75. Chapter 75
Conin
“Ican’t . . . feel . . . my legs,” Levi groans.
Copious amounts of blood pool from his severed torso. His intestines spill over the road, flabby tubes and excrement mingled in with a deep crimson. The sight is sickening. I don’t think he’s aware that we hover over him, watching as the life drains from his eyes.
“Put him out of his misery. Please,” I say.
Atlas unmasks and retches on the asphalt.
Vomit mixes in with the blood and guts that drift away from Levi’s body.
He wipes his mouth and coughs excessively after inhaling too much smoke.
He stands to his full height, sliding a finger over the trigger.
I don’t want to have my boyfriend bear this burden, especially not after severing the man in half.
Ambrosia is capable enough, but a layer of green sickness has overcome her face.
She tilts, evidence of how much energy this fight has drained out of her.
Through her mask, I can tell she doesn’t have what it takes to finish him off.
“Stop,” I say, lowering the gun in Atlas’s hand. “Let me.”
“Conin . . . you shouldn’t—”
“Let me,” I repeat.
“Please . . . help . . . I . . . I can’t feel . . . my legs,” Levi gasps.
His spine is shattered in two. Bone fragments litter the viscera, the rest of the spine protruding at a misshapen angle.
His tailbone juts out while muscles pulse with exuding blood.
I look away from the ripped tendons and ligaments to the handgun in Atlas’s possession.
I steal it from his grip, aiming the barrel at Levi’s head.
A milky sheen now coats his irises. I don’t think he can see anymore.
He stares blankly at the smoke-coated sky while cherry droplets spill out of his lips and onto an exposed area of his neck.
“Help . . . me,” he gurgles.
The bullet relieves the end of his suffering.
Mara. The man in the warehouse. The soldier on the stairs. Now Levi.
Ezra’s in danger.
I wait for the moment to pass and for my mind to settle, as much as possible, given the active destruction of Proctus.
But Mom. What will we do now? Where will we go? How will I see her again?
“We need to move,” Ambrosia says with defeat.
Soldiers sporting oxygen masks similar to ours march our way with guns poised at the ready.
At the front of the pack, familiar, skull mask and all, is Mara Barclay.
She spots us, intermittent crackles of lightning dispersing between the pads of her fingers.
The flow of electricity bursts forth and misses us by inches.
I grab Atlas’s hand, he takes Ambrosia’s, and we sprint from the scene and into the scorching inferno.
We don’t see her again. The last I hear of Mara is her piercing cries for Levi to wake up.
“YOU BASTARDS!” she wails. “I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
We bolt past St. John’s Catholic Church where the trees and buildings await the fire’s wrath. The flames reach and lunge, but we keep moving.
“Ezra! What about Ezra?” Atlas cries.
He releases his grip, stalling in the middle of the road.
“We can’t leave him behind. Let me teleport and save him!” he pleads.
He has a bloody nose. It drips, small flecks dotting the screen of his visor. He’s in no condition to teleport. Neither Ambrosia nor I respond to him. Instead, I close the distance, grip his wrist tightly, and tug him away.
“Help me, please?” I say.
Ambrosia claims his other wrist. We pull him along together while he protests and attempts to wriggle away.
His firm figure disappears and I’m left clutching at air.
Atlas pops back into existence several feet from us.
His legs buckle from underneath him. He falls to his knees, hand masking the visor where more blood has spilled.
“Can you still feel him? His presence?” I ask.
It takes an entirely painful minute for him to reply, but he eventually says, “Yes.”
“Then he’s still alive. And maybe he’ll escape. We don’t know if Levi was telling the truth or not.”
“Besides,” says Ambrosia, “you won’t come out alive if you teleport to her. They’ll kill you on sight.”
“You’ll hurt yourself,” I add.
“Callum snatched him, Conin! I didn’t do anything about it . . . I couldn’t. How will he escape now?”
“Ezra is a survivor. We’ll find him, but going back there is a death wish. We’re useless to him dead,” I say.
Every instinct screams at me to be the hero, to run into the fray and save Ezra from a deadly fate.
I didn’t come this far to lose him like this.
But if I go, I know I won’t make it out alive.
Attempting to save him would be a suicide mission.
I can’t do that to Atlas, but I’m missing a part of my heart—a hole only Ezra can fill.
“He’ll make it back to us. He has to,” Atlas says with more determination than before.
“That’s right.”
“We’ve got to keep going. It’s only a matter of time before Mara pursues us with a vengeance,” Ambrosia says, tearing us away from this moment. “We need to find the other Angelics. Once we regroup, we can discuss next steps.”
The fire spreads, licking with its long entrails, and beckoning whatever’s in its path to burn along with it.
The flames are unnatural, burning far brighter than I’ve ever seen possible.
They’re wrapped in an ethereal sheen while simultaneously pulsating and cursing in an innominate chorus of crackled voices.
We charge through the areas left unscathed, charting our course to the tunnels.