Bonus: I healed incredibly fast. 

Now I sported a huge, sore scab across my neck.  And Patrons, it itched.

The docs were shocked by my recovery.  Apparently, I had looked pretty unsalvageable.  Even for a self-healing spirit kid. 

I'd been out for two whole days, they said.  But I'd sprung back faster than anticipated. (Frankly, it was a miracle that I'd sprung back at all.)

"Does this mean I can't die?" I asked, idly picking at the scab as I lay on a cot inside the hospital tent.

Nasir, one of Siren's medics, looked at me like I had asked if I could eat him.  "Of course not!  Can't die?" He slapped my hand away from the wound. "I want you to listen very carefully, Alex. Your body heals at an unprecedented rate. But this spiritual energy must be different than the demons' because you can't regenerate, or regrow limbs or heads, alright? You are not immortal. Once you die, you die, vanadium or not."

I supposed it made sense.  I'd seen a spirit die, after all. My mother had sacrificed herself to complete the mission and spare my life, and I'd sensed the permanence of her expiration the moment it happened.

Somehow, spirits could be destroyed without vanadium, and perhaps it was because they were once human too.  They already knew mortality.   

The doctor helped me sit up.  "In fact, if that boy hadn't held his hand to your throat for over an hour, you may have lost too much blood for your system to recover."

I suspected this boy was Will, but I didn't ask. 

Instead, I rubbed my stomach, where the phantom bullet wound still throbbed.  I'd experienced the reoccurring nightmare, vision, memory—whatever it was—several times now.  It was always a forest, a moon, and a bullet in my spine. 

Was that...the spirit's memory? 

When I came close to biting it, did I trigger the spirit's own traumatic death?

Was that even possible?

There was still so much to learn about this curse and the energy inside me. And after what I'd done to all those Pans, I wasn't sure I wanted to know any more.

When they let my visitors in, Fudge tackled me and wouldn't let go until Mason physically pried him off.  Rover smothered me in a bear hug, which of course preceded lots and lots of motherly ranting.  Once he'd finished his speech, Siren filled me in on what happened after I...died.

We'd driven the demons out of Holly before nightfall, saving thousands of civilians from Godric's influence. We'd then gone on to kill the rest of the invaders, although Siren assured me Tom wasn't one of them. He'd retreated into the Range with a few dozen Pans, and she suspected he'd returned to Belgate to build his next army.

As far as the higher-ups were concerned, General Iver and the other members of the Command now faced the reality that one woman had saved their lives, and another had coordinated an effort to retake Holly—and succeeded.

They were a little dazed, to say the least.  Might need some therapy, a little counseling.  But it was something.

Baby steps, Tom had said.

A large group of Rim soldiers had just arrived in the Interior—atrociously late.  But their numbers were strong, and we had our army back. Locked and loaded.

Even though the sun was still missing, our world appeared to be back on its axis. For now.

But we still had no plan to save the innocent souls trapped within demon war machines.  And by the looks that Rover and Siren gave me when I asked what next? — neither of them intended to reevaluate our kill-on-sight policy any time soon.

Rover tried to convince me that the Tom I knew was gone. He'd tried to kill me, after all.  He'd left me for dead, bleeding out on the ground.  Even if his soul was still there, the essence of who he was had been destroyed.

And maybe he was right. 

Maybe the Tom I knew was gone, irrecoverable.  Maybe his soul was still there, but it had been irreparably sired to the demon's will.

Yet I knew, deep down, that all this killing...it was wrong. Perverse.  It was exactly what Godric wanted us to do—exalt human cruelty, our ruthless nature, our ignorance. Our inability to stop and listen.

It was all a sick joke to him, and I wouldn't play into his hands. I wouldn't quit on my neighbors, and friends, and the innocents trapped within our enemy. And I sure as hell I wouldn't quit on Tom.

He'd never quit on me.

I visited Will's cabin a few hours later.

