Chapter 34
I sobbed myself into a state of panic where everything felt like a dream.
Sky’s body grew cold, but I couldn’t let her go.
I didn’t want her to lay naked on the cold, rocky floor.
I don’t know how long I sat like that, but it was long enough that her body began to stiffen as rigor mortis set in.
Why couldn’t I summon my power and throw it when I needed to?
Why was I always so useless when it mattered the most?
“Ember!”
I straightened, gasping. Was that real? Was I dreaming?—
“Ember! Can you hear me?”
I stopped breathing, every part of my body straining to focus on the faint voice in my head. “Mac?”
“Oh gods, Em, where are you?” His desperate voice grew louder as I focused on it.
“In the cell. Under the tower. Hawk had a power. Mac, he killed—killed her. Sky. Sky’s dead.” I choked out, hoping I made any sort of sense.
“Hawk?” The single word vibrated with fury.
“He’s dead, too.”
“Hold on, Em, we’re comin’,” he promised fiercely. “Hold on, ok?”
“Please hurry,” I sobbed.
“I’m comin’, sweetheart. Hold on.”
Sweetheart? He’d never called me anything like that before, but I clung to his words like a lifeline.
He kept a steady stream of narration as he gathered people to run for the watchtower.
I cradled Sky and listened. Nemo had sealed the tunnel exceptionally well, and Mac went quiet as he worked with the others to break the wall down.
It felt like forever, but finally, I realized the darkness was growing lighter.
I fixed my eyes on it, relief flooding me, and then Mac spoke in my head again.
“We’re almost through, Em.”
I stared at the bobbing light reflecting on the walls, something cold creeping over me. “You’re not through yet?”
“No, almost.”
Bile crept into my throat as I realized the light wasn’t approaching from up the stairs. It was coming from below.
“Someone’s comin’!” I told Mac, my voice frantic.
“What?” he demanded.
“Someone’s coming from… from below.” I scurried backward, hauling Sky’s body with me until my back hit the rocky wall.
Mac swore, and I felt his surge of fear. The light grew brighter, illuminating the blood covering Sky’s body and my clothes and hands. I glanced at where Hawk’s body had fallen, but the charred lump almost made me sick. I pulled Sky’s body tighter against me like I was trying to protect her.
“Almost through!”
A body stepped into view, a giant hulking shadow that strode toward me with a swinging lantern in hand.
A key flashed in the dim light, and as the person ducked to unlock the cell door, the light shone on their face.
I stared dumbfounded at Sax, Madame’s right-hand man—the man who dragged me down to this cell the first time—the man who whipped me.
He’d gone missing along with Zana, the third council member, after the rebellion.
He met my wide eyes with his familiar impassive stare, as though he hadn’t just appeared from possibly hell itself.
For a few dizzying seconds, I questioned if I’d been locked in this cell the entire time, vividly hallucinating everything from the past several months, but Sax’s salt and pepper hair was longer and wilder, and Sky’s body was cold in my arms, and Mac was shouting my name in my head.
“It’s Sax! It’s Sax!” I shouted back as he unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Hold on, Em! Hold on!”
“What do you want?” I shouted at Sax as I scrambled sideways until I hit the corner, dragging Sky with me.
He didn’t answer as he caught my ankle and jerked me toward him.
I managed to kick free and dropped Sky, pain and guilt stabbing through me as her body slumped to the floor.
I leapt to my feet, but he immediately trapped me against the wall.
I lashed out and hit him hard in the jaw, and his head snapped to the side, but he just turned back and gave me a grim smile.
“Mac!” I shrieked.
I tried to hit him again, but he caught my bandaged wrist and forced it down; the lacerations on my wrist burned with pain as he squeezed.
His strong arms clamped around me, pinning my arms to my sides and lifting me off my feet.
I kicked and thrashed, slamming the heel of my boot into his shin over and over as he carried me out of the cell.
“No!” I screamed.
“Em!” Mac sounded frantic.
“Let go of me!” My heel connected with his kneecap, and he let out a grunt of pain.
My brief sense of accomplishment vanished as he shifted, one thick arm coiling around my neck in a chokehold and tightening like a snake.
I gasped and clawed at his arm as he cut off my air, but he didn’t even flinch. Black spots filled my vision.
“ Mac!”
I’m coming! I’m ? —”
I woke up in a tent.
