“Not exactly.” Reece tugs his fingers through his brown hair. “But I know the word means gods.”
“I’d rather not find out what they are, at least not while we’re being offered as a sacrifice,” Ryder says, glancing at Zinnia and Wrath. “We need to get out of here fast.”
“I think we should just run,” Reece contradicts what he said earlier. “On the count of three, we all bolt?”
Ryder and Blaise nod in agreement, and my confusion increases. Are we running or fighting? I’m so lost.
I put my hands to the ground and shift my weight to the balls of my toes, preparing to jump and either fight or run. Either way, I’m not sure if I can make it. Being in the channels for so long has made me so uncoordinated and slow, like I forgot how to use my body.
“One,” Reece whispers, exchanging a look with Blaise.
Blaise nods his head once, as if answering a silent question.
“Two.” Reece glances at Ryder then reaches for the chain behind him, and Ryder mimics him. “Three.”
I spring to my feet, but Blaise grabs the back of my dress and drags me into his lap. Then he scrambles backward toward the chairs, kicking up dirt.
Zinnia lets out an untamed laugh, reeling toward us with her knife out. “You think you could plot your escape right underneath my nose?” She strides toward Reece with the knife aimed at his throat. “How stupid do you think I am?”
“Pretty stupid, since we weren’t ever going to try to escape.” Ryder grins sweetly at her then lunges at Wrath, swinging the chain like a whip.
Blaise wraps an arm around my waist and tows me with him as he continues to move toward the back of the tent. A revelation strikes me. Reece, Ryder, and Blaise must have known Zinnia was listening to the plan, and somehow, they made an alternative plan without actually verbalizing it. How, though? Did Blaise get into their thoughts somehow? But that doesn’t make sense. He didn’t touch Ryder and Reece, nor were any of them relaxed or unconscious.
Zinnia lets out a feral shriek. “You’ll die trying to escape!”
Reece barrels forward and crashes into her. They both slam to the ground as her knife flies from her hand, and the quercu scatters across the dirt like fallen snowflakes. My eyes roll into the back of my head as the scent of fresh, thriving leaves saturates the air.
I’m so hungry. I’m so hungry. I need them. I need them.
“Come on, we have to go,” Blaise says, lugging me backward.
“No, I have to get them.” I throw my weight forward with a shocking amount of strength, and his arms slip from my waist.
“Allura, don’t, please,” Blaise begs, reaching for me. “We have to go—”
Wrath appears in front of us, grabs my arm, and yanks me to my feet as if I weigh nothing.
“Let her go!” Blaise savagely growls, jumping to his feet.
Wrath flips me around and jerks me against him, aligning my back to his chest. “Why? You lost the challenge, right? Which means I own her.”
Where the heck did Ryder go? I turn my head, searching for him, and ice fills my veins. A man and woman have him pinned to the ground and are beating him bloody with the chain and their fists.
“Help Ryder,” I plead with Blaise. “They’re going to kill him.”
Blaise doesn’t seem to hear me, edging forward with his eyes trained on Wrath. “Lost the challenge. You didn’t even fight me.”
“You tried to run like a coward, so you lost.” Wrath trails his finger along my jaw, across my lips, then down my neck. “And now I get to rip her apart bit by—”
In the blink of an eye, Blaise lunges forward, grabs my hips, and moves me to the side. Then he lets his fist fly, and his knuckles bash against Wrath’s jaw.
Wrath staggers back, stunned. “You’re not normal.”
“And you’re going to die,” Blaise says then lowers his head and charges at Wrath again.
