Jade
The Obsidian Caves materialize around me for the fourth time.
Music pulses against my skull, floating flames dance above the crowd, and I breathe in the same awful combination of sulfur from the volcanic vents, sweat, cheap alcohol, and lingering smoke from a fire trick gone wrong.
I really hate this party.
Logan’s fingers thread through mine. Shadows are deepening the hollows beneath his cheekbones, his eyes are bloodshot, and when his grip tightens, his skin is cold.
“We’ll stay in the central cave and form a unified front,” he says, steady and commanding, but there’s strain underneath. “We’ll create a fire wall and kill them before they can spread.”
“Okay,” I say, since why not? We’ve already tried everything else.
He squeezes my hand once before letting go.
“Hellhounds!” he screams across the cave, still strong and expecting obedience. “Everyone together! Fire wall! Now!”
Red eyes glow in the darkness. People cluster together this time, moving on Logan’s command like a well-trained army, and fire erupts from dozens of hands at once. The flames weave and merge until there’s a blazing barrier surrounding us on all sides.
The hellhounds don’t try to break through the wall. They pace and circle instead, red eyes fixed on the flames, growling low and waiting for someone to slip.
My lungs tighten.
The fire wall flickers.
Then they’re pouring through, the barrier’s collapsing, people are screaming, and bodies are scattering. Hellhounds are inside the circle now, and there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to run.
“Hold together!” Logan’s black-edged fire blazes, cutting down a hellhound mid-lunge.
Someone slams into my shoulder, and I stumble, catching myself on the floor. My palms come away wet and sticky.
Blood. Whose blood? Not mine. Not yet.
Vera’s war cry rips through the chaos.
I spin toward the sound, and there she is, her dagger flashing, teeth bared in that defiant snarl I’ve seen three times now. She’s slashing at a hellhound’s muzzle, driving it back, unaware of the two creatures circling behind her.
“Vera! Move to the right!” I scream, praying she’ll listen.
She doesn’t, and there are too many people in the way, too many possibilities of killing my friends along with the hellhounds. So I hold back my magic, watching in horror as all three hellhounds hit her at once.
I shove through bodies, elbowing and clawing and not caring who I knock aside. A hellhound snaps at my leg, and I kick it in the face as I electrocute it, never slowing down.
By the time I get there, Vera’s crumpled on the floor, clutching her dagger like she was planning to fight her way out of death itself.
The strangest part of everything is that none of this feels real, because none of it’s permanent. It’s like I’m watching an imaginary scenario instead of experiencing it myself.
Is this how Logan feels all the time? Like nothing’s real, because if things don’t turn out the way he wants, he can go back and change it?
Behind me, Garrett shouts a warning. The sound cuts off with a wet crunch I’ve heard before, that I’ll probably hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
I don’t turn around. I already know. I just launch my electricity at two hellhounds who get too close, watching as they convulse and crumple to the ground.
Then Sam’s screaming, standing against a wall with three hellhounds closing in, tears streaming down his face. His hands are shaking so badly his dagger might as well be made of paper.
This is the same as the first timeline, with the same terrified expression and the same cornered animal desperation.
His eyes find mine as he falls, wide and scared.
Deacon screams from my left. The sound cuts off halfway through, which means he’s dead, too. That’s three people I’ve saved before who are dead now.
I’m keeping count like they’re numbers instead of people. Is that morbid? It’s probably morbid.
Francis throws himself between Elizabeth and a charging hellhound, and his flames flare bright, then sputter out.
Elizabeth’s scream sounds exactly like it did in the first timeline—that animalistic noise that doesn’t sound human.
Four hellhounds circle Nina near what’s left of the fire wall’s western section. Her usually precise flames are flickering, then one of the creatures lunges at her, and then, she’s gone.
“Everyone get behind me!” Deidre’s running toward the breach, her hands raised, fire blasting from her palms. “I’ll create a barrier! I’ve studied advanced defensive formations!”
The fire catches and holds.
Then a hellhound crashes through, and its jaws close around Deidre’s throat.
