Chapter 37
We're All Gonna Die
My screams tore me awake.
In both the dream and in reality, my lungs split open with shrill terror. Sweat slicked my skin, though winter-sharp air bit at my bare feet and hands. I was drowning again, gulping for a breath I couldn’t hold.
Then the notification buoyed me back to the surface.
Incoming Call: Zade
Ignore.
Another alert appeared on my Visex.
New Message from Zade
Just now
TURN OF YOUR VISEX AND RUN! THEY ARE TRACKING YOU!
My hand flew to my temple, and I tapped.
The notification stayed.
Then another came.
Incoming Call: Zade
Answer.
“Elle!” Zade whispered breathlessly, but somehow, he was shouting. It was strange to hear him call me that instead of his usual ‘Belles’. “Where are you?!”
“Uh,” I responded weakly. I rubbed my eyes, trying to rub the sleep from them as well as from my brain. The heels of my palms came back wet from the tears and sweat of the nightmare. “I’m, uh.” Where am I? “I’m safe.”
“If you’re at Chapel, you’re not safe,” Zade cut in, fast and panicked. “They’re coming for you right now. I’m coming. Get out. NOW!”
The call ended.
The words on the screen dripped, then melted into lines of blood.
Then I saw Zade running towards me.
Only I wasn’t me. I was watching from above as he sprinted toward a limp figure—my body, slung over someone’s shoulder. That someone was a shroud of darkness.
“ELIANA!” Zade’s scream ripped through the night.
But not the me in the dream. She was already gone.
“ELI—”
Something tore through him.
A hand. Soren.
Soren, with enormous black wings, stood with his arm thrust through Zade’s back, his fist wrapped around something pulsing and red.
“NOOO! ZADE!!”
I sat up screaming, this time in the real world. My lungs heaved and shrieked, and somehow, I still had air left to cry out.
Soren’s hands clamped against both sides of my face, steadying me.
I gasped between sobs and blinked through the flood. The tears blurred his face, but I felt him there.
“You have to wake up!” he shouted.
Veda crouched beside me, one hand between my shoulder blades. “It was just a dream,” she cooed. “You’re alright.”
Soren wiped my cheeks with his thumbs, gentler now that I was with him and not back in that dream.
“We’re all gonna die,” I choked. “Riaan, Zuri…Zade. Because of me.”
I gulped for air, trying to push past the memory of what I’d just seen. “Y-You.” I thrust a finger at Soren’s chest. “You killed Zade.”
Soren didn’t flinch. With absolute calm, he brushed my hair from my face.
“That didn’t happen,” he said, sure and sharp. “It won’t happen. I won’t let it.”
“It wasn’t just a dream this time,” I sobbed. “I could smell the rotting flesh. I felt the fire. It was real. They’re going to burn Chapel after slaughtering everyone. Their bodies will be hung from the walls.”
“No, sweets,” Veda said softly. “We’re safe. Chapel is protected.”
Soren tipped my chin up, his expression unreadable.
“You have no idea who I am,” he murmured, “And what I will do to protect you.”
Yeah, right. I know exactly what you are. You’re a monster who’s going to destroy me.
His mouth parted like he wanted to say more.
But nothing came.
Then he drew back. His hand dropped into his lap. Soren sat there still as stone, staring at me but not at me.
His eyes glazed over. They flickered from black to a pale, glacial blue. A color I’d never seen on him before. He was seeing something not there, somewhere else and far away.
I held my breath.
Veda squeezed my arm, anchoring me.
“He’s having a vision,” she whispered.
A vision.
Like the one he and Ezra were arguing about?
Suddenly, Soren jolted upright. His eyes snapped back to black.
“It wasn’t a dream,” he said slowly, echoing my previous pronouncement. Then much faster, “We have to go.” He plunged towards me and grabbed my wrist before bellowing out in a roar that sparked both Veda and me into action. “Now!” he shouted.
I stumbled off the bed, my feet struggling to keep up with Soren, who still held fast to my arm.
“I’ll go sound the alarm and start getting others out,” Veda said. She was right behind us as we burst out of my room into the dimly lit hallway. The orange-glowing sconces burned too softly for the danger racing toward us.
This was real. I didn’t need to ask what Soren saw or what was happening. I’d seen it first. I’d had a vision. My dream was reality. It was here, coming to life right now. And Soren was right: my dreams had to be a Charism.
“You get her out of here, Soren!” Veda shouted, already running ahead of us.
I dug my heels into the slick marble. My feet slipped, forcing me to stumble forward as Soren dragged me without pause.
“We trained to fight!” I yelled at him, my voice cracking under the pressure. “Let me help! I don’t need to run!”
The words rang with irony. Just hours ago, I had threatened to leave them all. But that was before I saw it.
Seeing is believing, after all.
And what I had seen—death and destruction of my own making—couldn’t be allowed to unfold. I might not be able to fulfill their prophecy and find the Anointed, but I could help them escape from the terror I’d brought on them just by being here.
A door ahead creaked open. A girl in a pink nightgown peeked out.
“Get to the training grounds exits!” Veda barked. “Tell everyone on the way to evacuate!”
I continued to fight against Soren’s pull, refusing to run.
