Chapter 85
Chapter Eighty-Five
APRIL
For a long moment, I sit crumpled in a heap on the dirty ground, staring unblinking at my friend who I mourned, my body trembling in shock because there he was, right in front of my eyes.
Eshe is spitting curses left and right, jerkily tugging herself away from me so she can stand, but all I can do is keep my gaze on Andrei, unreasonable fear squeezing my throat that he will disappear like smoke the second I take my eyes off him.
My brain is unable to process this, and anger floods my veins.
This can’t be real. The mages must have somehow created an illusion that looks like Andrei.
They are fucking with my head. There’s no other possible way to explain how anyone could’ve survived that magical explosion, especially with no protection to hide behind.
The thrones that were jutting out from the floor the Council proudly displayed is the only reason Marcus, Sebastian, mutt, and I are still alive.
The fury stews and simmers inside me until I can no longer stay frozen.
Jumping to my feet, I stomp right in front of whoever this is.
“How dare you use his face and voice to try and trick me.” Snarling at the mage pretending to be Andrei, I let my eyes glow, the eerie golden light forming dancing shadows over the man’s carved-out torso.
“April …”
Eshe tries to get my attention, but I hiss at her like a deranged beast, snapping my head back to look over my shoulder. I must be a sight since her eyebrows crawl all the way to her hairline, and she takes a step back, lifting her arms to the sides in surrender.
“I am going to rip you limb from limb,” I tell the man stretched on the wall like a canvas. “You should’ve tried another face. I would’ve believed it sooner.”
I must have really lost my mind because the idiot thinking to trick me by wearing Andrei’s features chuckles under his breath.
The low laugh is a wet gurgling sound setting my teeth on edge.
Behind me, feet shuffle and scrape over the floor, but I pay it no mind because all my focus is centered on the man.
“If I wasn’t … in so much … pain.” The man tries to shake his head, but it hangs limply toward his chest when he breathes the words with great effort. “I would … love to tell you … how badass you look … right now.”
My upper lip curls until my fangs are exposed, and I snarl again at him.
“You just … need … dramatic … makeup.” Coughs rack him, and blood splatters from his mouth to the dusty floor at his feet. It also bubbles up from the open wounds on his chest, trickling down to the waistband of his pants. “But you … must run, April. Go.”
A bucket of cold water dumped over my head wouldn’t have snapped me out of the crazy I was in like him mentioning the makeup.
It was our thing, mine and Andrei’s. Every time Sebastian had an idea for me to play dress up, Andrei would sit with me, paint my face like an artist painting a masterpiece, and talk until I was calm enough to proceed with any plan they set up.
There is no way the mages could’ve known that to use it against me.
“How?” I’m not even embarrassed that I sound hysterical. “How did you survive?”
Without thinking, I reach for the metal chains pinning him to the wall with the intention of wrenching them off and taking him out of here.
Frantically repeating, “How did you survive that blast, how?” my fingers wrap around the links, pulling his right arm up, and excruciating pain almost makes me black out.
With a scream, I yank myself back, my fingers spasming from the magic coated all over it.
Shaking my hand as if that will help, I push down the urgency clawing at me.
“Magic …” Andrei breathes, the word so low I almost don’t hear him. “They spelled … the chains …”
I turn to ask Eshe for help, but I’m left with my mouth hanging open when I realize it’s just us here and there is no sign of her.
Hoping that she is nearby keeping an eye out that the mages are not coming back, I bring my focus back to Andrei before my eyes dart from side to side to look at the chains holding him upright on the wall.
“Go …” he attempts to send me away again.
“Shut the fuck up you stubborn ass.” The links are tightly twisted around his wrist and ankles, stretching him out just shy of pulling his limbs out of their sockets. “When have I ever done something when I’m ordered to do it?”
“True …” More gurgling comes from under his bent head, the sound of his voice just like at the beginning soothing me like a balm. Even in pain, he thinks he is funny. “Please …”
“I’m not leaving you here.” The conviction in my tone shuts him up for only a moment.
“You can’t …” He almost hacks out a lung in his refusal to stay quiet. “If not magic … I would’ve … gotten free …”
“There must be a way.” There is no way I’m walking out of these tunnels without him.
If worse comes to worst, I’ll fight the mages that come back and stay here until Sebastian finds me.
Because let’s be honest, if I’m not back where he thinks I should be, he will turn this city inside out and drag my ass back.
It’s just how our fucked-up relationship works.
I do everything to piss him off, and he comes running like a knight in shining armor to save me from whatever shit I’ve gotten myself into that time.
With that firmly set at the forefront of my mind, I focus back on Andrei.
“You are not healing,” I point out the obvious, while internally cringing at the wounds covering him.
