Chapter 30

But she’d done it. However, she couldn’t feel it. It really wasn’t a yee-haw, throw-your-fist-in- the-air kind of victory, anyway, right? The image of her face was a brand on her mind, but more than that she felt Nathan’s silence. His eternal absence. The hollow emptiness of it all. Thinking of her exultance when she’d gloried in the creature’s pain, she felt a little sick. A lot sick.

She barely made it to the commode, and then she was coughing, retching it all up. Breakfast, lunch…. Actually, she hadn’t eaten lunch, so just breakfast and bile, dark, putrid bile that smelled a lot like the soul-eaters. She’d taken the Darkness into her, made it work for her, used it to drive them back. Kept Hampson …. Oh Goddess, Hampson.

She straightened from the commode with a snap, reaching for a hand towel with shaking fingers. As she scrubbed it over her mouth, she made it to her feet. She needed to go see if Hampson was okay, if they needed help.

When she stumbled to the bathroom door, she r