Chapter 45
The Room With All The Answers
The next part, I was sure was a dream.
Zade was in the jungle with me. We were hunting and laughing and playing. It felt so familiar. We’d always just had fun together. But it also felt so different, because this time we weren’t trapped in The Tower. This was the real world.
Incoming Call: Unknown
The call answered on its own again.
“Hello, my beautiful.”
Is this a dream…or is it real?
“It’s real,” came that smooth voice that had called once before. “Nothing is more real than this moment right here.”
What do you want?
“All I’ve ever wanted is you.”
Who are you?
“I’m the one you’re coming to try and kill. Not Azazel, of course.”
My skin crawled. I knew I wasn’t dreaming anymore. But I couldn’t move. My body was paralyzed, suspended as something not entirely my own.
Get out of my head.
“Never. I’ll never let you go. You were always meant to be with me.”
I’m going to kill you. I will never be with you.
“Come to me, My Darling. I’m waiting.”
The dream surged back in like a rushing tide.
I turned a corner, bow drawn, arrow nocked and ready, aimed just past Zade’s head to scare him. But he wasn’t alone. He stood frozen, and Soren stood behind him, arm formed into the shape of a scythe, pressed to Zade’s throat.
“No! Soren!” I screamed, running forward because shooting Soren wasn’t an option. “Please don’t take him from me!”
“Love is someone giving up everything for us. That kind of love demands we do the same.” Still and small, came that voice in my head. It didn’t fit the scene at all and made no sense here, as I watched someone else I loved trapped in death’s clutches.
Soren’s arm sliced clean through Zade’s neck. His head rolled to the ground, blood spilling fast—soaking the jungle floor, curling through mud and roots and turning every corner of the earth red.
I woke up with a start, eyes flying open. My mouth hinged open, too, but thankfully, no sound came out this time. I sat up fast, ignoring the sharp pain shooting up my arm from my broken fingers.
I needed more nerve block.
“You’re awake.”
My head whipped to the right. Soren stood against the wall, arms crossed, watching me.
“Nightmare?”
“No,” I lied.
My eyes darted around the space, searching for anything I could use against the monster from my dreams—a weapon, a distraction, an escape route—but all I could see was his sick smile as he beheaded my best friend.
My mind wouldn’t stop. It kept going, and I imagined him thrusting an arm through Astrid’s chest and tearing her heart out next.
Or maybe he’d find Yu Ting and skin her alive.
I licked my lips.
“I’ve slept,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “Let’s go.”
He remained leaning against the wall, silently watching as I shoved my feet into my shoes and started folding the mattress.
“You sure you’re alright?”
“Fine,” I huffed and didn’t meet his eyes. “Just tired of waiting around.”
Soren finally moved to help, shoving the mattress into the pack with practiced ease. He led us to a high wall and found a hidden crank he knew too well, shifting the slab out of our path.
We crept through the sewers, both of us knowing our quiet safety was on borrowed time. And we were right. It only took ten minutes before Soren stopped short after rounding a corner and immediately backed up.
He shoved me against the wall, then peeked around again. Then he held up two fingers, nodding toward the crossbow in my left hand.
Seamlessly, Soren and I switched places.
Two Moderators stood about twenty feet away. If I didn’t miss, we’d stay undetected.
Of course, I didn’t miss.
I turned back to Soren with a smug smile.
It faded instantly.
The dream flooded back in, sharp as a blade. My gaze dropped to the shadows where the two Mods now lay, motionless and leaking red into the grime.
“Are you any different from him?” hissed the voice. “Bearer of death.”
I ignored the sage wisdom and pressed on, with no idea where I was headed.
Soren’s hand clamped around my elbow. “What’s wrong with you?” he hissed in my ear. “Why are you pissed at me again?”
“Don’t touch me!” I jerked my arm back, and he let me go, surprisingly.
“I heard something over there,” came a muffled shout from a corridor to my right.
“Come on,” Soren muttered. He ignored my protest and grabbed my elbow again.
I stumbled, trying to match his pace as he dragged me through the narrowing tunnel. We rushed around one corner, but then I crashed into Soren’s back.
He spun, shoving me into a different passage just as more Moderator shouts echoed from behind. We ducked behind a rusted-out metal container, now wearing moss like nature’s overcoat.
“Whatever’s going on with you, let it go,” Soren said under his breath. “You need to trust me if you want me to get you to The Red Room.”
