Chapter 23 Eliana
ELIANA
blind bake /blīnd bāk/: verb
In the warm dark of the car, Yas and I are hunched over the burner phone on speaker, both of us straining for any morsel of information as to what’s going on.
Through the speaker, Bastian’s breathing comes in controlled bursts as he links his climbing rig up. The rhythm is familiar now, almost comforting, except for the part where each exhale could be his last.
I hear the whine of power lines straining as he zips across, the wind rushing past the speakers…
… and then the dual thump of Bastian’s boots hitting the other side.
“He’s across,” I whisper. “Fuck me, he actually made it.”
I hear boots on gravel. A rusty door screeching open. Then nothing but Bastian’s breath and the thunder of my own heartbeat filling the car.
Yasmin’s grip tightens where she’s clutching my hand. “Come on,” she whispers. “Come on, come on, come on.”
A scuffle. A man’s gurgle. A crash, wood splintering—and then the worst silence I’ve ever heard.
Until a voice cuts through the static. Young. Scared. Cracking on a single syllable.
“… Bastian?”
My whole body goes liquid. That’s Sage. That’s Sage, alive and terrified and saying his brother’s name like he’s seen a ghost rise from the grave.
I suppose he has.
I could burst into tears right now. Hell, I might do exactly that—or I would have, if Yasmin’s hand didn’t suddenly bear down on mine even harder.
“Oh, fuck,” Yasmin breathes. Her hand releases mine and I hear her twisting in the driver’s seat, the leather creaking as she cranes toward the window. “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck.”
“What?” My pulse spikes. “Yas, what is it?”
“There’s a guard. Coming back to the building.
” Her voice is pitched high and thin, threaded with panic.
“He must’ve— The fire must not have been enough to keep him—fuck, fuck—” She’s fumbling for the phone, jabbing at the speaker button.
“Bastian! Bastian, there’s a guard coming back, do you copy? Bastian!”
But through the tinny speaker, all I can hear is the muffled sound of Bastian and Sage talking, their voices overlapping in what sounds like an argument. He’s not listening. He can’t hear us over whatever’s happening in that room.
“He’s not—” Yasmin’s breath hitches. “Eliana, he’s not listening.”
I hear her hand slam against the steering wheel. Once, twice. The horn gives a strangled bleat on the second hit.
“I should go,” she says. “I should—but no, Bastian said to stay in the car. You can’t drive, so if I leave, then— He said—”
“Yas—”
“What do I do?”
I have maybe three seconds to make up my mind. That’s hardly enough time to decide if I’m the kind of person who sits in the dark while the people she loves die, or the kind who does something impossibly stupid and probably gets herself killed in the process.
But then again, I already decided, didn’t I? I decided a long time ago.
My hand grabs the door handle before my brain catches up.
“Eliana, no—!”
“Stay with the car, Yas.”
“You’re blind!” Yasmin cries. “You can’t just—you don’t even know where—”
But I do know. I know because Bastian traced every inch of that building onto my palm last night, his finger moving mine while neither of us could sleep.
I memorized the shape of it the way I’ve memorized everything that matters since my world went dark: through touch, repetition, and sheer fucking stubbornness.
“Stay with the car,” I say again, reaching for Excalibur in the footwell. “When I get them out, we’ll need a getaway.”
“Eliana—”
It’s too late to stop me, though. I’m already running.
The fear is a choking hazard in my throat, but through force of will, I shove that down where it can’t slow me. My cane sweeps in tight arcs as I run. The fingertips of my other hand graze along the brick facade until I reach the door. I yank it open and slip inside.
The guard’s boots pound above me. I follow that sound up the stairs.
Second floor. The hallway opens up ahead, and I hear half a dozen things all at once: Sage’s sharp intake of breath, the guard’s surprised grunt, the mechanical click of a safety disengaging.
I don’t think. I just raise my cane swing in what I hope is the right direction.
Lucky for me, it is.
Excalibur connects with the back of the guard’s skull with a crack that reverberates up my arms and into my teeth. The man crumples sideways, his gun skittering away across the floor.
“Eliana!” Bastian’s voice breaks on my name.
Then his hand reaches mine, warm and solid, and he’s pulling me forward. I hear Sage say my name, too.
“Fire escape,” Bastian breathes. “Now.”
We run.
Two pairs of hands help me through the window.
The fire escape groans under our combined weight as we descend—Bastian carrying Sage, me stumbling behind with one hand fisted in the back of Bastian’s shirt and the other death-gripping Excalibur.
Every step is a reckless prayer that the bolts don’t shear off and send us tumbling into the alley below.
Bastian warns me that it’s a bit of a drop from the foot of the ladder to the ground, but when it’s my turn to go, I still hit the ground hard. My knees buckle on impact and I almost fall until Bastian’s hand shoots out and catches my elbow before I can eat pavement.
“Car’s this way,” he says.
Yasmin must see us coming, because the engine roars to life and tires wail as she pulls up alongside us. Doors fly open. Bastian tosses Sage into the backseat and I throw myself in after, landing on top of the brothers in a graceless tangle of limbs.
“Go!” Bastian barks, barely getting his own door closed before Yasmin floors it.
The acceleration slams me back against the seat. Sage’s bony elbow digs into my ribs. Someone’s knee is in my thigh. I don’t care.
We’re moving.
We’re alive.
A quarter mile later, Yasmin screeches to a stop. Another door opens.
Zeke stands there, reeking of smoke, grinning like a fool. “Hey, guys,” he says. “What’d I miss?”