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Page 8“Stand back,” Will commands.
Surprisingly, Cassian does.
We all watch, trying to keep our breaths small and sparse, as if we can somehow not inhale the air that’s becoming more and more tainted.
Will faces off in front of the busted wall. Miram starts hacking, covering her mouth with both hands. Soon, Lia joins in. The sounds of their coughs only make everything more tense, more urgent. I wince in sympathy as Cassian folds Miram into his arms. What if we were wrong? What if this gas is meant to kill us?
With both hands poised in the air in front of him, Will focuses on the wall. I stare at his wide flat palms, willing them to do something, to possess the same power I’d observed before when he took on Corbin. His hands start to tremble, but nothing. The gouged wall doesn’t show any sign of movement.
Cassian grunts with disgust.
I shake my head. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. To see something miraculous? That he could perhaps do something more? Something even the earth draki of my pride couldn’t do? Ridiculous. This isn’t like my dream where he can sprout wings and take to the skies with me.
Then suddenly there’s a thundering crash. A huge cloud of smoke billows into the hall, temporarily blinding me. For a moment, I think it’s a sudden influx of gas shooting from the tubing above us. No more slow and lingering death.
But then I realize it’s not just smoke everywhere. It’s debris too. Particles and bits of wall cover every inch of my skin and sting my eyes.
I look back to the wall and gasp to see that not only is it gone … but a crude hole several feet deep takes its place.
Will did it. He’d actually manipulated earth to create a way out. Of course, he needs to do it several more times for us to actually escape.
“How did you know …?” My voice fades in wonder. And of course, what would be the point in asking? He can’t understand me.
Will meets my bewildered gaze. He must read the question there because he shrugs. “I don’t know. I just knew I could do it. A feeling … impulse came over me.”
“Nice job,” Tamra says approvingly, stepping inside the ragged hole that Will just created. “Can you do it some more?” She gestures forward.
The rest of us follow, stepping into the fissure in the wall one by one … but something gives me pause. The prickly feeling at the back of my neck is back. The tiny hairs there tingle and vibrate. I turn and look out at the corridor.
Behind me I hear the others urging Will for a repeat, to do it again and tunnel us an escape path out of here. But not every voice is there. Cassian’s isn’t.
Will obliges, and another boom shakes the air, radiating from the ground and up my legs. A giant wave of wind, dust, and debris hits me in the back. I stagger for a moment before catching my balance.
Still, I stare out at the corridor from where we made our escape and find Cassian standing amid the possibly toxic spray, looking off to his right, his attention fixed on something. He coughs, covering his mouth with his hand. He needs to get out of there, but he’s lingering for some reason.
“Cassian? What is it?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Something—”
The one we let loose.
“Cassian!” I scream, plunging after him, knowing what I’m about to face … and knowing that this time there won’t be any enkros to tear us apart.
7
I dive from the crater back into the poisonous corridor.
“Jacinda!” Will’s there, grabbing my hand, stopping me from going any farther. His expression is earnest and desperate, willing me to stop, stay. Stay with him. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. But I can’t. Not now.
“We have to help Cassian,” I rattle off in draki tongue. Will pulls my hand harder to follow him back inside the tunnel.
I shake my head with a growl, remembering he can’t understand. And yet I can’t leave Cassian. I can’t abandon him. Even now, in the space of the heartbeat that I look back at the others, I feel the deep pain radiating through Cassian’s body. It almost bends me over at the waist.
I inhale a hissing breath and force myself to move through it, reminding myself that it’s not real for me. It’s not my pain. It’s his. And I have to end it.
I yank my hand free from Will and charge down the hall to a T-junction. I look left and right—spot Cassian tangled at the end of the corridor with the gray draki. They’re a blur, moving much too fast; I can already smell the blood on the air. I don’t need to see his wounds to know that it’s Cassian’s blood I scent.
I take off toward them, half running, half flying. Gray on black, they fight, tangle with each other wildly. It’s hard to distinguish between the two of them. I cry out as a spurt of blood arches across the air, narrowly missing me.
I have to stop it. I can’t let this go on. There won’t be anything of Cassian left.
I focus my attention on the largest area of gray I can detect and release a gust of fire, desperately hoping my aim is accurate.
I make contact. The draki roars and tears free from Cassian. I focus on the gray one, fire dancing on my tongue, preparing to let loose another blast of heat on him.
His knifelike scales shake and make a strange whistling sound. The protruding scales on his shoulder retract and flatten. His fingers tenderly test the charred flesh of his shoulder, growling as the flesh slides and slips between his fingers like melted wax.
The sight of this—of what I can do, the damage I can bring to my own kind—makes my stomach twist sickly.
“Jacinda!” Will arrives breathlessly at my side, coughing from the increasingly smoky air. His stare swings to the gray draki and he lets loose a curse.
The gray one drops his hand from his shoulder and squares off.
“He looks pissed. You do that to him?” Wills asks amid a coughing fit.
