Live Like Legends (LIVING LEGEND #3)

Chapter 16

I huffed out an annoyed breath when I opened drawer after drawer to find a tiny carved wooden arrowhead that Reese had kept with him since his first time ever successfully using a bow. He’d asked me to snag it for him when we came back to the room before heading back to Oculus. I didn’t quite understand it, his need to keep that tiny thing in his pocket like it truly gave him additional luck. He could survive without it, but I remembered him being the most nervous I’d ever seen him when we started really practicing for our assessments at The Skies.

It was a training bow and arrow, but nevertheless, he treated that weapon like his life depended on it. He’d used that bow to pass all the tests but retired it when he got a shiny new one that was sleeker and more elite. He’d kept the arrowhead though. He would say it was his first look at what he could do, even with the fragile wood and unreliable structure of the older bow. He kept it with him for nearly every single thing we did, even if I was the only person who ever knew about it.

I shook my head as I closed my fingers around the lucky charm, placing it in my pocket. A long dark ripple caught my eye at his window, but this one was different . This one felt more aggressive than the rest, it felt closer. That darkness felt like it was right in front of me, circling around Reese’s room and there was nothing I could do about it. I had this odd feeling that I was being watched, but this time it wasn’t from other sentries or Ariel himself. This gave me goosebumps so intense that I found myself swiping my hands down my arms.

I ran a hand through my hair as I opened up Reese’s door and walked back down the hall to my own room. “Are you all ready?” I asked, looking around to find an empty bedroom. I furrowed my brow, stepping into the bathroom and finding that free of Dani as well. I ran to my bedroom door, swinging it open, looking from side to side before slamming it closed.

She wouldn’t have just left without me, especially since she didn’t have any means of transportation to Oculus. She did have her wings, but her flying on top of all the chaos with Ariel wasn’t the smartest move.

I was gone for five minutes tops…she couldn’t have just disappeared.

I felt dumb looking under my bed as my heart started to speed up to the point that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I did a circle around my room as if she would appear somehow and proceeded to check my bathroom for what felt like the tenth time. “Where the hell are you?” I muttered to myself, the panic starting to set in.

I looked down, noticing something small and red, like the tiniest charred pieces I had ever seen. They were dusted around the floor near the bathroom door. I placed my fingers into the mess, feeling how warm the particles were. I didn’t have to bring it too close to my nose to smell brimstone.

I didn’t understand, where would she go? My chest felt tight when I rose from the ground, dipping my hands into my shirt for my key. She had to be somewhere safe, she just had too. There was a simple explanation, and I just needed someone to tell me that I was overthinking, that this was all some joke.

When I’d stepped through my portal, I realized that I’d managed to make it into Natalia’s foyer. One of the Enchanters walking by yelped at my sudden presence, but I didn’t pay her any mind. My eyes locked with the honey-colored ones of the High Priestess when she appeared from around a corner, hurrying down the stairs.

“Finally. We’ve been waiting for you both.” She searched around me, confused. “Where’s Dani?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. She didn’t know where she was either. My throat felt tight and I rubbed my hand along my neck, hoping to ease some of the pain.

“Nick.” Her voice was steady, but cautious. She subtly held her hands out, almost as if she thought I might fall. Her eyes flared with this look of understanding. “Nick, what happened?”

My voice came out small and hoarse. “I don’t know. I—I don’t know.”

Her hands finally touched my arms, steadying me. “Zane!”

The large Enchanter, followed by Reese, Elise and everyone else hustled down the stairs, all of them flanking me from every side.

“Your Highness, what’s wrong?”

Natalia pressed her lips together before sighing. “I’m unsure. Nick, where is she?”

“She? As in Dani?” Elise chimed in, mimicking Natalia as she looked around the room. “Where is she?”

I repeated my earlier answer. “I don’t know.”

Reese placed his hand on my shoulder. “Weren’t you with her? How do you not know where she is?”

I took one breath in and then another. I tried to quiet all the things around me. Every person continuously asking me questions needed be silenced or I would fucking combust.

“You don’t think she would go off by herself again, right?” Garrett asked no one in particular.

“No, she wouldn’t. She made a big fucking deal about me not going alone, so I hardly think she would go and be a hypocrite about it,” Elise explained. I peeked over at her the moment she decided to look over at me. “So what? You went on your silly little date and somewhere between then and now she just vanished? That hardly makes any sense.”

