Chapter 16 #4
For the first time since I'd met him, Dante Dusk looked scared as he jogged back to the elevator with me.
No one was shouting. If they were, I couldn’t hear them.
My vision blurred too much to see anyone's faces, but their auras said they were losing hope. I hated that, but there was nothing I could do to give it to them. All I could manage was the elevator. The fucking elevator.
It was already full when we reached it.
I had the plates broken and the magic tied to each of them in record time, and it rose.
My eyes burned as I called it back down, and barely managed to send another group up again.
The wall I'd built was shaking consistently. I felt every slam of Reaper's magic against it like an elbow to my gut.
A few lifeless bodies sat at the foot of it.
Reaper was attacking the barrier like the man was possessed, and I didn't even fucking blame him.
Dante was holding my full weight as I unraveled the brutalized magic in the ceiling above us, pulling and pulling and pulling. The tears and rips made it so much more complicated, and so much more painful.
I pushed through anyway.
The next group was the second to last one. The one before mine and Dante's.
The guys he trusted the most would be with us. The handful who had been guarding me the whole time, and helping keep everyone else from losing their shit.
I couldn't let them get trapped down there with us.
I wouldn't.
I exhausted every last strand of magic I had, getting the second to last group up, then forcing it back down.
I was out of energy when those doors opened. Completely fucking out.
But there was still magic left in the ceiling.
Tears dripped down my face as Dante held me to his chest, his arms locked around me in an iron grip. I couldn't see my wall, but I could hear and feel the collisions.
Reaper hadn't gotten through yet.
We might actually make it.
"I think I see a crack," one of the guys warned us. I was so lost to the pain of unraveling magic that I heard, but didn't process.
"Into the elevator," Dante ordered, hauling me back with him and slipping into my mind. "Angel."
I didn’t respond.
"Angel," he repeated, louder.
I lifted my burning eyes to his.
"The wall's going to break. I need you to close us in the elevator."
"Don't know if I can," I rasped.
"You can." His gaze was steady.
If I hadn't been in so much pain, his belief in me would've felt good.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but managed a tiny nod.
The guys broke their plates at Dante's command. I managed to get my power wrapped around each of them, hiding them from my fucked up prison, just as my wall exploded into millions of tiny, onyx threads.
An awful cry of pain escaped me.
A long, cold tendril of Reaper's magic shot toward us—but the elevator doors slid shut before it reached us.
I breathed in slowly as the wall's magic returned to me.
Reaper was strong, but he hadn't done any real damage to the elevator.
Getting back the magic I'd used to build the wall was good. Really, really good.
But it wasn't enough.
"It's going to take a few minutes," I whispered, looking around the elevator and taking in thick, intricate magic woven through the entirety of the space.
I had to decide what could go, and I had to do it fast.
"We can wait. Just get us home," one of the men said, giving me a grin that looked more like a grimace.
I managed another nod.
It was my fault they were there. I was the one who would get them out, no matter what.
It took me a few minutes to decide which threads to unravel. And another dozen to actually unravel them enough to have the power I'd need to get it moving.
Finally, I channeled my magic into sending it upward.
It moved slower than it should've.
So fucking much slower.
My heart pounded like a freight train as it rose, inch by inch.
My head throbbed.
My mouth dried.
My knees buckled, even though Dante was already holding all of my weight.
"You can do this," he said into my mind. Somehow, his lingering anger was the anchor I needed to keep going.
Finally, the elevator stopped.
I squeezed my eyes shut when it did, and I waited for the ding.
The tone was off, but eventually, it dinged.
And the doors slowly, unevenly, slid open.
My eyes did, too.
Shock and relief sounded around us. Dante was out of the elevator in a heartbeat, stalking out of the building without stopping for my keys or a conversation.
We passed dozens of people. Maybe more. He didn't speak to them other than a few growled and gritted out words that I was too exhausted to make sense of.
I clung to him, even though his grip on me was solid and I was shaking too badly to actually hold myself up.
Dante didn't say a word as he carried me to his car.
Or as he slid the driver's seat backward, so he didn't have to put me down to drive.
Exhaustion slowly replaced everything else I was feeling.
I hadn't been careful enough.
My plan had gone to shit again. Why did I even bother trying to plan, at this point?
Dread battled with the exhaustion.
I would have to go back down there again.
Exhaustion won.
I fell asleep—or unconscious—quickly enough that everything else was going to have to be tomorrow's problem.