I think he tried to say something else, but a loud siren crackled over a nearby speaker, drowning everything else out. Soren clamped his hand around my wrist and pulled me forward until we turned into a passage so narrow we had to shimmy sideways.
“Attention all Moderators: Intruders have been spotted in the sewers near the Cornell Street entrance.”
The siren wailed again—shrill and endless—as we slid between the walls and ducked into a slightly wider hall.
Soren reached around one corner and, with brutal speed, twisted a Mod’s neck with his bare hands. The body crumpled to the ground in a heap of wasted armor. He signaled for me to take the next one with my bow.
I didn’t hesitate.
We kept moving, deeper into the network. I took out two more Mods. Then something worse rounded the corner: a mutated dog-like thing, teeth like needles, eyes red and hunting.
With the siren blaring, I’d lost my ability to hear them coming. Soren must have had some way of knowing, though, because he shoved me aside when an Extermin aimed at me from a corridor to my right.
I hit the floor hard, bracing with my elbow.
From there, I watched as Soren stepped forward with zero hesitation, yet also not an ounce of urgency. The Extermin loomed over him, a hulking mechanized zombie that still managed to look half-human in all the worst ways.
Soren didn’t flinch.
He lifted one bladed hand and cleaved it straight through the Extermin’s torso, left to right—a clean cut. The top half slid off at an angle until the monstrosity crashed to the ground in two separate pieces.
“Let’s go, Eliana,” he barked.
I scrambled after him, blood pounding in my ears.
We ran through the tunnels under The Last City, deeper and deeper into darkness.
Blisters bloomed on my feet and burst inside my shoes.
The nerveblock on my hand had long worn off.
The nanotape helped, but my broken fingers still throbbed along with every other injury I’d picked up since I’d last seen Zuri.
I bit the insides of my cheeks to stay quiet through the pain. The last thing I wanted was to look weak.
We only stopped twice for water. I had no idea how much time had passed in the dancing glow of magnite ceiling lights. It could have been a day. Maybe more. Enough time had passed for me to feel well and truly parched, among other discomforts.
Eventually, my pace dropped too far behind Soren’s, and it pissed him off that I refused to let him carry me.
No way would I go there again. No matter how bad it hurt.
When we finally stopped at the base of a rusted ladder, I nearly sobbed in relief.
“When we get up there,” Soren said, voice hard and low, “We run. Alley to the left. That’s our target. We’re almost to The Red Room.”
I nodded, adrenaline rising again despite the exhaustion. We were close. Almost there. Somehow, the nightmare had dimmed in importance. The monster in front of me, the blood, the voice, the rolling head of my best friend. It felt like someone else’s fear now, no longer mine.
The siren still blared, echoing off concrete and iron, but it helped cover the scrape of metal as Soren shifted the sewer cover and climbed out.
I followed fast, using my right elbow instead of my hand. I bit down on every wince. No time for pain now. A surge of adrenaline pulsed through my blood at the thought of how much closer I suddenly was to the prize I’d worked half my life toward: Azazel’s death.
As soon as I reached the top rung, Soren grabbed my arm and hauled me out.
I didn’t remember which direction he’d told me to go, but he didn’t leave me behind. He darted toward the alley with me still in his grip. Once hidden in the shadows, I collapsed against a wall of crumbling brick, lungs burning and legs on fire. In fact, my whole body thrummed with overuse.
The buildings in The Last City were massive—concrete and red clay, with wide, black roads stretching between them. Just like the old images I’d seen in history books. But an orange haze swallowed everything. It bit at my throat and stung my eyes.
Even the siren was quieter up here. Muffled by the open sky and long, dead roads.
I tilted my head up, searching for stars or anything beyond the haze, but there was nothing. Just orange light. A false afternoon created by something unseen.
Soren tapped my shoulder.
“There.”
I followed his gaze.
A concrete tower stood at the edge of the block across from us. Vines wrapped its base, curling up toward shattered windows. Moss-covered letters spelled:
THE R D ROO
Hotel
The rest of the sign had been claimed by time or weather.
He didn’t say ‘let’s go’ or grab me this time. He just ran.
I took a gulp of air and bolted after him as if holding my breath might make me invisible.
When I was halfway across the open road, a whistling sound sliced through the air behind me.
Soren appeared in an instant. He scooped me over his shoulder and sprinted the rest of the way, faster than anyone that big had the right to move.
We crashed into the building just before another whistling sound split the sky. Then a deafening explosion rocked the street behind us.
The blast shook the entire structure.