Chapter 72 Kali
KALI
“Kali,” a voice rippled in the sea of blackness drowning me.
The waves it’d caused rocked me gently, encouraging me to return to my slumber. The glue weaving my eyelashes together begged me to sleep for longer.
“Kali, wake up.”
Something swiped down the side of my nose.
I tried to swat the annoying seaweed away, but my arm remained chained to the bottom of the sea. The sand had swallowed my limb, hardened over it, forging a shell, an armor, an underwater cage.
“Wake up— Shit.”
Now that sounded familiar. Like a whiff of the past. A tone I’d once known.
At least the phantom touches had left me in peace, and I could curl up and snuggle in the nest of darkness. Its presence sang a lullaby, the notes burrowing deep inside me, permeating the marrow of my bones and stilling my mind.
“Please, please open your eyes.” The voice took on a pleading note, and this time, the ripples crashed into me like a tidal wave, rousing me from my rest, sparking twinges in my flesh.
“We have to move. We can’t stay here.”
What did it mean by saying that? I didn’t want to leave this place. This was the most comfortable home I’d ever ended up in: warm, soft, cushioned, protected from all sides.
Whoever was knocking from the other side could go fuck themselves. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Ple— Please.” The voice cracked, and so did my patience. My forehead creased as the zapping neurons in my brain began to form an image. A blurry one at that, merely a—
“Wake up!”
A sting bloomed on my left cheek, setting my flesh aflame and stirring my rage.
Nobody disturbed my sleep.
I pushed all shreds of energy into prying my eyes open. A sliver of light assaulted my retinas, and I groaned from the burn.
Or so I’d thought. I wasn’t sure my throat functioned. Or if I had one.
“I promise everything will be okay. Just follow the sound of my voice.”
If it meant they, he, she, whatever, would leave me alone, then fine, I’d entertain them. Struggling to inhale, I squinted, hoping it would sharpen my focus.
“Yes, exactly like that. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you.”
Gradually, the heaviness clouding my vision lifted, and I willed the last tendrils of the haze to dispel.
A set of high cheekbones came into view, each smeared with dust. Then a straight nose, also covered in filth. Blue eyes, the hue of a clematis flower, a poisonous plant I’d once read about.
Zion.
Huh. This was weird. Last I’d seen him, he was standing beside me, not looming above me.
He brushed my temple, frowning as his fingers came away red. “Can you hear me?”
Groggily, I rasped, “What…” and fell into a coughing fit. My spine bellowed in pain as I rolled onto my side. Numerous spots in my body joined the cacophony of It hurts so bad, I fear to move half an inch more.
Zion patted my back, waiting until my convulsions subsided. “Someone set off a bomb in the building. It detonated beneath us.” Tucking my hair behind my ears, he inspected my bleeding head. Satisfied with whatever he’d discovered, he nodded.
I cleared my throat and licked my lips coated in a bitter layer of dirt. “A bomb?” I echoed, failing to comprehend the implication.
He poked and prodded my limbs, maneuvering my joints, bending my fingers—
Eyes watering, I hissed.
“Your pinky is broken.” Warily, he raised my left hand into the light.
Because yes, the sky was open above us. The city below was too. A gust of wind ruffled my clothing as I gaped at the expanse of roofs, buildings, streets, and the commotions breaking out in different neighborhoods. This high up, I barely heard a thing besides the whoosh of air and the creaking of—
A block of concrete behind Zion collapsed. It snapped in half, and a shower of dust particles swirled around us as the Spire trembled.
Falling back on his heels, Zion cradled his right arm, grimacing so hard it had to be tearing his tendons apart.
I scrambled to an upright position. “What is it?” I pushed out through the swimming world. Someone, something, was hammering my head so furiously it was going to rupture with the next strike.
“My wrist.” He demonstrated how his hand dangled at an awkward angle. “The explosion fractured it.”
“Shit. You can’t move it at all?”
