Chapter Twenty-Eight Ren
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ren
I drive forward.
Another sound reaches me. I can’t place this one—it’s like thunder or a rockslide. Comes from behind me. The ground tremors for a moment and suddenly, a huge gust of wind courses down the firebreak and then up to the sky. Reminds me of…an exhale.
The light changes, moonlight peeking through the clouds, and I look up. The shadow over the camp contracts, grows smaller. Then there’s a sudden red firework of light. It splits the sky. Then it’s gone entirely.
There won’t be a fire tonight.
Or at least, not one from Akira.
But the one inside me is glowing hotter than ever.
I charge toward the police post. Guards have fired over our heads.
I’m not stupid—it’s a warning. Then I spy Kai.
The car has been abandoned, but he’s crouched next to it, reaching inside to mess with the gears so it can push forward again.
Uncanniness comes over me. I’ve seen him this way tons of times before, bent over Delilah outside his house.
Bullets are flying but here he is, working on a car.
I run up to him, breathless and sweaty. A string of Spanish-laced profanity falls from his lips in a furious tirade.
“Maybe you should be a mechanic after all, Tiger,” I call, coming to his side. He looks up, sees it’s me, and smiles, even amid the deadly chaos.
“Right?” he asks triumphantly. “Help me push this sweetheart into the bastards. For Lila!”
“Disperse!” the officer blares again into the loudspeaker. A few men run off, but most stay, undeterred. “We will fire. I repeat, we will fire.”
I go around to the other side of the car and anchor my hands on its cold, metallic sides. Then Kai shifts the car into neutral. I look up.
Almost in slow motion, I see their rifles rise.
They are fingers of death, ready to blast us away.
Everything is still so slow. Everything but my mind.
It grabs at every thought in the world, as though these are my last minutes.
Gotta atone or forgive, I’m not sure, maybe both.
Then all those scattershot thoughts become one.
Violet.