Locke
Why isn’t the pain coming back?
I’m braced for the next wave and the next wave doesn’t come.
I watch Kyron fall to his knees and it hits me.
Her pain.
Something leaves my mouth I can’t stop.
So much pain. And it was hers.
Kyron’s mouth is moving and I’m not catching the words because she’s in the chair and I am looking at her and I cannot get past looking at her.
We don’t have time for this.
Move.
My eyes lock on Laith and in three steps he’s in front of me.
He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at her.
His mistake.
I want his throat.
I have wanted it since the day he questioned us in that room back at the Academy. Since he used his son to take her from us. Since he took the only thing that mattered because she didn’t fit the fucking system.
But killing him before he answers questions we’re all going to need answered is the kind of mistake I don’t make.
I drive him into the wall instead.
His head hits concrete. Bounces. His knees start to go.
I hit him.
Once. Hard. Across the jaw. He drops.
It is the most restrained thing I have ever done.
I don’t kneel to check him. He’s out. I know he’s out because Laith would be stupid enough to get up if he wasn’t.
I look up and watch Vaelor.
There’s only one place he’s going.
The fucker is bigger now, like somehow his bear came through just enough.
I move to the glass, where she’s still hovering over the chair.
I can’t tell if she’s breathing.
Then there’s a sound.
A screech of metal scraping, giving way.
I turn toward it. Vaelor, partially shifted, his hand is gone, his bear paw in its place.
His claws driving through the steel like it’s paper.
I watch him go to her, the sheen of the reinforced glass messing with my eyes.
It takes everything in me not to rush in there and take over.
In three seconds the straps holding Nova are gone.
When the last one parts, she’s still suspended over the chair. She’s still shifting between forms. Wings of light. Hair still floating.
Vaelor has his other hand — his real hand — under her shoulder.
He doesn’t seem to know about the claw.
I’m going to leave that alone.
He’s cradling her. His face twisted into something I can’t think about right now.
He plucks her from the air slowly. The way a man picks up something he loves to keep it from breaking further.
He brings her down against his chest.
“Sweetheart,” he says.
His voice cracks.
“Sweetheart, please.”
A click from across the room.
“I’ve got it,” Beckett says. He’s at the panel. Smoke around his hands. The hum drops half a step. The lights stutter. “Field’s collapsing. She’s—”
He stops.
I don’t ask why. I can feel it.
The light is fading.
Pulse by pulse. Each one less. Her hair settles on Vaelor’s arm. The shifting finally settles.
She’s just a small body in Vaelor’s arms.
In a hospital gown.
I see the gown. I see the cuts on her wrists. I see the bruises through the fabric of the gown at her shoulders.
Something happens behind my ribs that I am not going to look at right now.
I look around the room.
Beckett’s already moving toward Vaelor, fingers reaching for her throat. Kyron’s up. Gray-faced but up.
Trey’s at the door. Watching the corridor. Looking back at her every two seconds to make sure we’re good.
Rane’s on the floor with Lena.
She’s making sounds. Something garbled I can’t make out. Mostly, she’s just breathing wrong.
“We bringing her?” Rane says.
“Yes.”
He’s already lifting her. Doesn’t ask twice.
Beckett’s hand is on Nova’s throat. He’s not saying anything, just focused. But the way he’s reacting, it means it’s not what he wants it to be.
“Vaelor.”
He doesn’t look up.
“Vaelor. Give her to Beckett.”
“I have her.”
“I know you have her.”
“I have her.”
“Vaelor.”
He looks at me.
His eyes are not all his. I see his bear at the surface and we do not have time for that.
“Beckett can find a pulse. You can’t with that hand. Give her to him. We need you covering.”
He looks at the paw like he’s surprised to find it there.
I watch him turn back to Nova as his face falls.
He gives her to Beckett.
Beckett takes her like she’s precious. He doesn’t say anything. Just turns toward the door.
There’s a coil of electrical cord on the panel where the woman left it when she ran. I don’t know when she ran. I clocked her hands going up and lost her after that.
Bigger fish.
I take the cord. I bind Laith’s wrists behind him. Then his ankles. He doesn’t move. I check the binding twice because I do not want to deal with this shit.
Kyron is at my shoulder.
“He comes,” I say.
“I’ll fly him back myself as soon as we’re out.”
“You take an arm. I’ll take the other. He drags if we have to.”
“Works for me.”
We haul him up. Dead weight. Head lolling. Blood from his nose down his shirt.
I don’t feel anything looking at him.
That’s not true.
I feel something looking at him. I’m not going to do anything about it right now.
Trey takes point. Beckett behind him with Nova. Vaelor in the middle, hunched, walking like a man trying to fit through a doorway he won’t fit through. Probably because he can’t without turning sideways right now.
He keeps the claw away from his body. And from all of us.
Rane’s behind him with Lena over his shoulder still not forming words. Kyron and I bring up the rear with Laith between us.
The corridor is empty.
Thank fuck.
I don’t know how. We’ve been in the room longer than seven minutes. I clock it and don’t have time to be grateful.
Linda is gone too.
Maybe she got out. Maybe she went back to her shift to maintain cover.
We reach outside and don’t stop.
Laith is getting heavy. I do not care.
I look at the back of Beckett’s head. I look at Nova’s hair against his shoulder.
I shake my head.
Focus.
We make it back to the clearing faster than I expect.
I turn to Beckett. He must know because he doesn’t move.
I take a second just to look at her. Brush a few strands of hair away from her face.
She hasn’t opened her eyes.
She hasn’t moved.
But —
I’m not going to say this out loud. I’m not going to say it to anyone.
But her hand has closed.
Just slightly.
Around the front of his shirt.
Like she knows she’s being held.
I keep my mouth shut.
We need to keep moving.
We are not out yet. We are not out. We are not out.
But she closed her hand.
It gives me hope.