“Ellie, maybe it’s not that…” Beetee started but her voice was drowned out by my own thoughts.

I placed my hand on my chest, feeling like a weight was causing my breathing to become harder and harder. I was supposed to protect her and now I had no idea where she was. I didn’t even know where to fucking start.

“Nick, hey, Nick.” I heard Reese calling out to me, but his voice sounded muffled and far away.

No one was getting it. I didn’t know what happened because I had left her for five fucking minutes.

She had been out of my sight and I left her.

I left her.

“I left her!” I screamed, placing my hands in my hair and pulling. “Five minutes! Five fucking minutes!” I ripped myself away from all their hands. The air was too dry, the temperature too hot. I felt like I was sweating as I started to pace.

Reese ran over to me, but I waved him away, hearing my breathing turn shallow, nearly to the point of wheezing. I groaned from the tense pain in my chest and I stopped walking when nothing seemed to stay in place. The room spun in one direction and then the other.

I couldn’t help her because I left her and now, she was gone. This wasn’t like Lilith’s castle where pinpointing her location was simple. I couldn’t think straight as I coughed, closing my eyes and backing up, hoping that my spine would hit a wall of some kind.

“Zane, go get Xander and some others from the infirmary,” Natalia delegated. “Nick, take a deep breath, okay?”

I shook my head, finally feeling a solid backing so that I could lean my head back against it. “I—I can’t.”

“Hey, hey, yes you can.” Reese gently grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. “One deep breath in, one deep breath out, okay? Do it, Nick.”

My body vibrated as the pain became too much and I could feel tears starting to fill my eyes. My head was heavy as I nodded. Reese sucked in his own breath and let it out at the same time as me.

One big breath in, one big breath out.

“One more time, let’s go.” He placed his hand on my chest to steady me.

One big breath in, one big breath out.

I kept going as I slid my body down the wall, hitting the floor. I brought my knees up to my chest, continuing my breathing.

Reese cleared his throat. “You went to my room to get my lucky charm, didn’t you?”

“Y—you asked m-me to,” I answered, getting the words out as best I could.

“And when you came back, she was gone.” Beetee wasn’t asking a question, just summing up the situation.

“You didn’t hear anything?” Garrett pressed, but his voice was soft when he spoke.

I shook my head slowly, as I waited for the vertigo to pass. I heard multiple footsteps round the corner.

Natalia spoke to the Enchanters she had ushered over. “He seems okay, just be careful with him.”

Elise leaned down so that she was eye level with me. Her usual menacing glare had cracked just a bit as she watched me. She looked all around my body when something caught her eye. My heart didn’t feel like it was going to rip out of my chest, so I followed where her eyes led her.

I recognized Xander when he came around to look at me, but Elise shooed him back before she yanked my hand away from where I had it placed on my leg. She flipped my hand upside down so my palm was facing her. “Nick, what’s this?”

I swallowed down the thick lump that had developed in my throat. I narrowed my eyes towards the red dust on my fingertips. “It was on the floor in my room.”

It only happened for a moment, but I could have sworn her eyes flashed a violent red before they settled back to their normal grey.

Beetee bent down next to her, also examining my hand. She immediately started chewing on her bottom lip, her chest flushing a slight red. “Ellie…”

“What is it?” Natalia asked, quickly looking at Zane before focusing back on the group.

Elise swiped her fingers along mine so that they were also coated in the remnants of the last place my girlfriend was. She rubbed her fingertips together, before she brought it to her nose. She inhaled deeply, a sigh leaving her lips. “This is Hellfire residue.”

“Hellfire?” Reese and I both said at the same time.

Elise tilted her head to the side, the ends of her black bob swishing near her jaw. “Lilith doesn’t have your girl. He does.” The way her voice inflected told me everything I needed.

“He?” Zane said, raising a thick eyebrow.

My mouth went dry all of a sudden and words were hard to come by. “Dimi...” My vision started to get spotted, and I could hear the incessant pounding in my head getting louder. I tried to breathe deeply again, focusing on a spot across from me.

Dimitri.

Fucking Dimitri.

“Nick, hey, you okay?” Reese asked, but his voice faded.

“I need to—” I tried to get up from the floor but couldn’t, the spots in my vision getting thicker. “I have to go get?—”

I needed to save her. I needed to find her, but any thoughts I had were lost when my body felt limp, and everything went dark.