Wrath dodges out of the way, shrugs off his jacket, and chucks it to the floor as Blaise swings around. “If you want to play, then let’s play.” The muscles in his enormous arms bulge as he cracks his knuckles then flashes me a devious grin. “Winner takes—”
Blaise rams his head into Wrath’s chest and pushes him back into the tent wall. The lanterns above us shake as Wrath picks Blaise up by the throat and throws him across the tent as if he weighs nothing. Blaise crashes into the chairs just a few feet away from me but recovers, leaps to his feet, and sprints across the tent at Wrath. Wrath skitters out of the way, whirls around, and punches Blaise in the side of the head. Blaise drunkenly staggers, his shoulder knocking against the side of the tent. Wrath then hits Blaise in the head again, and this time, he draws blood.
“No!” I cry, rushing for Blaise.
Blaise collapses to the dirt, clutching his head, and Wrath grins as he strides toward me. I turn around to run, but he snags the back of my dress.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he breathes, slamming his chest against my back, His fingers delve into my waist as his teeth graze my earlobe. “I’m going to—”
I whip my head back against Wrath’s face, and his fingers leave my waist. He trips backward as I stumble forward, dizziness overcoming me.
I need … something … something that will help make me strong.
I trip over my dress, staggering toward the quercu.
“Allura!” Blaise sounds so far away, like an echo. Or maybe I’m just moving extraordinarily fast.
I make it to the leaves before I can even take my next breath and pluck the flakes from the dirt.
Oh. My. God. I want them so badly.
I lift my hands to my face, my nostrils flaring, ready to devour.
“No. No. No. You can’t eat them, or you’re done for,” the voice whispers in my ear again. “Then it can’t be undone.”
“Look at her! She’s about to feed!” Zinnia says, her voice muffled. “She’s one of them! Can’t you see what you’re trying to protect? She’s evil!”
I jerk back as if burned and drop the quercu.
What am I doing? I don’t need to do this. I’m not like this.
But I’m so hungry. Famished. As if I haven’t been fed in ages. And all that healing. I can feel it taking a toll on my body. I need something, but I don’t understand what.
“Yes, you do,” the voice whispers. “Just lie down and shut your eyes. Then you’ll be stronger and can help them.”
I glance at Reece as he struggles to hold the chain around Zinnia’s neck, at Ryder who’s enduring merciless punches, and at Blaise rushing toward me, blood dripping from his hairline. I want to help them, so I listen to the voice and lie down on my stomach and press my face to the ground.
Blaise shouts my name again as my eyes close, ready to give in. But as a cold rush of air whooshes through me and my nostrils are blasted with the stench of rotten eggs, fear pulses through my body.
No. No. No. Not again.
What have I done?
Chapter Fourteen
The First
“What’s happening?” I murmur with my eyes closed.
Did Lex’s spirit take over my body again?
I crack one of my eyelids open, and for a heart stopping instant, I swear I see a pair of red, glowing eyes staring at me. When I blink, they’re gone.
Taking a few uneven breaths, I peer around the tent, relieved to be looking through my own eyes and not Lex’s. All relief erases, though, when I spot Blaise and Wrath pummeling each other.
Blood drips from Blaise’s nose and covers the front of his shirt and unzipped jacket. On the opposite side of the tent, Ryder is pinned to the ground, enduring blow after blow. Beside him, Reece is strangling Zinnia with the chain, but Zinnia has her hands clasped around his throat.
I want to run to them, but I don’t. I feel too … different, like I don’t really exist.
I rotate my arms in front of me, noticing the translucency of my skin. “What’s happening to me?”
“Goddammit!” Blaise’s scream pulls my atten
tion to him.
He uppercuts Wrath in the chin, and blood gushes from his mouth. But Wrath just laughs, flashing a bloody smile. Then he cranes his blood-soaked fist back, ready to strike. Blaise veers to the right, jumps over a broken table, picks up the trunk, and hurls it at Wrath. Wrath’s eyes widen for a flash of an instant before the trunk smacks him square in the face. The contact makes a sickening sound, and then Wrath drops to the floor like a bag of bricks.
Blaise doesn’t miss a beat, dashing toward a body on the ground.
I lean over, trying to see who the person is. My breath catches in my throat. It’s … me.
