The Lariat (Finding Justus Series) by Ashley Dotson Page A

her. That same strange breeze filtered up the stairs and gave her that last little shove. She vanished down the elevator shaft, the black heart of the building.
    I tore off the ground, flying, hopefully faster than her freefall. I could hear her screaming and I knew I only had seconds to reach her before she hit the bottom, not to mention any cables or debris lodged within that shaft. I broke through all of it with ease, but Ben’s soft human body wouldn’t.
    I reached out for her hand. She wasn’t watching me, she was falling face first, watching the top of the rusted broken elevator rush toward her, knowing she was about to die. Her scream was infinite, it would torment me whether she lived or died. I seized her hand only feet before her impact.
    I didn’t wait to find out what was waiting for us. I busted through the same door we came in still carrying Ben. I wouldn’t feel safe until we were away from that building, until I washed its filth off my skin. I hadn’t felt this polluted since my journey through Hell.
    We should never have gone in the Montrose. The city was right to tear it down. But that was just geography. The evil within it would take up residency in some other place, in some other person. You couldn’t kill evil, but you could hold it back, silence it, and lessen its reach.
    At least you got your damned pictures.
    I grabbed Ben’s camera strap from her vicelike grip. I still don’t remember how we made it home.

 
     
     
    8
     
     
     
    She didn’t talk to me for two days. Neither did Cyrus. But to be fair, Ben didn’t actually get out of bed for two days and Cyrus did call a good twenty times on the landline. I guess he got my number from the school directory.
    I was more worried about Ben. She thought she had some kind of hallucination. The way she had been staring at me the past two days- she didn’t trust me. I told her when she reached the top floor to take photos of the elevator shaft she fainted due to the lack of air. I came up with some nonsense about condemned buildings and high levels of carbon monoxide. I lied and said after she collapsed I was barely able to drag her out of there myself. I’m not sure she believed me.
    Ben had sustained minor injuries during her fall. She bumped her head against the elevator shaft and she had three scary looking slashes down the center of her back. Slashes like I had seen on Jaime and Cyrus.
    Samael.
    He was responsible. Trying to heal Ben, I could feel his poison coursing through her even though he had never actually touched her. He was more dangerous than I even knew if he could leave that mark or cause her death without even being present. Bennet hadn’t seen the mark, but she could feel it. I told her I must have done it when I dragged her down the stairs. I assured her it didn’t need stitches or medical attention, but still it wasn’t healing and she wouldn’t let me touch her again. I knew I could help if only she would let me.
    She was getting paler and weaker. I wasn’t about to leave her side. If Samael was near I couldn’t leave her alone.
    There was a banging on the door and I spilled my coffee from the sudden and loud intrusion. Cyrus didn’t even wait until I reached the door, he just waltzed right in. Barged was more like it, but I wasn’t about to comment. I knew when not to poke a bear.
    “I have called you too many times. Why have you not answered the phone?”
    I guarded my thoughts, “I’ve been busy.”
    He stared at me trying to rifle through my defenses and peer into my mind, “Now you’re just being rude.” I pushed away from his intrusive presence.
    “Why have you not been attending your other classes?” he snapped.
    “Keep your voice down,” I motioned towards Ben’s door, “I can’t leave her alone right now.”
    I opened up my thoughts up to him and let him see everything. I replayed yesterday’s scenes within my mind from the time we arrived at the Montrose , the arrival of the sudden and strange