I nod. “Uh-huh.” I draw a deep breath, ready to pull the heat up from my lungs, but my airway feels too thin, constricted. I inhale and then gasp, choking and hacking violently as I draw in a lungful of toxic fumes.
He’s right, of course. We have to go before the fumes knock us out … or worse.
But not without Cassian.
I lock eyes with Cassian, stepping forward, not thinking. Not thinking that I still have to get around the gray draki to get to him.
Cassian shakes his head, eyes glinting fiercely at me. “Go, get out of here!”
He can’t mean for us to leave him.
“Cassian, no!” I surge forward another step with a flap of wings, ready for another go, even if I can’t breathe fire. Will clamps down on my shoulder, yanking me back.
The gray draki’s legs brace wide, ready for me. The pupils of his pewter eyes shudder. I look again at Cassian, beyond my reach.
“Go,” he shouts again from around the draki’s legs, his voice breaking into a savage spasm of coughing. His gaze flicks to Will. “Get her out of here!”
Somehow, intuitively, Will understands him. Or maybe it’s just the obvious thing to do. Only not to me.
Will wraps an arm around my waist, dragging me back.
“Cassian,” I scream.
Will moves his other arm in a wide arc and then pushes his palm out in what’s becoming a familiar gesture.
The earth falls before my eyes in a roar of dirt and debris.
“Get back,” Will yells behind us to the others. His grip on me tightens as he jerks me back into the tunnel. We land in a tangled pile.
Then Will’s on his feet, hauling me back as the curtain of dirt keeps coming at us in a ravenous tidal wave. But I don’t care. Coughing violently, I jerk free and jump to my feet.
I charge into the maelstrom of raining earth. “Cassian!” I’m not the only one screaming. Miram is there, too, calling for her brother. In this, our desperation to save him, we’re unified.
“Jacinda, no!” Will grabs me again. “It’s too late! We have to go!”
I spin around and yank my arm free of him. “What have you done?”
He doesn’t understand my words. But he doesn’t need to. He knows.
Miram sobs near my feet, beating at the wall of dirt where the opening to the hallway used to be. I close a hand around her arm and pull her to her feet. For once, she lets me help her. She feels slighter, thinner than I remember. Captivity will do that, I guess. My heart twists as I recall the time she endured as a prisoner. And now this. Losing Cassian. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I’d never imagined anything as terrible as this. My hand strokes her arm. We all move, following Will.
“I’m sorry,” Lia says in a whisper, squeezing beside me in the narrow space. “I shouldn’t have freed him. I just couldn’t stand the thought—”
I wave a hand, silencing her. It’s not her fault. I could have stopped her. I let sympathy get in the way. I won’t be so stupid again.
“Jacinda?” Tamra looks searchingly at me and then back behind us. “Cassian?”
“We can’t save him,” I bite out, then flinch as Miram starts weeping again.
I look behind us again to where the dirt still swirls in the air. I see the disbelief on her face. She’s torn, trying to wrap her head around what I already know. Cassian is lost to us.
I open my mouth to tell her that there’s nothing to be done, when sudden burning pain lances me, nearly bringing me to my knees. I release Miram and crash against the rough rock wall with a gasp.
Tamra reaches for me. “Jacinda? What is it?”
Cassian. It’s Cassian.
Miram watches me wide-eyed, her terror as palpable as the dirt particles swimming around us, and I clamp my lips together as my chest explodes in fiery hot pain that rivals the ache in my heart.
“Jace, what is it?” Worry etches itself in the smooth lines of Tamra’s face.
I shake my head and swallow back a scream of agony. I’m not about to tell her what I know—that Cassian is being hurt, tortured somewhere by a devil draki. That I feel it happening.
Even as much as she dislikes Cassian, there’s still a history there that she can’t escape. A history of caring and longing, of wanting him and never getting him. She wouldn’t want him hurt, wouldn’t want him … dead. Nor do I want to tell Miram what’s happening and risk her refusing to escape with us. Cassian would want me to see his sister to safety. I can’t let this have all been for nothing.
I force myself to move, trying to pretend I can’t feel the pain, that I’m not leaving a piece of myself behind. “I’m okay. Let’s go.”
Will works ahead of us, using his newfound powers to stretch out our tunnel and lead us to freedom. We fight the swirl of dust and earth and follow several paces in his wake.
I stare at Will’s back, trying not to blame him. Trying not to be angry. It’s a hard battle. After several minutes, I sense that he’s tiring, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t quit. It’s not in him to quit. I know that best of all. He keeps going, pushing ahead, dirt and earth spitting all around us in a rushing roar. I think of asking him if he knows where he’s going—are we going to emerge smack in the middle of town? That would be awkward.
I almost laugh at the image. But I don’t. It could happen. And we could still not make it out of this. Still die. Even if Will doesn’t know where we’re going he can’t stop now. There’s no going back. Behind us death waits. So I say nothing and trust him, letting him lead us out of this hell.
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