Chapter Twelve #2
He flicked the tip of his tongue against an incisor before muttering, “You should put on a new shirt and armor. CURED will note your lack of a wound and want to know why you stripped.”
“Good thinking,” I replied, letting the subject change slide without comment. We both needed time to think.
We searched the fallen until we found someone my size, without blood. Once he liberated the desired garments, we set off and I dressed. Feeders followed us, their wiggling worms hissing.
“You good?” Cyrus glanced at me over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir.” The usually raised, puckered flesh of his facial brand had flattened a bit, and I gulped. Did this mean anything? “Why did Victors mark your face?”
“I asked him to do it. I wanted a vivid reminder of my true allegiance every time I glimpsed my reflection.”
“No wonder I’m so enamored of it. And you!”
He turned and gave me a playful wink. A moment of levity I treasured.
“I think we should visit the Rock together,” I suggested. “Find out why Soal is urging us to remain apart.” Something big must be happening behind the scenes.
A glowering Domino appeared, walking at my side, matching my speed. The hem of his robe flapped around his ankles with an elegant flurry of ripples. “Ember imparted so much of her own energy to you, she required a healing of her own.”
“I’m sorry, okay,” I cried. “I screwed up, and I take full responsibility.” As Tsuri had done for his Rose, Ember had poured her life into me. I would be forever grateful. “The lesson is learned, I promise.”
The librarian had warned me. Had asked for my trust, and I’d chosen to rely on myself, allowing fleeting, fickle emotions to lead me.
Turned out Cyrus hadn’t even needed my help to survive the battle.
I’d seen him fall, yes, but my eyes had deceived me.
He’d recovered without injury or aid. By leaving my post as Lolli’s bodyguard, I’d put myself in her line of fire, giving her a green light to attack while she had the chance.
“Domino is with us, I take it.” Cyrus swooped down to collect a fallen clip of ammo.
Right. Only I could see and hear the librarian. “He’s not happy with me.”
“I’m furious with you,” the librarian agreed easily enough. “But you need me if you’re going to reach the base in one piece, and that matters more. See for yourself.” He motioned up ahead.
I cast my gaze forward and groaned. More and more feeders gathered along the sidelines of our path, observing us with narrowed eyes while pawing a foot over the ground. This wasn’t good.
“You decided not to dismiss him,” Cyrus said, a flat statement.
Guilt hardened into a wall laden with traps and defenses.
“Domino found Mykal. Concealed and protected me when I visited the Rock. Kept me company when my teammates turned against me. Provided me with information I needed.” Comforted me in ways I couldn’t explain.
“He’s been a good friend. I won’t be a bad one. ”
Domino rolled back his shoulders, not quite as annoyed as before.
“I suppose I owe him a debt of gratitude, then.” Kind words that Cyrus pushed through clenched teeth. “Did he see the high princess shoot you?”
“First, he owes me nothing,” Domino said, almost offended.
“I did it for you. Tell him that. Second, I flashed in and out of the battle to issue orders to soldiers inside the Rock. I didn’t witness the discharge of the gun, nor have I read about it.
” He pulled ahead and searched the nooks and crannies of a huge pile of rubble. “I sense souls in need.”
I clasped Cyrus’s hand to slow him down, giving the librarian a chance to investigate. “He’s on the hunt for survivors.”
Cyrus squeezed my fingers, and I welcomed the prolonged connection. Had missed being close to him. And his heat. And his calluses; they tickled my palm. Here, now, I’d take any intimacy with him I could get.
“Clear,” Domino announced before sweeping even farther ahead. In fact, he moved ahead at such a fast clip, I lost sight of him.
“One day you’ll have to explain your dislike of each other,” I told Cyrus.
“I’m stunned he hasn’t explained.” The high prince snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me closer under the guise of helping me avoid a pothole rippling with a thick, oily substance. “He wants you for his own.”
What? No. What? “You’re wrong.” Very wrong.
But the razor-sharp steel in Cyrus’s voice remained with me, shattering my focus, scattering my thoughts like glass across a stone floor.
I jumped between astonishment and denial.
“That’s why you asked me to end my friendship with him.
” Which meant I’d almost ended a budding friendship for ridiculous, misconstrued jealousy.
“It may have played a part,” he muttered.
“Well, you’re wrong,” I repeated.
Domino reappeared, pulsing with satisfaction. “There are two trainees hiding in the Ferris wheel.”
I concentrated on what mattered, relaying the information to Cyrus as soon as the librarian dematerialized.
With his free hand, Cyrus massaged his nape. “They’ll notice how the feeders react to you. We should leave them. As soon as the heat dies down, CURED will send out a van.”
