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didn’t move. She didn’t moan again either. He took that as a good sign.
    While he waited for Sage, he pressed his back against the wall and slid down slowly so as not to jostle Josie. He eased her between his legs, then shrugged out of his jacket, pulled his shirt over his head and ripped it into two long strips. Tying a strip around each end of the wound, he pulled it tight to cut off the blood flow in hopes that would keep the poison from spreading. Her breathing quickened, but Keller didn’t loosen the improvised tourniquets.
    Sage whipped around the corner, her pink hair bound in haphazard braids.
    “What the hell happened?” Her bright grey eyes mirrored saucers. Her hand flew to her mouth and lingered when she saw Josie’s arm.
    “It’s bad,” he said. “Get me inside.”
    Sage didn’t move.
    “Sage!” Keller snapped, adjusting Josie against his body. He knew the sight of her shredded arm was horrific to Sage. He felt the same, but for different reasons. Now wasn’t the time for either one of them to lose it. “Keep it together. We need you with a strong mind and body.”
    “Right,” she said, springing into action and pulling a set of keys from her pocket. She opened Josie’s door and stepped inside. “Hurry.”
    Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to tell her? Keller pushed against the wall and stood, fighting for balance. “Say it.”
    “What? Oh,” she said, her voice an octave higher than usual. “Come in, come in.” She jumped out of his way.
    Keller stepped over the threshold and rushed to Josie’s bed. He heard the sound of the door closing and being locked. While stacking pillows beneath her head, he glanced at Sage. “You have to suck out the poison.” He pulled off Josie’s boots and tugged the sheet up over her legs, cursing when he noticed the burn holes in her jeans. Josie’s entire body shook, and he wondered if shock was setting in.
    “Me? What poison?”
    Keller looked for a blanket, found one with a bright floral pattern crumpled in the corner. “Demon.”
    Sage cursed under her breath and pointed her finger at him. “Why didn’t you do it already?”
    He had wanted to. Wanted it more than anything. “She would hate me.”
    “So what? She’d get over it.” Sage ripped the blanket out of his hands and covered Josie. She knelt next to the bed and reached for Josie’s hand.
    Jaw clenched tight, Keller shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
    “I don’t understand you, Keller. Since when do you worry about what other people think of you? That’s my bag, not yours.”
    Before he could answer, Sage lowered her mouth to Josie’s arm and began to suck, her cheeks hollowing out with each draw.
    Keller turned away.
    “There’s a lot of poison,” Sage said.
    Grinding his teeth, he stared at the pale green walls and rubbed the back of his neck. “Then why are you talking? Get it the feck out of her.” Sage didn’t deserve his anger, but he had to direct it at someone and since he’d already killed the demons, he had nowhere else to go with his feelings. Where was Death now?
    Though the poison wouldn’t harm his sister, the sound of Sage taking in Josie’s blood nearly did him in. He braced his hand against the wall to steady himself and locked his knees to keep from crumbling like a sack of useless potatoes. A distraction was what he needed.
    Keller spent the next several minutes tuning out the sound of Sage extracting the poison and taking inventory of Josie’s apartment, which was only slightly larger than a closet, in his opinion. She lived here, that was evident in the damp towels thrown on top of the cluttered dresser and the sharp set of knives carefully lined up in neat rows on the chipped kitchen counter. The lack of personal items—photos, trinkets, jewelry—told him either Josie didn’t hold anything sacred, or she’d been hurt too much to cling to keepsakes. He hoped it was the latter. Not that he wished sorrow on his probable mate, but at least