Chapter 70
My arms and legs churn through nothing as my stomach drops out through my feet. The wind rushes in my ears as a massive cloud erupts overhead, like I’m leaping straight into its bloody, beating heart.
Then I’m falling.
Rook snags me around the wrist, and I drop, my shoulder wrenching as I come to a sudden, jarring stop. The world spins below me as I scream and kick, fighting for solid ground.
“Poet!” Rook is screaming. “Stop kicking!”
He shouts and shouts until I finally register his pleas.
“Look at me,” he says. “Don’t look down.”
I tip my head up and stare into his eyes.
Those green-and-gold eyes that told me I was beautiful and special, that he felt something for me. I see it there in the shadowed depths, but then I remember him searching through those subterranean levels. I remember seeing him the night Raine was taken from me.
“Help me,” he says, gripping my arm with his other hand, muscles straining with the effort of carrying my weight. “Use your feet! Poet, please. You have to help me.”
I do as he orders, slamming my boots into the side of the building to anchor myself as he drags me up, my skin burning where he’s gripping me tight enough to bruise.
“One, two, three!” he counts, and then, with a final heave, I go tumbling up the side.
I crash into him, and we roll across the rooftop.
“Stop! By order of The Shield. Stop!” a voice shouts through the sounds of wind and fire. Rook jumps up, taking me with him, and tugs me behind an air-conditioning vent.
I peer around the corner to find several Circle Guards surrounding the rooftop. I have only a moment to wonder where the Extinguishers are.
“We need to keep going,” Rook says. “Are you with me?”
I’m hesitating, unsure how to answer, when another figure appears through the stairwell door.
General Sol.
Her hair tosses in the breeze as she begins shouting orders to go after us but to bring us back alive.
“This way,” Rook says, dragging me toward a door. The same one I exited during my first Aria test. He yanks on the handle, but it doesn’t give.
“Shit. It’s locked!” Rook scans the roof. “Off the building. We’ve done it before.” He pauses. “Poet?”
I nod. “Okay,” I say. I’m with him for now, at least until we can hide.
“Stop them!” someone shouts. I look over to see one of the Guards backing up. A ping from a stunner blazes past us, barely missing my arm.
Rook reaches out and takes my hand.
I look over at him as the wind tosses his hair.
He’s so beautiful it makes my throat ache.
“Count of three?” he asks.
I nod. What choice do I have?
“One, two, three.”
Then we’re running for the edge. We leap, and then we’re falling.
The descent catches my skirt so that it billows around me in ripples of purple and white. It tugs at my hair as my stomach lifts into my throat. We tip, turning face-first as the ground races up toward us.
My fingers slip from Rook’s as we near the net, and then . . .
SLAM.
I land with a bounce, then fly up, my legs and arms kicking on the rebound.
After another few bounces, I come to a stop.
“Poet!” Rook shouts. “Get off!”
He’s already on the ground with a knife in his hand, sawing at one corner of the rope. I scramble off, my dress tangling around me as I land beside him and retrieve the knife from my boot.
If I squint, I can just make out two figures standing on the roof.
They jump, plummeting toward us.
“Faster!” Rook says, sawing harder.
The Guards tumble as we slice through the rope. Seconds feel like hours, and they’re nearly at the bottom when the strands give, splitting apart and dropping one side of the net.
The Guards must notice because they start screaming.
Rook takes my hand and wrenches me away.
“Don’t watch,” he orders, and then we’re running. A second later, I hear the thuds, the gruesome splats. A telltale crack and a slap of the Guards hitting the pavement. I heave and will myself not to throw up.
More scarlet streaks flash across the sky as we skirt the edges of the buildings and arrive at the plaza between the Citadel and Amery. The entire space is engulfed in flames, while dozens of Patrols try to put them out.
We hide around a corner and peer out.
“They’re distracted,” Rook says. He turns to me and cups my shoulders. “I need you to pack a bag.”
“What?”
“We’re leaving.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Poet, The Shield knows about you. They’ll find you, and they’ll do unspeakable things to keep you quiet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain everything—”
CRASH.
The corner of the building smashes apart. We both duck under a hailstorm of brick and cement to find a group of Guards running toward us.
“This way!” Rook shouts, and then we barrel across the plaza. It’s a sight of chaos, and we lose ourselves in the mess, bursting through the doors of Amery.
The hall is empty, eerily quiet but for the muffled sounds of confusion bleeding in from outside. We won’t have long before the Guards find us.