It was the same cabin we'd shared the first two nights—an obnoxiously high fort with too many stairs. According to Valerie, Siren had built him his own residence when he'd lived with her, and she'd never given it away to another soldier, just in case he ever returned to her. 

I wondered if she'd always predicted he would.

Inside, I found Will hunched over the window.  He was bare-chested, his sweats hanging low on his hips like he'd just woken up.  I could see the whites of his knuckles as he clenched tight to the edge of the sill. 

"Will?"                                     

He ducked his head at the sound of my voice—from relief or dread, I couldn't tell.  

My fingertips brushed the smooth of his back, and he flinched at the contact and the cold temperature of my skin. I waited, and after a few nervous heartbeats, he leaned into my touch, granting me permission to turn him around.

I stood across from him, but wouldn't look at me—only his hands, as if he could still see the blood.

"Hey," I said.  I lifted his chin, thankful he didn't freeze in terror like he had that day in Nova's cabin. 

We'd come a long way since then.

He finally submitted to my gaze, and his eyes were so full of everything, they nearly brought me to tears.

"Stop," I whispered.  "I'm fine."

He touched my neck softly, running his fingers over the scab. 

"See?" I said.  "Good as new."

"I watched you bleed out...I watched you die."

The pain in his voice cracked something small and fragile inside me, and I struggled not to cry. "I know. I'm so sorry, Will. I never meant to put you through that." His hand dropped back to his side, and I reached for his fingers, desperate to maintain contact. "But thank you...for saving my life. Again."

He let out a troubled sigh, shaking his head. "You'll never have to thank me for something like that."

"Then how should I express my gratitude?"

"...Not dying would be a good start."

I would have laughed if I had the energy, but instead, I just offered him a sad, watery smile.

We stared at each other for a moment, basking in each other's company and purging the living nightmares from our heads. Then my fingers rose to his forehead, and I slowly spread apart the worry lines, clearing the ripples in his brow. Erasing the traces of shock and fear and anger.

I smiled at his palpable bewilderment, which made him smile too, faintly.

"Better?" he grumbled.

"Better."

The tension finally disintegrated, and my amused gaze fell to the symbol carved across his breast and abdomen. I dropped my hand to his collarbone, testing the waters, and when he didn't pull away, I softly traced my fingers over the portal's design. 

It was a ghastly scar—layers of raised flesh, twisted and stretched. A spectrum of color, healed but unhealed. And considering how young Will must have been when he'd received it, the wound had to have been life-threatening.

I'd heard of scarification traditions before, but this was no art form. This had not been done with a deliberate, gentle hand.  It was rushed.  And cruel. And—

I narrowed my eyes.          

At one of the triangle's vertices, there was a space of untouched, unmarred skin. 

Almost like it was...unfinished. 

"I have to leave," he said abruptly, jerking me from my thoughts.

"Should I wait here?"

"No..." His tone was guarded, and he drew away from me. "I mean I have to leave this place. I have to go back to Rhea."

My face must have said it all, because he looked like he'd just pulled the pin out of grenade and wasn't sure what to do with it.

"I need to end my father's reign of terror," he said. "I think I might be the only one who can."  I shook my head too many times, back and forth, and I felt his hands steady my shoulders.  "I can put on an act, Alex. I can learn his secrets.  And if I can't convince him to end this, then I can find a way to shut off the p—"

"No," I said firmly.

"No?"                                

He'd pushed me off a precipice, and I was flailing against gravity. "That's stupid, Will. That's...that's the stupidest thing you've ever said. Ever."

His grip on me tightened. "Alex, I can stop him."

"We won yesterday," I insisted.  "We can stop him."

"How many people have to die before that happens?"

I stared at him, afraid of the determination on his face, the pained acceptance.  So I stepped into him, looping my arms around his middle and latching onto his frame.

I didn't know what else to do.

"We have an army now," I whispered. "We can win this.  Don't give up on us yet."

He sighed and pulled me close, resting his cheek on the crown of my head. But even then, wrapped in his arms, I could feel him slipping away.