“I can’t …” He stays quiet for long enough I think he lost consciousness, but with a gasp, he continues painfully slow. “The magic …”
“Fucking magic and fucking mages.” I seethe, reaching for the chains again even though I know it’s useless.
I’m proud to say I don’t scream.
My jaw clamps and my teeth grind audibly, so I’m actually surprised they don’t break.
This time, it takes more effort to remove my hand from the metal.
Whatever spell they’ve used tries to hold me to it as if glued.
My body jerks and spasms along with my insides, but eventually I throw myself away from it, ending sprawled on my back.
That’s when I hear it.
It’s barely a whisper carried in the air, but I know someone is coming.
It could be Eshe returning, but I know her too well to know she won’t give herself away like this.
It must be the mages returning from wherever they were, which means my time is up.
I can’t get Andrei out of the chains, so I’ll have to face them and kill them to buy myself the time I need to free him and take him home.
As I roll to push myself up, my eyes land on the wall where the chains are.
They aren’t nailed to it, instead they disappear inside the concrete as if this damn tunnel was built with them hanging from it.
There is no way to yank the chains out, but no one said anything about the wall.
In a last-ditch effort before I have to fight those assholes and hope none of them know how to create that green balloon thing that will surely get me killed, I jump up and rush to Andrei, stopping a foot from the wall to his left.
“Keep your head down,” I murmur to him, not taking my eyes off the spot where the metal chain is swallowed by the concrete.
Gingerly, I place my hand next to it, careful not to touch it, and I’m relieved when I don’t get zapped by the magic.
A grin pulls my mouth up so wide it stretches the skin on my face painfully.
With my next breath, I lean my left hand on the wall for balance and cock my right one behind my shoulder.
I punch the wall.
A sickening crunch tells me my knuckles are getting pulverized as much as the wall, but desperation keeps me going.
My arm is a blur, punching over and over until a hole the size of a head forms around the chain.
Pieces of broken wall and debris rain over Andrei’s bent head and shoulders, spraying me in the face as a cloud of dust billows around me as if trying to choke me.
I keep going.
Finally, the chain wobbles, and with a cracking sound, it detaches from the wall and drops to the ground, yanking Andrei sideways with it.
I take only a second to make sure I didn’t hurt him more than he already was, crouching down to do the same at his feet.
My arms are numb. I couldn’t even feel pain when I slammed the wall because the skin on my knuckles was shredded so bad it curled over my bone like strips of an orange peels left on the fruit to reveal its center.
It didn’t take long to remove the bottom links stretching his legs on each side, but when I’m done, Andrei is left hanging limply just by his one wrist. His muscles are pulled so tight by his weight that I’m scared the chain will rip his arm off, so I stupidly tuck my shoulder under his free arm and hold him up while punching the last connection that holds him prisoner.
Every time I move, I jostle him, and his barely audible groans and gasps tear my heart apart.
Instead of focusing on what I can’t change, I turn all my fear for him into anger, imagining what I’ll do to the ones who did this to my friend.
Out of everyone, they had to pick Andrei to do this to.
The only person who can soothe my fears and make me feel like everything is going to be okay, even when I was dying before waking up as one of the monsters I was running from.
His easygoing personality kept me sane, and they opened him up like a bug, dissecting him in the middle of a stench-filled tunnel.
All while I thought he was dead. While I wrapped my head around the fact that I’d never see him again.
White noise filled my ears.
With a final loud groan, the wall in front of me opens, a large chunk of it falling at my feet and almost taking my toes out.
At the last moment, I jump back, taking Andrei with me, and the chain drops with finality.
The clamoring of the metal against the ground broke the last thread keeping me attached to my humanity.
All the fear, the guilt, and the anger because of Andre’s death disappears in the cloud of dust that puffs in front of my face and coats me in white powder.
Hollowness takes residence inside me.
Andrei sags with all his weight on me, finally losing the battle with his consciousness, but I barely feel it.
With one hard lurch, I throw him over my shoulder, his arms reaching the back of my knees and his feet bumping my shins when I turn to leave.
My body coils to attack when two men fill the entrance, running to get inside.
They stop as soon as they are one foot inside the open space, and after I blink away the dust coating my eyeballs, I lock my gaze with Sebastian’s.
A muscle jumps on one side of his clenched jaw, and his nostrils flare.
His hands keep clenching at his sides, no doubt imagining holding my neck in them.
Behind his left shoulder, Marcus glowers at me, his red eyes pinging around the space and taking everything in before they settle on the man over my shoulder.
The slight widening of his eyes is the only reaction before Sebastian speaks.
“What were you thinking.” I wish he would scream at me. It would hurt less than the low, disappointed tone he is using.
I swallow.
“I found Andrei.”
Never in a million years did I expect to see the shocked expression on both of their faces.