Rook cocks his head, and we turn left, heading down a deserted hallway. I’m still having trouble arranging my thoughts into coherence as our soft footfalls echo in the silence.
“Here,” Rook whispers. “I think this hall leads toward our room.”
Our room.
The place where Rook made me feel safe when Amery became a viper’s den.
Where he read to me. Where we kissed. Where he . . .
I shake my head, even as my cheeks heat at the memory.
Maybe all of that was a lie, too.
We round a corner, keeping close to the walls. I keep seeing Raine’s body. Rook running onto that screen. Trinity giving me up to the Extinguishers. The moment when she uttered my name.
My mind is liquid, melting through my pores. There’s too much to process.
I wonder where she is and if I’ll ever get the chance to confront her.
A door slams in the distance, and we both stop, our eyes meeting as we wait in stillness. When nothing else happens, we proceed down the hall, turning another corner.
Everyone has hidden away, seeking shelter from the storm. We’ve been lucky so far—if you count any of this as luck—but we shouldn’t remain exposed for too much longer.
I peer down at my feet, covered by the now-dusty edges of my skirt, wondering where my parents went. Did they get to safety?
I watch Rook’s back as we snake through the corridors. I have at least a thousand questions for him, but now isn’t the time. Am I really thinking of leaving with him? Where would we go? To his home? Through the Wastes?
If I don’t, then what will happen to me? Everyone knows what I am now thanks to Trinity. Even if The Shield didn’t already know the truth, I broke into their headquarters, and they would find me. I’d be questioned, and it wouldn’t take long to reveal everything.
“Almost there,” Rook says softly as we round another corner and enter a wide hall.
We’re deep enough inside the building that I can’t hear anything happening outside.
Rook stops suddenly, his hand reaching out to block me. I stop, wondering what’s set him off. Then I hear it. Footsteps. Several sets.
We tense up as someone rounds the corner.
Rook appears ready to bolt, and I’m about to follow when I see who it is.
“Knox?” I ask as he appears with Jackson, Sal, and several other guys I recognize from House Fiama.
“We’ve been looking for you.” Knox sneers. He approaches on casual steps, his fingers tucked into his belt loops like a complete jackass. “I always knew you were a freak, Poet.”
Despite everything, I roll my eyes. “We really don’t have time for this,” I say. “Get out of the way.”
But they close in, surrounding us, forming a wall of losers. Knox stands at the head of the circle between Jackson and Sal. “I don’t think so. You’re a Keeper, and the Extinguishers want you. Finally, that Robins was good for something.”
“Knox, stop this!”
He folds his arms. “You’re always so fucking eager to run from me, aren’t you?”
I inhale a deep breath, searching for patience.
But he has that look in his eyes—the one with the mean streak he loves to indulge.
“Jackson, please,” I say, appealing to a more reasonable source. “Tell him to stop. Just let us go. You don’t have to do this.”
Jackson’s eyebrows jump as he looks between Knox and me.
“He’s not helping you,” Knox says as he pushes Jackson to the side and then strides up to Rook.
“This is finally my chance for retribution.” He stops, his chest puffing out.
Unfortunately for him, Rook has several inches on him and does a spectacular job of looking down at Knox like he’s a steaming pile of shit.
Knox doesn’t actually care that I’m a Keeper. He cares that I rejected him and that Rook humiliated him so many times. This is all about his ego.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Rook asks.
Knox places his hands on Rook’s chest and shoves, but Rook doesn’t budge. His feet remain firmly planted like he’s been nailed to the stones.
“You can apologize for laying your hands on me,” Knox snarls.
Rook snorts. “Yeah, I’m not doing that.”
Knox shoves him again, but Rook is a mountain.
“Knox!” I say, trying to slide between them. “Stop this right now!”
I’m increasingly aware of how long we’ve been standing still. The Extinguishers could be right around the corner. “Move out of our way.”
Knox’s circle has tightened, cinching us like a noose.
He cracks his knuckles, and I am desperate to end this pathetic B-rate show of fragile male ego.
“No,” he answers, and then he lunges.
Suddenly, Rook is swarmed, and someone grabs me from behind, wrenching my arms behind my back. I’m dragged away as the rest move in on Rook.
“Let go of me,” I grunt as I struggle against my captor’s hold, trying to kick or headbutt or do something to release myself.
“Poet,” my captor says, and I realize it’s Jackson.
“Jacks, let me go. This isn’t you.”
I look up at him, and something like contrition flashes over his expression. He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he mumbles, unable to look me in the eyes.