Soren whipped around, his face inches from mine. His voice fire.
“This is not the time, Eliana,” he snapped. “We get them out first. There are some here who can’t fight.”
“Then let’s do that!” I argued. “Let’s help instead of just running away. We can warn everyone. I can help with that!”
My voice cracked on the word help. I wasn’t sure which version of myself I was trying to convince.
Soren didn’t answer.
He bent low, his shoulder crashing into my stomach as he hoisted me over him like a sack.
“STOP!” I screamed, pounding my fists against the steel cage of his ribs wrapping around his back. “Let me help!”
An alarm shrieked above us, drowning out everything. Then Veda’s voice cut through, firm and practiced:
“We are in a code red. This is not a drill. Please evacuate immediately,” she said. “Meet at Nest 4.”
The siren picked up its call again. You could hear shouts from down the other halls and doors slamming here and there.
We passed a group of younger residents crowding the elevator. When the doors opened, fire erupted from inside.
Soren set me down and yanked a blond-haired boy—eight years old, maybe—out of the way of a leaping flame.
“Take the alternative exits!” he ordered.
He plunged his hand into the blaze. The light above the elevator flickered, then died. He yanked his arm back just before the metal doors slammed shut.
“Come on!” he shouted. “We have to go!”
Another boy, this one with a shaved head and train pajamas, ran toward us. Soren blocked him with an outstretched arm.
“Tell everyone to avoid the sanctuary,” he commanded the child. “They’re already inside!”
My chest squeezed in on itself so suddenly and so profoundly that a sharp pain shredded out from it into my veins and off to my extremities like some form of peripheral neuropathy from hell.
It had already started. I saw the blood filling the sanctuary as it had in my dream.
I imagined Mods strapping bodies to the wall and slitting their throats to drain them of the life-giving fluid, only to fill that room like a baptismal basin of death and burial.
The boy nodded and darted away, shouting, “Chapel is down! Everyone, take alternate exits! Chapel is down!”
Soren turned to me, voice low but sharp.
“Just listen to me for once,” he said. “Don’t make things any harder than they have to be. We head for Ezra’s office. Tell everyone on the way to take alternative exits and that Chapel is down.”
My teeth chomped on the sides of my flattened tongue as I forced a nod. My hand flexed as it ached for something to do, to wrap around the riser of a bow or to pull back on the string until it was fully taut and ready to send an arrow ripping through the noise and into someone’s head.
Maybe I do always choose violence and death.
Soren only tapped lightly on my elbow this time before sprinting toward the A-Block.
I followed.
I did that other thing I do best (besides shooting and killing) and ran. I full-on sprinted after Soren.
We tore down the corridor, flames licking closer behind us. Each shout from the halls felt like a death knell. Soren barked directions to those we passed. I echoed him.
“We need to find something in Ezra’s office,” Soren said between warnings. “Alternative exits,” he shouted to a redheaded man who appeared around the corner. “Chapel is down.”
Then, to me again: “There’s an exit there. Once we’re outside, I can shadow-run and get you to a safe point. You’ll stay there, and I’ll come back to get more people out.”
He didn't wait for me to agree. He knew I wouldn’t. Still, I followed.
“Farren!” Soren barked.
She turned from Onezimuth’s office with her hand still on the knob.
“Go get the rest of the team. Tell them to get to Nest 7.”
“But Veda said Nest 4,” she replied, pointing vaguely upward where the alarm blared from the speaker.
“And I’m saying Nest 7,” Soren growled. “We’re not taking Eliana where anyone else can find her. There’s a mole in Chapel. If the Dark One gets her, it’s over.”
Farren’s face tightened, but she nodded and ran.
Soren and I crashed through the door of Ezra’s office. Inside, silence reigned, as if the fire and chaos couldn’t reach in.
Hands on knees, I attempted to catch my breath while Soren moved like a storm. He rifled through drawers and shelves, stuffing papers and books into a leather satchel.
Then, a sharp snarl escaped him. He turned to the far door and ripped it open. A gust of wind howled in.
I remembered this door. It was the one he’d closed the night I saw the drawing.
“Let’s go!” he barked.
I scuttled toward him. He pressed a hand to my back and ushered me through. As he closed the door behind us, darkness swallowed everything.
Flint scraped. A torch flared to life.
The narrow concrete stairwell loomed in flickering orange.
“Go as fast as you can without injuring yourself,” he ordered.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered. But I went.
The dark stairwell was cold and silent. Too silent. Behind us, people were fleeing for their lives.
Not all of them will make it out of there.
“And it’s your fault,” the darker voice hissed.
Tears stung. My foot slipped two-thirds of the way up.
Soren’s arm caught me instantly, steadying me, then pushing me forward. “You’re almost there.”
He reached around at the top and pushed open a door.
Moonlight washed over us as if cleansing the nightmare below from our skin.
Then something slammed into my chest, and all the breath I had in my lungs left with a pop. The world swirled around me, and I wasn’t sure if I was being pushed or sucked through the long tunnel of light and wind.
When the movement stopped, I collapsed to the ground on my hands and knees. My stomach threatened to follow my breath and spill itself onto the forest floor.
“Well, it’s about time you two got here,” came a familiar drawl.