The rain was not water. It was ice.
It hit Ren's face like crushed glass. The cold immediately soaked through his thin hospital shirt. He dragged the wooden crutch across the wet stone of the courtyard. Every step was a negotiation with gravity. His fractured left tibia screamed. The pain was blinding.
He welcomed it. The pain kept the freezing rain from washing away the memory of the asphalt.
A black feather dropped from the sky.
It did not drift. It fell heavy and dead. It landed directly in front of his ruined boot.
The air pressure changed. The rhythmic sound of the rain stopped.
"The devils let their stray dog out."
The voice was smooth. It sounded like silk wrapping around a razor blade.
Ren did not turn immediately. He could not. His lungs were burning. He closed his eyes. He forced oxygen into his chest. He tasted ozone and wet ash.
He slowly pivoted on the wooden crutch.
She stood ten feet away. Great, pitch-black wings folded behind her back. They swallowed the dim light of the streetlamps. She wore leather. It was impractical. It was designed to expose skin. It was designed to distract and intimidate.
She was a predator.
"No registry." She tilted her head. Her violet eyes locked onto him. "No demonic signature. Just a broken human limping in the dark. Azazel wants to know what you are. I think you are just a mistake."
She closed the distance.
It was not a walk. It was a teleportation of intent. Suddenly. She was inside his space.
She shoved him backward. The wood of his crutch scraped violently against the wet brick wall. He hit the stone hard. The breath left his lungs in a sharp gasp.
She stepped completely into his guard. Her thigh pressed deliberately against his uninjured leg. Her hand flattened against his chest. Her black nails dug into his wet shirt.
The heat radiating from her skin was unnatural. It was feverish. It cut right through the freezing rain.
This was an interrogation. But it was also a weapon. She was using her body to break his mind. She expected him to tremble. She expected him to look at her with that predictable, pathetic human mixture of terror and lust.
Ren did not look at her body.
He looked at his right hand. The hand hanging loosely by his side.
Akeno's magic had smoothed the skin of his palm. The deep, crescent-shaped grooves where Sarah's fingernails had dug into him were completely gone. His hand was empty. It was perfectly, horribly clean.
A violent, uncontrolled tremor shook his shoulders. He closed his fist. He squeezed his fingers together so hard his joints popped. He was trying to trap the ghost of a warmth that no longer existed.
"Your heart is barely beating." She whispered.
Her face was inches from his. He felt the hot rush of her breath against his jaw. Her lips brushed the shell of his ear. The proximity was suffocating. The air between them was incredibly heavy.
"Are you terrified." Her voice dropped. It became a dark, wet promise. "Or are you just dying."
Ren forced his head up. He looked directly into her violet eyes.
He saw the perfect, sadistic mask. But he also saw the micro-tremor in her lower lip. He saw the exhausting, crushing weight of a soldier who had been told she was nothing but a weapon.
Ren opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His brain misfired. The hypoxia from the hospital bed returned. The black wings behind her suddenly looked like the massive, terrifying shadow of a truck grill. He violently flinched. He hit the back of his head against the wet brick.
The illusion shattered. It was just a Fallen Angel.
He dragged a painful breath into his throat.
"Pretend." His voice was a ruined, quiet rasp.
Raynare froze. The seductive smile faltered. Just for a fraction of a second.
"Excuse me." She pressed her hand harder against his sternum. Her nails broke his skin. A drop of warm blood slid down his chest.
The tension spiked. It was a physical weight.
Ren raised his empty right hand.
He wanted to push her away. He wanted to break the suffocating heat between them. But he stopped. His hand hovered exactly one inch from her waist.
If he touched her. If he felt the warmth of her skin. He would be grounding himself in this world. He would be accepting that the asphalt and the rain and the forty-seven minutes were truly over.
He could not do it.
He let his hand drop back to his side. He surrendered to the dangerous proximity.
"You are pretending." Ren whispered. The blood in his mouth made the words heavy. "You are only a monster because they told you to be one."
The air in the courtyard snapped.
Raynare stopped breathing. Her violet eyes widened. No one had ever looked at her without an agenda. Men looked at her to consume her. Her superiors looked at her to use her.
This broken human was looking at her with absolute, exhausting recognition.
"The person you were." Ren continued. His voice was failing rapidly. "Before they got to you. She deserved better."
A deep, irreparable fracture split right down the center of Raynare's mask.
She pulled back. Just one single inch.
The loss of her body heat was a physical shock. The tiny space between them became incredibly charged. It was the heavy, breathless moment before a lightning strike. She looked at his mouth. She looked at his bleeding chest. She was completely, utterly lost.
Then. Ren's body finally gave out.
The fractured tibia shifted. The agony wiped his mind clean. His grip on the crutch failed. The wood clattered loudly onto the wet stones.
He fell forward.
He expected the cold, hard impact of the courtyard. He welcomed it.
He did not hit the ground.
Raynare caught him.
It was not a tactical grab. It was a desperate, instinctual catch. Her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Her massive black wings flared out. They completely shielded him from the freezing rain. For one single, suspended heartbeat. She held him against her chest.
Ren smelled the ozone. He felt her frantic, racing heartbeat against his own ribs. It was the most human thing he had felt since the crash.
Then she realized what she was doing.
She let go of him like he was made of white-hot iron.
Ren hit the wet stones hard. The impact knocked the last breath from his lungs. His vision snapped to black.
Raynare stood over him in the rain. Her hands were shaking violently. She looked at her own palms. She looked at them as if she did not recognize who they belonged to.
The stray dog had seen her. And she was terrified.