the chaos. My fear for Carver, for the kind man in the hall, even for Morana’s lifeless dolls, only grows.

Lucian hurries me into the car and drives away, struggling to stay on the road with the severity of his burns. We get a few miles away before he pulls over at last, shaking, and we both lie there while our healing abilities try to grow us new skin.

“Why is it taking so long to heal?” I ask, groaning.

“It was a light bomb,” Lucian replies, breathless with pain. “Concentrated UV radiation. It’s one of the few weaknesses almost all vampires share. Even the ancients. It will heal. But it will take time. And it will hurt.”

“We need to go back,” I say, imagining Carver going through this. “We need to find Carver. What if got him worse? What if-”

“He’s strong,” Lucian replies, shaking his head. “He survived the blast, I’m sure. And he would not want you to come back for him. It’s almost more dangerous for you now than the bomb. Morana will suspect us, and her revenge for an insult like this would be worse than fatal. Some of her most powerful allies will be down for months recovering from this. We need to get away while we have the chance.”

“We can’t leave without Carver,” I insist, the pain becoming blinding as the shock slowly wears off. “We can’t leave him!”

“Aura,” Lucian says sharply and I flinch for a moment, until he reaches for me, for my unburned cheek, pulling me closer to him. My heart is racing and tears are scalding my burns, but his touch calms me. He strokes any unburned skin he can find, runs his fingers through my dry, singed hair. “Carver is alive. He’ll find a way to get back to us. I trust him. You need to trust him.”

I sob, hating it, but knowing he’s right. I know Carver. I know he wouldn’t want me to go back for him. But I don’t know if I have it in me to leave him behind, not knowing he’ll be safe.

Lucian kisses me softly, my burned lips stinging, and wipes away my tears.

“Nothing in heaven or hell could keep me away from you,” he whispers, and my heart aches at the words. “And I know Carver feels the same. We’ll be together again. We have to stay alive until then.”

I nod, accepting it despite how wrong it feels. I’m in too much pain to fight. He kisses me one last time, then returns to driving. He sends a message to Reina and Row, letting them know that we’re moving the plan to leave up immediately. I am silent the rest of the drive, slipping in and out of consciousness, my brief, terrible dreams always of Carver’s face, his eyes wide just before the explosion hit us.

They meet us at the airport and the horror on Reina’s face as she sees the state we’re in hurts me, though we’re already better than we were when we got in the car. She hugs me, crying, which starts me crying again as well. We board the plane, waiting for clearance to leave. I lay shivering in my seat, fevers and hot flashes passing over me as my body tries to heal, and watch the tarmac through the window, willing Carver to appear. There’s still time, I think as the plane goes through final checks. He could still make it.

Through all of this, from the moment I was bitten, Carver has been with me, guiding me. I don’t know what to do without him. I don’t know how to continue. I need him with me. The pain I’m in is indescribable, but preferable to the thought of being without him. He has to make it. He was right next to us when the bomb went off. He must have woken up not that long after us. If he made it out of the garden then he knows where we’re going. He’ll find us. He’ll make it.

“We’re ready for take-off,” the pilot announces. She’s a vampire too, and looks at the state Lucian and I are in with disgust and sympathy.

“Hold the plane,” I insist, my voice rough.

“Aura,” Reina says, squeezing my unburned hand. Lucian has already passed out, the pain too much. I’m only still conscious because of the numbing shock. “We can’t linger. If Morana knows about the plan, about the plane-“

“Just wait,” I demand, pain from the burns warring with pain from my heart. “Please. Just a little longer. He might have been right behind us. He could be just a few minutes away.” I’m being foolish. I know he’d have been with us if something wasn’t stopping him. And the thought shatters my heart into little pieces.

Reina’s face softens with sympathy.

“Five more minutes,” she tells the pilot, then turns to me. “If he doesn’t come, we still have to leave.”

“I can’t leave him, Reina,” I whisper, struggling to stay conscious. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” Reina says, her voice firm. “I don’t want to leave him either, but we have to keep you safe. Lucian, Row, me. All our lives depend on this too.”

It feels worse than the burns. I can’t leave Carver, but I can’t risk Lucian and Reina’s lives for my own selfishness either. I feel torn in two. I stare out the window, willing Carver to appear. Please, I think, over and over, praying to any god that will answer. Please, please let him get here in time.

The plane begins to roll down the landing strip and I lose my will power, begging Reina and the pilot to stop the plane, to wait just a little longer. Pleading, screaming, threatening through my tears, anything to make them wait just a little longer. They ignore me, as they should, Reina and Row struggling to hold me in my seat, and I sob as the plane lifts off, leaving Carver behind. I cry myself into swift unconsciousness, feeling as though I’m lying in Lucifer’s mouth next to Judas, and I deserve to be there.