A face appeared over mine, and it took me a few seconds to recognize Zana, the third council member. Her head was no longer bald but covered in short, dark hair. She looked thinner and rougher, but it was undeniably her.
“Good mornin’, Bones,” she said with a grin that reminded me of Madame. “Bout time you joined the party.”
My panicked eyes scanned the tent, but it was empty except for us.
I shifted and realized metal handcuffs bound my bandaged wrists in front of me.
I tried to sit up, but she shoved me back down with one hand and held me there.
I stared at her, my heart thudding in time with my pounding head.
I’d barely interacted with her at the Vault, and I didn’t know her well enough to anticipate what she’d do.
She’d always seemed more like Madame than like Nemo, and she was clearly working with Sax.
Did they know I’d killed Madame? Was this revenge?
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice raspy and hoarse. My throat ached.
She sighed, tilting her chin in a strange, almost playful way. “So many things.”
I stared at her.
“Oh, you mean with you?” she grinned. “Well, I could think of several fun things to do with you, but unfortunately, I’m to deliver you in one piece.”
The hair on the back of my neck raised. “Deliver to who?”
“The God of Death.” I must have looked as startled and confused as I felt because her smile turned wicked. “Aww, sweet thing, you didn’t know? The God of Death himself promised to elevate whoever fetched you to godhood.”
I could only stare, speechless.
“Unfortunately, we will have to travel with those Voiceless creeps, but it’s a small price to pay for immortality.”
“He’s lying,” I said, trying to sound confident, but my voice shook. “That’s impossible.”
“A year ago, I would’ve said it was impossible to heal another person just by touching them, but here you are.” She leaned down and tapped me on the nose with one finger.
“No one is immortal,” I tried.
“How do you know?” Her head tilted as she studied me.
I hated that she was looming over me while I was stuck lying on my back. It made me feel completely powerless. “Are the Voiceless here?” I asked, ignoring her question.
“They will be any minute.”
I forced my spinning mind to focus with a monumental act of will. “How did you know where I was?”
She grinned. “Did you think Hawk unraveled all by himself?”
“What do you mean?” I breathed, my heart lodging itself in my throat.
She narrowed her eyes as she held my gaze, and I was about to ask again when pure terror seized me, so potent I immediately was sick. I barely managed to roll on my side so I didn’t vomit all over myself. When I glanced at her, trying to catch my breath, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“What just happened?” I choked out.
“You’re not the only one with powers anymore, sweet thing.” She smiled wide, showing all her teeth.
I stared at her in horror.
“I can manipulate emotions,” she bragged.
Oh fuck.
“You made Hawk hate me?” I whispered.
Her head tipped back as she laughed, the mockery clear. “Oh, he already hated you. I just turned the dial up a little and suggested he bring you to that cell.”
I had to breathe deeply through my nose for a moment. “He killed Sky because of you!”
She shrugged. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Every part of her radiated indifference like Sky’s life meant nothing, and I snapped as rage roared through me.
I lashed out with my leg and connected partially with Zana’s shoulder.
She grunted but immediately blocked my next attempt.
The next thing I knew, she’d shifted to pin my thighs under her knee.
I brought my cuffed hands up to shove her, but she caught my wrists and forced them to the ground above my head.
I couldn’t help the hiss of pain as she manhandled my bandaged wrists, but I still fought to escape.
Zana leaned down, her grip like iron, and her mouth twisted in a smirk. “Your fear is delicious. It’s really too bad we don’t have time to play. I’d love to see how much fear I could squeeze out of you.”
My temper surged, and before I could think better of it, I spit in her face.
Her grin faded as her eyes narrowed into cold slits.
She brought one hand up to wipe the spit from her face and then suddenly struck, slamming her fist into my stomach and forcing all the air in my lungs out in a pained wheeze.
I struggled to gasp in a breath, but she wasn’t done.
Zana seized a handful of my hair and yanked my head back as she leaned in.
“I was gonna make this quick, but I think I’ll play a little after all.”
With a vicious twist of my hair, Zana slammed the back of my head into the ground. Stars burst in my vision, and before I could recover, her hands were around my throat, squeezing with no mercy. Her smirk dimmed in my vision as her grip tightened.
“Goodnight, sweet thing,” she crooned, and darkness swallowed me.
I woke up in a different tent and stared at the canvas ceiling in confusion. This tent was more like the tents the Reapers had used, with a tall wooden pole holding up the ceiling—a pole to which my hands were handcuffed behind my back.