Chapter 39
I Am the Hunter
Once I was far enough from the clearing, I broke into a jog.
The smell of Chapel burning hit me first—smoke, ash, and something acrid I couldn’t name.
Flames had broken out from the main cathedral and leapt from tree to tree in a solemn ring of mourners.
The entrance to Ezra’s office loomed near the left-hand border of the woods.
Two rows of trees masked a rock face with a false wall.
I kept to the shadows as I darted toward it, forgetting Farren was supposed to follow me.
Forward motion was the only thing I could think about.
Continuous screams of pain and death mixed with Moderator shouts and gunfire rose above the crackling trees just beyond my target.
My heartbeat thundered, drowning them all out.
It was my own voice in my head now. Finally, just mine.
I’ll kill them all. Every last one of them. Starting with Azazel and Prisca. Then I’ll finish with the Founder. I will not be a victim any longer. I am not the prey. I am the hunter.
“Vengeance is mine,” the still, small voice interrupted.
“Screw you,” I muttered as my hands slammed into the slick rock, its surface warm from the blaze encroaching on all sides. My fingers traced the uneven texture until they slipped into a shallow groove and found a loop barely large enough for one slender finger.
These people may have been crazy. They may have practically kidnapped me and imprisoned me. But they didn’t deserve this. Little girls in pink pajamas and little boys with trains on their sleeping clothes didn’t deserve this.
The rock wall quaked. I was in.
I flew down the stairwell—feet missing steps, sliding over others.
The door at the bottom stood wide open. The office was as cold as a tomb. The thump in my chest turned sharp as I stormed around the space like a gale, yanking on any handle I could reach.
Every damn drawer and door was locked. Soren had just been rummaging behind these same locks with no problem. He wouldn’t have wasted time going back and locking them all, would he?
I needed those books. I knew it. Even if I had no idea what kind of answers they would give, I knew I couldn’t leave them behind.
And where the hell was Farren?
I ransacked the parts of the room I could, eyes wild, hands frantic. I needed something—anything—to break open the locked spaces.
A weapon?
“The armory,” came the hiss.
That’s right. The armory had countless weapons.
It even had those magnificent bows.
Perhaps, it even had the Jonathon bow.
If it was there, my best chance at getting Azazel was about to go up in flames. I couldn’t leave it.
Heat slammed into me as I crossed into A-Block.
A heat that matched the crackling roar spilling from the rotunda.
I ran, bare feet slick with sweat and mud and probably blood, sliding across the eerily un-cold marble floor.
The rotunda was blistering, but I was blinded by the one thing that mattered—the Jonathan Bow.
Forget the books. Forget the answers.
I’m Eliana Chapman-Chen, and I want one thing only: vengeance.
The moment that voice reminded me of the armory, panic detonated in my lungs and drilled straight into my soul. Veda had promised the bow was locked away in the bunker somewhere. Her promise was about to be for nothing.
Gunfire and muffled shouting from L-Block kicked my adrenaline into overdrive. I could’ve sworn the singing started up again.
I only stayed at Chapel this long for that damn weapon. So I could kill Azazel. The Administration would never have attacked Chapel if I weren’t here. So burning inferno and monstrous Extermins be damned to hell.
A hand clamped over my mouth just as I grabbed the armory door handle, the heat of the metal knob in my hand scalding compared to the freezing pang of defeat.
“Following me again, my Little Shadow?”
Soren’s voice.
Low. Deadly.
Still louder than the war around us.
He wasn’t lightning-fast—but he was still fast enough to whip me around, sling me over his shoulder, and bolt. Still faster than me. And way stronger. I never stood a chance.
This time, I didn’t fight him. Didn’t kick or scream. Just clenched my jaw and swallowed the tears burning up from somewhere deeper than fear. The anger and hurt and guilt thumped heavy as lead in my blood.
This was fast becoming a game of ours. I ran, he caught me. I snuck around, and he found me. I fought, he won.
He set me down in Ezra’s office. Too gently, considering how fast he’d just been.
Now he was the one tearing through the room. But unlike me, he had a key.
And a much scarier angry voice.
“Why are you here?” he roared.
“I-I came to get the books for Ezra,” I lied. “And then I remembered the Jonathon bow.”
He held up a book with a green spine and a tree carved into it. “We have the only book that matters.” Then he rounded the desk and shoved me toward the stairs. “And the bow? Veda lied. It’s never been here.”
My foot hit the second step when the ground shifted beneath us. The third step cracked under the pressure of the earth’s collapse.
I didn’t need him to shout “GO!” I was already scrambling up the steps with everything I had left.
Moonlight cut through the shadows above, and I dove toward it just as a force lifted me and flung me through space again.
This time, I didn’t hit the ground.
I caught myself, barely managing to stay on my feet.
“Run!” Soren shouted, grabbing my hand as we sprinted the final yards—out of Chapel’s field, into the waiting trees. We had to go deeper. The burning forest threatened us with its hungry blaze.
I leaned against a tree to steady myself and looked up. Smoke blanketed the moon.
