Chapter 55 Xade
XADE
Her name rips from my throat, desperate and raw. She doesn't stop, though. She doesn't even look back as her slap imprints my flesh. The bruised flesh heats as tears well in my eyes. My tears don't come forth because of the pain, though. They are here for her and her alone.
Panic slithers up my spine, cementing my feet to the floor. Her departure from my office unfolds in finite, excruciating snapshots.
Loose strands of her hair tickle her white-clothed shoulders as she flings open the door, sending it with a violent crack into the wall.
She darts through the threshold, delivering herself straight into Reverend Mother's waiting claws.
A struggle ensues—Georgina trying to catch her and Avalynne trying to wrench free—but the fight is over in less than a heartbeat.
Avalynne shoves the old woman, her hands landing a direct hit straight to Georgina's hollow chest.
The heaviness that glues my feet to the ground climbs up toward my knees.
I can't breathe.
Sleet slashes the windows behind me in a frantic peal of shards of ice pelting glass. The convent shudders beneath another wave of rolling thunder as Georgina flattens to the wall behind her. Avalynne disappears down the hall.
She's slipping away from me. With each step, the chasm between us widens.
The thought breaks through my rising panic.
I lurch forward, Reverend Mother crumpled against the wall in front of me and Avalynne gone.
Wind screams as the storm outside seems to feed on the chaos between the old walls.
Thick panes of wavy glass rattle in their iron frames in time to my frantic heartbeat.
I tear through my open office door and start in the direction Avalynne ran.
"Get her!" Georgina snarls, pointing a gnarled finger down the hall.
Her voice hits like a second slap to the face.
As though I wouldn't run after the woman I love. As though I'm not already running.
A singular thought eclipses all the others. I need to get to Avalynne before she does something she can't take back. Like, try to escape this place by braving a once-in-a-century storm.
Lightning, sleet, and snow churn above us, transforming the island into a bitterly cold, deadly territory.
It's not just the cliffs she has to worry about tonight.
It's the arctic temperatures, the ice shards raining from the sky, the dearth of visibility, and the riotous wind.
If death played favorites, then tonight would reign king.
Dread surges through my veins. Adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol spike.
My vision tunnels to what exists right in front of me.
Every step I take drums another beat of dread.
Fear tastes like bitter iron and blood as I sprint down the hall, past the row of rattling windows.
Lightning splits the skies, flooding the hall in a flash of blistering light.
I catch a glimpse of white disappearing around the corner.
Avalynne.
Turn after turn, I chase her. I shout her name. I beg her to stop. I crisscross through the knotted tangle of corridors until, abruptly, one of the sisters exits a stairwell and blocks my path.
"What is going—" The nun says as I veer and duck around her.
It only takes a second, but it's a second I can't afford to lose. When I look to the end of the hall, I find it empty, veering in two directions, left and right.
I don't know which way she's gone, and I come to a skidding stop at the end of the hall, desperately trying to listen. My heart crashes against my ribs like I'm a breath away from cardiac arrest.
In the shadows off to my left, a low chuckle slices a shiver down my spine.
Ares.
Fuck.
I turn toward him, finding him standing in a stubby recessed niche next to a marble statue of Saint Margaret herself.
He wears his standard uniform, a black hoodie and matching pants, with a cigarette between his lips.
He's not looking at me, instead shaking his head down at the floor.
Unkempt curls feather his eyes as he fishes a lighter out of his front pocket.
Of course, he doesn't offer to tell me which direction Avalynne went.
"Which way?" I yell, the words splinter with my rising fury.
His gaze shoots to me and stays there as a burst of lightning morphs his irises into poisonous green.
Like a fucking snake.
He cups his cigarette, rolls the wheel on his lighter, and ignites it. Slowly, his gaze scrolls to the right, and he tips his chin in the same direction, smoke sifting between his parted teeth.
"Why didn't you stop her?" I run past him.
He shrugs, and when he finally replies, I hear his answer rather than see it.
"You see her death," he murmurs. "I see her rebirth."
I don't have time for his riddles. My feet find the stairwell at the end of the corridor, and I follow it down to the ground level. Frigid air whips my skin as I come to a stop at a crossroads. It's another choice.
Left or right.
I turn in the direction of the cold and find the door to the courtyard flung open, held flush against the exterior wall by the vicious gales. Sleet and snow surge past the threshold, sticking to the gray walls and drifting down to gather on the floor.
I sprint out into the storm. Icefall and freezing rain greet me as I exit the building. Arctic wind snaps at my exposed skin as snow and sleet coat my loafers and soak my clothes.
I slow, shielding my eyes and looking for her.
"Avalynne!" The wind tears her name from my mouth.
I charge ahead through the courtyard. Numbness already leaches from my fingertips and spreads up my hands.
The sleet feels like dry ice against my flesh as the storm engulfs the island.
My loafers slosh through snowy puddles, sending frigid water up my ankles.
I barrel ahead as lightning ignites the sky in a spiderweb of white. Beneath its flash, I spot her.
