Zeev POV
'Damn. Zeev.. I..' Josh began.
'I know." I replied and cut the contact off. I was keeping Harlee and I carefully separate so I wouldn't succumb to the paralysis as well, and my mind and soul was terrifyingly empty.
"Harlee.." I whispered and kissed her temple.
Harlee POV
"Zeev, I'm sorry, I'm very thirsty." I said licking my dry lips. He brought a glass with a straw to my lips and allowed me to drink, then dipped a finger in some water to run over my lips for me. "Has Josh.. found anything yet?" I croaked. Zeev's face hardened.
"Oh. Ok. Listen, maybe if you absorb the other half of my soul now, your Heart will accept it and you can live.." Zeev smashed his lips on mine.
"Never." He said softly. "Are you uncomfortable?" He asked. I shook my head.
"My arms and legs are completely numb now, and the rest of me's getting a little tingly. Zeev, I'm scared." I looked at him fearfully and he clutched the back of my head, bringing my face to his chest.
"I won't let you go Harlee." Zeev growled.
"I know." I sighed. "I love you Zeev. I don't know how or why, but I need you to know that at some point in time, I fell completely, madly in love with you. With who you are. Even the reason you are Fallen made me love you. And I noticed Zeev-I noticed when you only went after horrible people to eat, for me. And even when I couldn't forgive you, you loved me anyway and protected me, and protected Kayla, and now you're doing the same for Josh aren't you?" I coughed. I felt like something was tickling in my lungs. Zeev clutched me tighter, tears standing in his eyes. "You were always there. Even.. when I hated you." I coughed again. "You..." The next cough wouldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. My eyes widened in panic and I desperately yelled to Zeev through our link.
'I can't breathe! I can't breathe!' There was a flutter in my chest, and my chest began to ache. Was something wrong with my heart? 'Zeev help!' Tears ran from my eyes as I saw him panicking.
Zeev POV
'Josh-it's too late. I've got to save her, the paralytic has reached her lungs. You know what to do.' I sent out.
'Wait!' Josh shot back quickly.
'Do you have a solution?' I growled.
'No..' He replied.
'No time then.' I snarled and laid my hand on Harlee's Mark. I immediately began emptying my Core into her, urging the healing abilities to speed through her body, ridding her of the toxins. Her kidneys had nearly shut down, I had almost waited too late. The only reason she didn't know is because of the numbness the paralytic caused. I cursed. I forced my Essence through her faster, purifying her organs, this was much more difficult than when I had Grace left over. She wheezed and then twitched. I sighed in relief, but then she started to scream and I realized as the room faded around us that Josh was right-this had indeed been a trap.
Harlee POV
I woke up in a cage. I snarled angrily and got into a crouch quickly. There was no room for me to stand. Zeev-where was Zeev? He had saved me! I still felt his Demonic Energy flowing through me, searching for an outlet. I needed to return it to him before I fried from the inside out. I reached for my Mark and felt the leathery skin and claws. Crap. The Demonic Energy had forced me to shift? I touched the Mark.
"Zeev." I called softly. There was an arch of lightning and I heard a pained moan from across the room. I bared my teeth and scooted closer to the bars, trying to get a better angle to see. I pressed my face against the bars and my skin sizzled. I screeched.
"Careful there, those bars repel Demons, and right now, well, let's just say we've siphoned all your Demon's power into you, so you're the Demon now. Well, you're the vessel for his power, anyway. You've been possessed by him before, correct? So it made you the perfect candidate. However, I would say it is burning you up inside by now, isn't it? He's a Fallen, so it shouldn't be long, especially since you didn't consent to the transfer..." The voice was cocky and cruel and I was certain it belonged to Josh's father.
"Why don't you stop playing hide and seek and come out where I can see you?" I snarled. "Or at least clean up. This room is so messy I can't see more than a foot without a big pile of junk in the way." I sniffed.
"Still impertinent to the bitter end, eh?" Josh's father stepped out from behind a stack of boxes. "No matter, we'll just wake your Demon toy here and get started." There was a loud slap and a groan, then a crack as something hit harder.
