Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Dane
We had him. We fucking. Had. Him!
The plan worked. We cuffed him. Jackson brutally stabbed him in the goddamn jugular with blood everywhere. He should have been dead in seconds. It should have been over.
Instead, he’s laughing and boasting.
I clench my fists, shifting from my kneeling position to one foot on the ground in preparation to move.
My gift works.
It’s the only way.
His teleportation is blocked, so he can’t just run away like he always did. I can grab him. Block his gift to give the others time to kill him. I just have to hold on long enough… no matter what he tries to get me off him.
“Dane!”
Raegan’s voice snaps my attention to her. She’s in my sights for a second, running toward me, before the room moves.
No, not the room.
My body races to Charles midair. There’s fuck all I can do about it, as much as I try to lean away. To move in any way that might change my direction.
Raegan is suddenly in front of me, and I drop.
She screams.
Time slows.
I force my head up, but it’s like moving through molasses. My skin prickles as if her pain is electric, flowing through me and jolting my heart to beat double-time. And then the world becomes clearer. Sharper.
I’m on my feet, but I don’t remember standing. Charles is holding Raegan off the ground by her throat. His other hand grips Jack’s knife, where it’s buried in her side.
Blood pounds in my ears at a dizzying pace.
“No. No!” I jump toward them. His hands are busy. I can grab him. I can save her.
The others are already shouting at Charles like me, racing toward them.
Something shoves me back so hard I fly off my feet and crash to the floor yards away. I blink away the disorientation. What did I hit? Kellan’s lunging at them again, and I see him bounce off something a few feet from Charles.
But nothing’s there.
Jackson’s knives find the same invisible wall that throws them right back at us. He controls them before they do, but they’re useless. He tries his wind. Aiden throws his shoulder into it and is thrown back.
“Thank you for volunteering, Raegan. You should have died a long time ago, so it’s only fitting you die first.” Charles twists the knife, smiling as Raegan’s screams intensify. The sound shatters something in me.
“Stop. DON’T FUCKING HURT HER!” I run at them even though I know I can’t get close.
It doesn’t matter. I won’t stop trying. If there’s even a second that one of us can get in, we have to find it.
I’m repelled back. All the air knocks from my lungs at the impact.
I wheeze and force myself to my side. To my feet.
I charge them again.
And again.
Tears flow freely down my face as I scream at him to stop. As I call her name. She doesn’t respond. Not to me. Not to the others. Her eyes are closed, and blood leaks from her lips.
“Don’t give up, Rae! Don’t die. Please! Stay with us! Rae! Rae!”
Each time she doesn’t answer, the broken pieces crack a little more like an icepick is hammering into my chest.
She can’t die. She can’t. I can’t live without her. She’s the only one who makes me feel whole. The only person I want to spend the rest of my life with. She deserves to live more than any of us. She deserves to live, dammit!
I slam my fist against the invisible barrier with my gift active, hoping it’ll have some sort of effect. I’m thrown away again. I think I heard something snap with one of the falls, but I can’t feel any pain. There is nothing but the sheer terror of watching Charles kill Raegan before our eyes.
“I’m going to squeeze the life out of you to make sure you’re dead this time,” Charles continues, his voice still businesslike as he strangles his daughter. “Do you hear them? I think your death will break them. Killing you will end this whole thing.”
Raegan doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even look like she’s breathing anymore. She’s so very, very still.
Kellan dives at them from above, somehow sprouting wings and looking even more draconic than before. He’s bellowing for Raegan to answer him. To fight.
Jackson’s white as a ghost as he uses his gift to shove against the invisible barrier.
Aiden tries dropping the ceiling on him by slicing it up, but the fallen pieces are repelled from them just like us.
Alice and Sam are curled together in the corner, no longer invisible as they tremble and cling to one another and watch in terror.
Charles suddenly stiffens. He glances over his shoulder at Jack, then rips the blade out of Raegan.
Blood steadily pours from her wound. He aims it like he’s going to stab her other side, and then he relaxes.
He takes a slow breath. “Take my oxygen again, and I’ll fill her with holes before you can finish it. ”
Jackson’s panting as if he’s running out of air himself. Or maybe from the effort of holding himself against Charles’s gift as he tries to push through.
“Rae! Rae, please! Open your eyes!” I activate my gift again, concentrating it on my hand as I approach the barrier. Please, work. Cancel it. I force my will over the single spot where my hand connects to his power.
This time, I’m not thrown backward.
I press harder, gritting my teeth as it pushes back at me.
Something cracks.
“Fight him!” Kellan snarls.
“Raegan!” Aiden and Jack’s voices join in.