“I can’t believe she lied to—”
“You are the most selfish human I have ever met,” Soren spat.
He stalked toward me with his jaw clenched so hard that black veins crawled across his skin. “People are dying right now because of you! For you!”
He punched a fist toward the trembling old church. I ducked and slid out from in front of the tree just before his fist came crashing down centimeters above where my head had been.
Futile as it was, I twisted to run.
Five bone-chilling fingers wrapped around my forearm and yanked me back to push me against another tree. Those same fingers were then clenching my jaw, forcing me to look at the shadows haunting his eyes.
If anyone ever questioned Soren’s self-control, I could refer to this moment in time when I knew he was using an indescribable amount of energy to keep from crushing my mandible in his palm.
His rage rolled through the trembling in his fingers, pressed tight against my skin, but the grip was loose enough to avoid even leaving a bruise.
“People have given up everything for you. I gave up everything for you. And you risk your life for a book you don’t understand and a weapon that doesn’t exist. This isn't who you were meant to be.”
He wasn’t yelling now. Not even snarling.
Just quiet and listing facts. And somehow, that was worse.
“I can’t sit back and do nothing,” I said as steadily as possible with his hand still on my face, my life still in his grasp.
His jaw shifted again. The sound of grinding teeth sent a ripple of cold down my spine.
He dropped his hand, stepped back, and stared down at me.
For a moment, something flickered in his face. Not rage. Not disgust. Something raw. Fragile. Then it vanished.
“You have a choice to make this harder or easier for me, and for everyone else. I can’t travel as fast with the smoke cutting off the moonlight. We have to run. If I have to keep hunting you down, which I will, then you’ll be putting everyone else in danger because the Extermins are closing in.”
And that was all he gave me before pointing deeper into the woods, back the way I came.
It was harder to run when you couldn't breathe, and it was harder to breathe when you'd caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.
She lied to me.
“Yes, she did,” the hissing voice said.
At least Soren wasn’t looking back to see the tears the wind hadn’t brushed away.
The weapon was never at Chapel.
My steady stride and spiraling thoughts were interrupted when something metallic corded around my torso, pulling me off my feet. I flew backward, slammed into a tree, and gasped as a metal glove clamped over my mouth.
A Mod.
Not just any Mod.
My Mod.
Zade’s voice rumbled against my ear.
“What are you doing?! Why are you still here? You’re supposed to be long gone!”
My arms acted before my brain did. I flung them around him—not that it was much of a hug through the Mod suit—but he still wrapped his arms around me in return because he knew what I needed even if I’d never in a billion years admit it.
One stupidly gloved hand brushed my hair.
When I let go, he flipped up his mask.
More tears on my part. I could barely see him through the blur, and that pissed me off.
His green eyes caught the flames like Chapel’s stained glass windows, shattering before me.
“Why aren’t you doing a better job at hiding?” he asked. And, damn, it was really lovely to hear his actual voice. “You know I can’t keep living if anything happens to you.”
“I have to kill Azazel,” I replied instantaneously. It rolled off too easily, as if that were still all that mattered.
“He’s not here,” Zade growled. “He’s sitting up in The Tower, waiting for you to die.” He stepped back. “And why are you with that freak? I told you he’s dangerous. Why can’t you ever listen to me?”
A bubble of laughter got stuck in my chest and pulled at my limbs. Funny that Zade and Soren tended to say the same things.
Maybe that’s cause they’re right?
“What about you?” I shoved his armored chest and then had to shake the sting of it from my hands. “Who was that guy you were talking to earlier? I saw him turn into a snake!”
He paused. Tilted his head. Then shook it.
“You’re losing it,” he finally said. “I was talking with Kaphus, a total dweeb. He can’t turn into a snake, but he does want you dead. You need to run and get as far away from here as possible. I’ll come find you. I promise.”
“That’s not what that third guy said,” I shot back. “He said to keep me alive.”
The singing started again. It must have been deafening back inside Chapel to be heard over the fire devouring the forest.
“You hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“The singing.”
Zade frowned. “Singing? First, you’re seeing things. Now, you’re hearing things. You got a fever or something?”
I didn’t have time to answer before something came rushing at Zade from my right—his left— sending him flying. Zade and this force went crashing into a sturdy tree trunk fifty feet away. The ground shook beneath me with the earth’s recoil.
“Run, Eliana!” Soren’s voice bellowed.
The smack of a fist against bone and flesh cracked through the air.
“Stop! He’s my friend,” I screamed. I rushed toward them. “Leave him alone, Soren! You’ll kill him!”
The forest echoed with body blows and snapping branches. I ran toward them, expecting to see Zade in a crumpled heap. Instead, I watched as he landed a punch to Soren’s shoulder that sent him reeling.
Zade. Punched. Soren?
How the fuck?
I ran forward to jump in front of Zade as he lifted his arm to aim what I assumed was a gun at Soren’s head.
I threw myself in front of it. “Don’t!” I screamed. “He’s helping me. He protects me! I need him.”