45. CHAPTER 45 #3
Her light made him see the shadows shifting in the corner of his eye. Made him feel the burning stare of the dead. If he looked, they might vanish. But if they didn't… If they only sharpened and came to life… They'd consume her too.
The dead were his stars. A constant, nightly companion no matter how far he ran. A powerful force that broke through all else to find him.
Edwards.
The men slaughtered in the North while he refused to talk.
The girl with no teeth.
It couldn't be Kira next. No matter what he needed to do, he couldn't let her join the dead.
The world twisted ever so slightly on its axis, so everything looked the same but felt so wrong and different.
Pain ripped his chest open along the seams of his scars.
He trained his eyes on the unseen stars above, the ones that never left, not even when the scarlet light from the Phaedra's tower blotted them out from his sight. He begged the dead to stay far away from Kira.
Zayne couldn't find a single thing worthy of saying to her. It all sounded like empty promises, pointless excuses, meaningless apologies.
She offered him the shakiest smile before ducking into the vehicle. Zayne looked back at his parents' house where his mom cried all alone.
On the way to the prison, they stared out the same window, silent, but together.
When they arrived, Kira walked into the prison with her eyes dry and her chin level. The Phaedra definitely watched on the cameras, and she didn't show him any weakness. Accepting her uniform, she stepped into her prison cell once more and closed the door.
Zayne placed his hand on the cold wall. After a few minutes, he entered and found Kira crossing her arms in front of the window.
They'd stood here so many times before wearing their uniforms, but it felt entirely different now, as if they'd become two different people in their time away.
As much as each of them had changed, they'd also changed their relationship.
Only debris remained of the prison walls between them.
“Rest,” Zayne said. “I'll be back soon.”
Even though he knew her heart was shattering into countless pieces, Kira smiled with life and defiance and power blazing from her stare.
The door closed, and it ripped his soul from him, trapping it within those walls with her.
Running hurt after taking all those hits from Father, but Mom needed him. So after leaving the Rail, he didn't stop until he reached her on the porch swing.
She didn't look at him, and he wondered if she hated him for failing Kira so badly.
“Mom.” He walked closer. “Are you okay?”
A wine glass dangled so precariously from the loose grip of her fingertips that it looked as if it would fall at any moment. “What's the plan?”
“I don't know, but you need to be careful.”
“Don't worry.” The torchlight glowed red against her vacant stare. “I'll stay here in your father's prison where I'm safe and ineffectual.” She lifted her glass to her mouth and drank without taking her gaze off the mountains. Silence engulfed them, wine dangling once more.
Words clawed at Zayne's throat, struggling to break free from the tight vice. “I'm not done yet. I won't be done until it's handled.”
“I don't doubt that. It's what scares me most.”
Glancing around, he knelt in front of his mom and hoped he spoke so quietly that no one could hear. “She's strong. Trust her.”
A soft hand slid over his face. “I'm proud of you. You've come so far.”
Not nearly enough. “One day I'll do something worth making you proud. For now, keep your faith. I need it.”
“You always have my faith.” She kissed his forehead. “I love you, baby.”
“Love you too. I won't let you down. Please take care of yourself. I know your heart is broken.”
She nodded. Then, as he started to step away, a strong voice reached out to him.
“Don't let them kill our girl.” Glassy tears shone with the fire in her stare. “You hear me?”
His heart pounded, maybe so hard Kira felt it halfway across the city, where he'd left it broken with her.
“I hear you.”
Zayne struggled to sleep all night, kept awake by dread and planning.
The path to Kira's freedom was blocked by that stretch of mountains and all the drones and sensors forming an impenetrable prison wall.
But if they traveled around the mountains and avoided it, they may find an easier route.
The elder in Kallum heard rumors about tunnels out in the desert through the Ruins.
Traveling there may add a week to the journey, but it gave them hope, at least.
Or maybe he'd convince Major Tyndale to find a pilot and jet for him. Someone in this empire had to be capable of and willing to fly Kira to safety.
After spending half the night unable to sleep, he finally snagged a few hours until an emergency alert blared from his phone early in the morning.
Zayne ran into his closet and ripped a uniform down, nearly tripping from rushing. He called the driver he hadn't used in three years and told him to drive however fast he needed to get Zayne to the location on his phone.
“It's been a long time, Sergeant Riven.”
He said nothing. He just stared at the message with an address he didn't recognize and the word “stat”.
Before the car even fully stopped, Zayne opened the door and sprinted past storefronts to a bakery.
Inside, everything looked normal, chairs on top of the tables and the lights out, but soldiers lined the back of the shop.
Joining them, Zayne saw the broken tiles on the floor and the hole with a ladder leading down.
A hidden basement.
He climbed down the ladder, feeling like he hovered above his body when the scent of metal stung his sinuses. And he knew there was no preparing for what he'd see.
Downturned shelves and wooden chairs lay busted on the ground. Blood painted the walls and ceiling in sprays and smears. But the dark pool that glistened on the floor like a warped mirror ran at least an inch thick.
Bile climbed his throat.
In the center of the room, directly before Zayne, the Phaedra reclined in a tall-backed chair reserved for the elders. His booted feet were planted in the blood of the Followers.
An older man knelt down before the Phaedra, his head bowed to the floor.
The room had been bathed in gore, with bodies piled against each wall.
A hole in the ceiling let the sunlight in.
Ropes dangled from it with a stretcher attached.
They'd already removed some of the bodies, and still Zayne counted more than a dozen in the piles.
He stepped on a handful of black hair and held in a grimace as he walked closer to the Phaedra.
The numbness didn't sweep over him this time, but consumed him in an instant. He felt nothing, not his hands, or his tongue, or his heart, though he heard the blood rushing through his ears.
This wasn't real.
They lost the connection to Becka during the meeting, and Zayne destroyed their communication channel. They stopped this.
Puckering his lips, the Phaedra blew out a ring that floated up to the ceiling and dissipated. Sweet smoke mingled with the coppery smell of slaughter.
How?
Soldiers lined the perimeter of the room. The Phaedra found out what Zayne had done and brought him here to kill him. Right? They all looked like they were waiting. But he couldn't die with Kira still in the prison. He needed to take her home.
A high-pitched scream shattered the numbness in his chest, and pain shot through his heart when he turned to see a soldier shove Kira into the room. She slid on the blood, nearly falling onto her face before catching herself.
If the Phaedra knew Zayne betrayed him for Kira, then he wouldn't leave her in a prison cell. He'd make Zayne watch her suffer until her last breath.
With all these soldiers, he'd never get his gun into his hand. Calm descended over the panic, allowing him to think. How did he get Kira out of here?
“Zayne?” She gasped on a broken breath.
A scream raged inside of him, one he couldn't unleash. One he shoved down with the last remaining speck of himself into the abyss.