Chapter Thirty-Five
Yun
Another nightmare. Shear was supposed to keep them from happening, but maybe that was too much to expect anymore.
Still, at least this one felt different. He spoke to the men, not to me. The fact the men were in my dream—dressed—struck me as strange as well, but I lacked the ability to think it through.
“You know, it’s funny how life works out. After everything, after all these years, to be back here?” He shook his head as though it were an inside joke I didn’t understand.
I turned my head to find Shear having fallen to his knees, the others looking no better.
Oh, I see…
That was why this was different. It seemed my psyche had finished tormenting me with my own memories, and now it wanted to hurt the men I loved in front of me. The mind never did run out of ways to torture us, did it?
“I mean, what were the odds? Of all the guides, of all the squads, how could things have come together just like this? How could this have happened? I certainly never thought there was any god out there looking over me, but now I wonder, what if it was me all along? What if I was the deity I should have been praying to? I mean, how else could I account for my good luck?”
Blood leaked from Shear’s nose, from his ears.
Something felt strange though. A touch to my mind, something familiar. Shear’s power.
It woke me up, made me recognize that maybe this wasn’t a nightmare. What if my fears had come true? What if somehow, he had gained access to them through me?
Panic filled me.
He laughed, the sound cruel. “Don’t fight it, Yun. When did fighting it ever help? Has it just been too long for you to remember all that training I put into you? No matter, I don’t mind breaking you all over again.”
He grabbed my shoulder and twisted me, turning me toward the men, gripping my chin to force me to watch.
He wanted me to see them die…
But I couldn’t. I’d been ready to end my life before, and if I had to still, I’d do it without question, but I wouldn’t let them pay that price.
So I gathered up the powers inside me, the sparks that I had hated before, the cause for my nickname, and I let them go.
I let them flash out of me, rewarded with a scream then a sharp retreat that hurt so badly, everything crashed in around me.
Had I won?
I didn’t know, but at least I’d done something.
Carter
I stared at Yun’s unconscious body, her hand in mine. Even if Shear had assured me that she was okay, that it was only mental stress of breaking that connection, I couldn’t seem to let her go.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Ingram asked from where he leaned against the wall, watching over her just like me.
“Of course I did.” That face was burned into my memory. When Yun had used her defenses on him, it had lit up the entire space, so brightly I’d nearly shut my eyes against it.
Then, the second before the connection had been severed, before he’d disappeared, I had seen a face I’d never expected to see again.
“I don’t know about a god,” I said softly, “but that sure as hell seems like a demon’s work. I’d say it isn’t possible, but I don’t usually discount my own sight.”
“How can he be there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And it doesn’t matter. We were blamed for his death once already—we might as well actually do the deed ourselves this time.”
Corsa Ray, our one-time squad member who had died—or so we thought—last time we’d gone into The Pitt, seemed alive, and still a fucking thorn in our sides.
“The fucker is going to wish he’d stayed dead,” Ingram said.
And for once we could fully agree on something.