She's a fleeting figure directly ahead of me, partially obscured by the storm and sprinting past the cloister wall.
She's going in the wrong direction, away from the front of the convent and the road she's probably searching for, but her visibility is reduced to almost nothing out here.
She's about to serve herself up to the rocky bluffs and has no idea.
Fuck!
Snow and sleet blur her pale silhouette as she starts up the steep hillside.
She scrambles and falls, the rockface shifting beneath her feet and sending rubble down the hill.
She slips, landing on her hands and knees once, then twice, as her fingers search for purchase.
She scrambles forward, up the escarpment, and is halfway there before she slips again.
This time, she slides down the incline, her feet kicking against the slippery rock and her hands grabbing anything she can reach.
She stops her decline when she lands in a patch of thorny brambles.
I scale the ridgeline, trying to reach her, but the soles of my loafers skid on the stone. I drop to all fours, clawing upward. Sharp rock slices into my palms.
She's no more than ten feet ahead of me, but a mile might as well separate us.
I curse as my knees hit the steep incline and rock digs through the legs of my trousers.
I look up from the ground to see her thrashing against the prickly vines, her foot catching in the underbrush as she tries to untangle herself.
She jerks one leg free, leaving behind her shoe as she does.
Twisted thorns snag her habit, pulling her back.
She yanks and twists, desperate to escape, and the fabric tears, splitting at the seams. Roaring wind steals the shredded piece of her shirt, leaving her in only a thin camisole and tattered skirt as she drops to her hands and knees and claws her way forward.
The numbness at my wrists sinks its teeth into my forearms. A word slips past my defenses, and it drills the cold even deeper.
Word—death.
Part of speech—noun.
Origin—pre-dates the twelfth century.
Derived from the Old English dēat, meaning the end of life.
I shout her name and slowly start up the hill again, each step slow and careful. I make it four steps before she abandons her other shoe and kicks her way up the steep rock face.
Her bare feet traverse the jagged stone as she veers left and upward, following the natural path of the rock.
The headland ahead juts up into a vertical slab.
It's too steep to scale, but she tries anyway—clawing at stones, slipping and starting over only to grab handholds that crumble beneath her fingers.
Barefoot, half-naked, she pushes forward.
"Avalynne, wait!" My voice cracks, my throat raw.
The wind sucks her name away from me as my heel slips, and I tumble forward and slide, landing hard at the bottom.
Pain explodes through my knees, and the taste of rock coats my tongue.
Cursing, I climb to my feet and start for the staircase built into the north slope.
It's a necessary detour or, at least, I think it is, but to my horror, a sliver of white crests the rock face and vanishes.
The numbness in my forearms claws its way toward my elbows. Frozen rain pours down my back as I run. My hands skim the metal rail as I bolt up the steps. My thighs burn. My lungs feel like they're bleeding from the cold, yet I keep going.
How in the fuck is she pushing through this? I know the answer, though, and it kills me to realize it.
Fear. She's afraid of me.
Fuck!
I crest the hillside and frantically search for her, but there's only one way ahead at this angle, which means she's gone in the wrong direction—toward the overlook and the edge of nothing.
The island ends there at the black cliffs and tumultuous surf.
She can't even swim, though I'm not sure it matters where she's headed.
Lightning severs the skies and ignites her visage. Her skin is a dusky, purple-marbled pallor. Gray ghosts her lips.
I know what it means, though I don't want to. She's cyanotic, past the point of hypothermia, and quickly heading toward unconsciousness.
FUCK!
She staggers toward the overlook, her limbs sluggish and clumsy. My vision goes to static for a moment as her bare feet slip on the wet stone. She staggers forward, toward the edge, and my heart catapults into my throat.
"Please!" My scream rips from me.
She turns and looks at me.
She's drenched. Dazed. Half-dead. Her soaked camisole clings to her skin, the fabric turned transparent in the downpour. Recognition flits across her features, and she looks at me like I'm the one who put her here. It shreds the parts of me not already numb.
Whitewash sprays into the air as her hair writhes and snakes behind her. I stagger forward, palms raised, chest heaving. She goes stiff.
"D … don't come near me," she bites out, each word a shivering dagger. "Y … you lied to me. You used me."
"Avalynne," I plead, "please let's go inside. Let me explain—"
I don't even finish the plea before she lunges over the crumbling balustrade and disappears between the barren trees.
"Wait!" I shout, vaulting after her, my shoes skidding on the slick stone. The impact jars through me as I land in the mud, splattering it up my pants. Vines knot across the forest floor as thorns rake my calves, ripping my trousers and lancing my skin.
My blood washes away beneath the frozen rain.
I stand, and the branches tear at my forearms. Sharp thorns gouge grooves into my skin.
Sleet blinds me as I start through the thicket. My hands shake, and my breath comes ragged and hot. My existence narrows to a blur of white ahead of me, slipping farther out of my reach.
I scream her name and rush forward.
I can't let her go. I won't.
If I lose her now, she'll be gone for good.