Not a typical response from the Cyrus I knew and lo—really liked.
I might be falling for him, as I’d already admitted, but I wasn’t there yet.
“They’ll notice, yes, but they won’t know the weirdness is because of me.
There could be a million reasons for it.
If I maintain a five-foot distance between us, they won’t even notice I’m without goggles.
” I didn’t give him a chance to issue another protest. Releasing Cyrus’s hand, I followed Domino’s path.
We passed a building made of colorful, serrated crystals on one side and concrete on the other. Feeders perched all over it. Other infected rushed about, some carrying or dragging dead bodies.
I stutter-stepped when I noticed Merlot and her cast. She hung over a feeder’s shoulder, limp.
Cyrus didn’t pause, just reclasped my hand as he passed me, urging me along. “She’s dead. We can’t help her.”
The massive Ferris wheel lay collapsed on its side, its rusted metal frame tangled in a web of snapped cables and splintered gondolas.
Once-bright paint was now faded and peeling, streaked with grime and corrosion.
Around it, the skeletal remains of other broken rides jutted out at odd angles, their twisted metal structures groaning softly in the wind.
Torn banners flapped weakly, their colors drained by time and weather.
The air was thick with the scent of damp wood, rust, and disintegrated trash strewn across the cracked pavement.
The occasional creak of unstable beams and the distant scurrying of maddened provided an eerie soundtrack for the entire amusement park.
The trainees waited at the center of the Ferris wheel, under an erected pritis pole that projected a small circle of golden light.
Winslet. She huddled together with someone I didn’t recognize.
They aimed their guns at the feeders collecting around the edges of the ring.
Cuts marred both their faces. They quaked with fear.
The feeders clearly conversed with each other, exchanging clicks, calls, and high-pierced screeches.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” I whispered to Cyrus.
“They’re debating using the trainees as bait for the glowers or eating them alive to build their strength.”
At the sound of our voices, the feeders spun, facing us. Cyrus released my hand, and we both palmed a weapon. I’d always assumed feeders were mindless, concerned only with blood and pain. Learning they were intelligent, able to reason out a plan of action—well, I didn’t like it.
Another question bubbled to the surface. “When did you learn their language?”
A muscle jumped beneath his eye. “I didn’t. I read about it, and suddenly I just knew.”
Another reason to visit the Library of Soal as soon as possible.
The guy with Winslet freaked out over the rising noise and fired off a shot in our direction. The bullet missed, thank goodness.
“Hold your fire,” I called, knowing he couldn’t see past the circle of light. “We’re here to help.”
“Arden!” Relief failed to crack the anxiety frozen into Winslet’s features.
Poor girl. I was so thankful, so grateful, Cyrus had taught me how to combat such fear. “We got stuck out here, too, and we’re headed to the base.”
“H-Heta told us to wait until reinforcements arrive,” she sputtered.
“I am reinforcements, and I’m telling you to gather the stones and walk this way.” Cyrus issued the rebuke with all the authority his exalted position provided, and the two soldiers snapped to attention. “Do it now.”
Though unsteady, the two worked together to detach the pole and appropriate the stones. Holding the lights, they navigated a path over the steel wire ropes and metal stand supports.
The feeders hissed and swiped at the pair, howling with pain and crumbling anytime even a clawtip breached the golden illumination.
As soon as the trainees reached our orbit, the horde drew back. I made sure to stay in the shadows.
“Put the stones in your pockets,” Cyrus instructed next.
“What? No,” Winslet exclaimed. “The feeders will attack us the moment the lights go out.”
“They won’t attack,” I promised. Having learned from Cyrus, the king of misdirection, I phrased my next words carefully. “The smoke might be confusing them. They’re keeping their distance right now.”
“O-okay.” The shimmering circle shrank, then vanished altogether, as the duo reluctantly obeyed.
“We’re going to do this just like your first trial run,” Cyrus said. “We’ll go in a single-file line. Do not speak without my permission. Hustle as if your life depends on it, because it does. Do nothing unless I tell you. If there’s a threat, I’ll alert you beforehand. Now tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” they both said.
I remembered my trial run well, and it was only here, now, that I realized Cyrus had seen in the dark, even then. He’d watched us. Watched me. And I’d had no idea.
“Arden,” he said, “you’re behind me. Winslet, you’re behind her.” That put the lord-in-training at the caboose. Cyrus met my gaze, his chest rising with a slow inhale. “Here we go.”
“Here we go,” I echoed.
As our group started forward, feeders continued gathering ahead of us, some at our left, some at our right, creating a path. They didn’t touch us, didn’t even swipe at us, but waited.
I swallowed a lump growing in my throat. As soon as the clock ran out, we were in big trouble.