I cringed, regretting my question immediately. It was clear his wrist was as useless as my pinkie.
But instead of glaring at me for my stupidity, he simply grunted, “No.” As he slowly stood, his outfit covered in layers of grime, the state of my soldier’s uniform matching his, he asked, “Can you walk?”
Tentatively, I pushed off the ground. Although my muscles were far from happy for forcing them to work, my legs held me up. “I think so.”
“Good.” He extended his intact hand to me, and I took it, stepping over a slab of concrete and the fragments of hardwood floorboards, furniture, appliances, glass, and whatever else had filled Peter’s apartment.
Wind lashed at us, whipping the particles of filth into tiny tornadoes that dissipated as soon as they reached the edge of the Spire.
I still couldn’t believe the walls were gone.
Approximately six hundred feet up, the upper floor—or what remained of it—suddenly seemed so small.
Too small.
Especially when one wrong move could seal your fate as death by falling and splattering onto the streets below.
I shuffled closer to Zion. “Where—” I swallowed the gravel in my throat. “Where’s Gedeon?”
“I haven’t located him.” Scanning the rubble, he wiped away the blood pouring from his nose. “Yet.”
My heart stalled. Gedeon had been leaning against the floor-to-ceiling windows when the floor had opened and the world had turned upside down.
Dread settled in my gut as I realized not a single sheet of glass had remained. The windows were gone. The possibility of a free fall beckoned me to crawl toward the edge of the building and take a peek below, to uncover what, or who, lay below.
“But he’s here.” Zion squeezed my hand as we waded through the rubble, balanced on exposed beams of concrete, rusted rods poking out, waiting for you to trip and impale yourself on them. “He has to be.”
Zion’s grip on my fingers grew bone-crushing, but I gulped the discomfort down, filed it away. One after another, I stuffed the aches and pains into the deepest recesses of my being.
Between shouting Gedeon’s name and trudging through debris, I allowed numbness to wash over me, inject itself into my cells, and overtake my bloodstream. It was either that or succumbing to the terror clinging to me like sand after a swim in the sea.
We trekked deeper into the wreckage, went round and around, until our shouts grew hoarse and our lungs struggled to filter out the dust.
But wherever we emerged, silence met us. Wherever we checked, emptiness welcomed us. Wherever we looked, the lack of Gedeon doused our hope.
We wandered and roamed, aimlessly and with a goal, deteriorating and disintegrating, as unseeing as corpses, as cold as the blackness spiraling in the hole Zion stumbled upon in the ruins.
Unthinking, I followed him, sliding down a block of what once had been part of a wall. As I descended, my boots hit the uneven surface, and I bent my knees, engaging my about-to-split core to keep my balance.
“Gedeon!” Zion’s bellow pierced the deafening hush.
The reply came as an intermittent drip of… I prayed for it to be water and not blood.
I swiped away the sweat bead about to drench my eyebrow. “Which floor is this?”
“We’re likely still somewhere at the top.” Zion ducked under a large chunk of what probably had been a ceiling mere minutes ago. “The explosives weren’t strong enough to collapse the building.”
“Where…” I searched the rubble surrounding us, ensnaring us, holding us hostage. “How far below do you think he is?” The longer we climbed down, the harder it became to navigate. Fragments of what once had been a dwelling thickened, creating countless dead ends, forming a labyrinth.
Zion rubbed his face, coating his skin in even more filth and obscuring the sandy shade in a film of gray and more gray. “I—” His throat bobbed. “I don’t know. If he’s not here, then…”
His admission popped the bubble of numbness I’d blown around myself, and I rubbed away the moisture about to abandon my eyes.
But this wasn’t the time for breaking down. War didn’t grace you with breaks. It didn’t care who met its scythe. It munched on souls, gobbled their essence, gorged on death.
So leaning against a few slabs of concrete wedged together, I took a deep breath, scolded myself for a bout of weakness, and invited determination to take the lead.
I was not going to give up.