"Stop!" I shrieked. "I can wake him without the abuse. Let me see him!" Josh's father came back into view with a cruel smirk. He walked to the cage and started pushing it through the heaps of books, miscellaneous stacks of jars with strange contents, piles of random papers and other assorted garbage. This was the first time I noticed the cage I was in was on wheels of some kind. They squealed across the floor. When Zeev came into view I cried out. I gripped the bars, skin sizzling. "Oh no, no, no. My Zeev! What have they done to you?!" I shrieked.
"Oh nothing much yet, but don't you know? We intend to make him ours. However, bad dogs must be broken first." Josh's father laughed coldly. Zeev was strapped, chained and pinned with a series of restraints in the middle of several large patterns drawn on the floor. Some of the materials touching him made his skin bleed just by being in contact with him. I had a feeling if he had the power that was currently restlessly stirring within me, it would be leaking out of him as well. He was cut and bruised all over and someone had nailed his huge, glorious golden wings out and hacked off his flight feathers.
"No. Nooo." I moaned. "Zeev!" I reached for him through the bars, they stripped the first layer of skin off my arm as it sizzled loudly while it burned. Why couldn't I feel him? His mind, our link, it was completely silent. Another man was standing by Zeev with a cruel looking whip. He smacked Zeev with it. "Stop!" I screeched. I can use the Mark, I can wake him." I placed my fingers on the Mark and called him gently.
"Zeev, it's time to wake up." I said gently. His eyes opened and he looked directly at me. Their color was completely blood red all the way across. No differentiation between iris, pupil and whites of the eyes. No trace of the orange-yellow color left, no slitted pupil staring at me with that mischievous expression. Just a blank, dead look.
"What have you done?" I groaned. "Zeev!" He didn't look like he recognized me at all.
Zeev POV
Everything was distorted. I felt my power seep out and run into Harlee's body. I panicked, but couldn't draw it back. In a flash of light, we were transported elsewhere, but I was unable to move. I heard Harlee's breathing even out, so that provided me some relief.
Then there was nothing but pain. And blood. I don't know how many total there were, but I carefully cataloged the scents of their souls. They forced me to reveal my wings, and cut them. They hacked away at my body. Tried to get me to submit. I refused until I lost consciousness. This was new for me, but nothing could compare to Falling. And then I heard her sweet voice calling me.
Harlee. You're alive. It was all worth it. Yes, I'll come back to you, but I'm not the same now.. Can you accept me as I am?..
Harlee POV
"Let me go to him!" I screeched. "He needs my help!"
"No." Josh's father said coldly. "You see, you're our bargaining chip. He won't want to see any harm done to you, so.." With that he drove a cattle prod through the bars and zapped me with it. I screamed at him, but electricity was our thing..
"Hmm, not as effective as I'd hoped.. Well how about this then?" and with that he sent a burst of flames at me I couldn't avoid. I felt my clothing catch and patted it out.
"De-mon." I emphasized. "DEMON!" Zeev was watching all this closely. The parallel to the interaction he had with Josh was not lost on me, but there was no reaction from Zeev.
"Fine then.. I have one other thing." Said Josh's father in a bored voice. "Zach, I'll need your help." 'Zach' was the other guy, who grinned evilly and brought some iron bars over towards me.
"The Hell?" I asked. "You gonna poke me to death? I'm ticklish, but not that badly." Zeev's flat eyes continued to observe. Zach thrust two bars through openings in the cage, reducing my space. "What the? Jerk!"
"A little smaller if you please." Josh's father stated boredly. Zach reduced the space some more. Josh's father waved a hand to indicate to keep going, the next bar grazed my shoulder, making me squeeze against the cage, my skin sizzling. "That's better. Other side too."
"Oh no you don't you asshole!" I swung a clawed hand through the cage which Zach dodged then backed me into a corner barely big enough to sit in. I hissed as even more skin sizzled.
"I'm going to bite the first person I reach when I get out of here." I snarled, baring my teeth, canines flashing. Josh's father circled the cage, and when he came back into view, he was carrying something heavy wrapped in a cloth. He let the cloth drop away.
"Recognize this?" He smirked, then turned to show Zeev. Zeev viewed it with his dead eyes.
"Arch Angel Blade of Destruction." He reported solemnly.
"Correct." Josh's father replied and drove it through the cage bars at me. I screamed as it rammed through my side, just below my ribs, all the way through, I felt several things sever and tear within me. The pain was indescribable.