She’s dead. Each time, she always ends up dead.
I’m staring at the bodies when the creatures turn to me. Their red eyes glow and their teeth are bared, with smoke curling from their muzzles as they stalk closer.
I raise my hands. But before the electricity comes, someone touches my waist, and black flames erupt around me.
The screaming and chaos fades to a distant hum, like hearing the ocean through a seashell. I’m still in the cave, but I’m also not. Everything is muted and shadowy, like watching a nightmare through dirty glass.
Logan’s arms wrap around me from behind, and they’re colder than normal. He pulls me back against his chest, and even after four timelines of death and failure, he feels like safety.
“What is this?” I ask, gazing around at the black flames surrounding us.
“A trick I wasn’t sure I could pull off,” he says against my ear. “We’re between. Not fully here but not fully gone.”
“How long can you hold it?”
“Long enough.” He turns me in his arms so I’m facing him.
Exhaustion is carved into his features, and his breathing is shallow, each inhale barely lifting his chest. His eyes are bloodshot, and the hollows beneath them look like bruises.
But his jaw is set. His gaze is steady. Because underneath all of it, he’s still Logan Ashford, and he’s willing to do anything to keep me safe.
“I need to tell you something, and I need you to listen. Really, truly listen.”
“Okay.” I hold my breath, knowing I’m not going to like whatever’s coming next.
“I’ve never traveled back this far before. Now I’ve done it three times with another person in tow, and I don’t think I have more than one trip left in me. The next timeline is the one that will stick.” His forehead drops to rest against mine, his skin slick with sweat.
One more chance.
One more loop.
And then forever.
“The first timeline.” My brain’s already racing, sorting through memories of four different nightmares, but they’re bleeding into each other, and I can barely remember which deaths happened in which loop. “Or the second. They had the most survivors.”
“Yes.”
“So we combine them. We do an early warning like the second loop. I save Sam, Elizabeth, and Francis. I watch for Nina, Vera, and everyone who died in ways I could have stopped if I’d known what was coming.”
“Jade.” His hand cups my face, tilting it up. “If it goes wrong again, don’t pull lightning from the sky. Fire travel to the cliffs instead, where I brought you in the first loop.”
“No.”
“Please—”
“No way in hell.” I pull back, anger flaring hot and bright.
“I’m not hiding on a cliff while my friends get slaughtered.
Because that’s what the Council members did, isn’t it?
Helen and Tobias were here, and I haven’t seen them in any of the timelines.
But we’re better than they are, and I’m not leaving everyone to die, and nothing could ever convince me otherwise. ”
Black flames sputter around us, thinning at the edges.
Logan’s mouth curves into a small, knowing smile that makes my heart do stupid things.
“You’re going to pull lightning from the sky in front of everyone.” It’s not a question.
“If that’s what it takes to save them, then yes.”
“The Council will find out about your magic. You won’t be safe here. You won’t be safe anywhere.”
“I know.”
He nods, resignation passing through his tired gray eyes. “The second the hellhounds are down, get to the passages. I’ll handle things here. Then I’ll meet you at our door, the one at Phoenix Hall, as soon as I can.”
“I love you.” The words tear out of me. “Whatever happens, whatever timeline we end up in, I love you.”
He pulls me closer, and even drained and exhausted, he holds me like he’ll never let go. “I love you more than anything. Remember that, always.”
“I will.” I rest my head on his chest and brace myself for the vortex.
Instead, the flames flicker in and out. There’s only Logan’s arms around me, the muted screaming beyond the dark, and the possibility that he’s burned through everything.
“No.” My hands fist in his shirt, electricity surging up my arms. “You don’t get to strand us here. You don’t get to—”
Lightning arcs from my palms into his chest, and a black wall of fire ignites around us. It’s flickering and thin, but it’s there, and Logan shudders against me so hard I feel it in my bones, his skin warming everywhere my electricity touches.
His arms lock around me as the world tilts and spins, and for one final time, we’re pulled into the vortex.