Blaise drops to his knees at my side and presses his finger to my pulse. He curses, leans down, and puts his ear next to my parted lips. Another curse leaves him, and then he positions his hands to my chest, and his arm muscles flex as he pumps my heart.
“Come on, breathe, dammit,” he growls. “You can’t die on me now.”
My body lies motionless, my skin is pale, and my lips as red as the sky. My long, brown hair is sprawled out across the dirt, and flecks of quercu surround my head. I look hauntingly still, and if I had to guess, my skin is probably icy cold.
“Come on, Allura,” Blaise pleads as he places his fingers to my temple. He closes his eyes, his forehead creasing in deep concentration. He mutters words under his breath, growing frustrated, then withdraws his hands and lowers his lips to mine.
I rub my eyes and blink a few times, watching Blaise try to breathe life into me. “How can this be possible? Am I … dead?”
“No, you’re recharging using the moonstone hidden underneath the ground. No one knows it’s there, or I’m sure they never would’ve built their camp here.” A woman about five or six years older than me materializes by my side.
Her raven black hair is matted, and she’s dressed in a ratty shirt similar to the one I used to wear when I lived in the channels. Her transparent skin makes her face and body look boney and sunken in.
“You’re a Grim.” I skitter away when she steps toward me.
She freezes. “Not entirely.”
I reach to grip the last chair still intact, but my fingers slip through, and I fall flat onto my face. I scramble to my feet, breathing wildly. My hands shake as I elevate them in front of me.
“What just happened? How did I do that?”
She takes a cautious step toward me. “You did it because you’re a spirit right now. Just like me. You’re stuck, a faded memory, never to be found.”
“No, I’m not.” I shake my head in denial. “If that were true, that means I’m a Grim.”
“No, you’re a hybrid.” She extends her hand toward me. “Just like me.” Her fingers brush my arm, her touch warm. “God, it’s been ages since I touched anyone. Since I died here, actually.”
“Since you died here …? Wait. You’re one of the hybrids who killed the Forsaken?” I sidestep away from her, bumping into the wall of the tent, and her hand falls from my arm.
“We didn’t mean to kill them,” she replies sadly. “We were provoked, just like you were.”
I rub the spot where she touched me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you would’ve tasted that quercu, it would’ve unleashed the Grim monster living inside you.” Her gentleness turns harsh.
I stare down at the leaves on the ground, remembering how desperately I wanted to taste them. “And if I don’t? Then what?”
“Then you stay in control.” Her shoulders sag. “I wish I could have. Then maybe I wouldn’t be buried in the ground. Then again, maybe I still would. People aren’t fond of those who are different, and you and I are about as different as they come.”
“Are there …? Are there a lot of us?”
She wavers. “A few, but you’re different from all of us.”
Shock scorches through me.
“How?”
She fiddles with a hole in the hem of her shirt. “Because you’re the first.”
“The first what? Hybrid?”
She hesitates, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
I don’t understand.
“How can you know I’m the first something, but you don’t know what that something is?”
“Because I can feel it.” She presses her palm to her chest. “In here.”
She’s making no sense, but before I can ask her to explain herself better, Ryder yelps in pain, and my concentration darts to him. Wrath has woken up and now has Ryder turned onto his stomach and is stabbing him in the back with a small knife.
“No!” The strangled scream comes from my own lips. “Somebody help him!”
Blaise jerks his head up, and he scans the tent, looking confused.
Did he just hear me?
“Help Ryder!” I shout, getting right into his face.
His brows shoot upward, and his head snaps in Ryder’s direction. Cursing, he bounds to his feet, sprints toward Wrath, scoops up a broken piece of chair, and clocks Wrath in the side of the head with it.
Wrath drops to the ground hard, and Blaise kneels and carefully turns Ryder over onto his back.
“I’m good,” Ryder croaks, trying to smile, but it looks wrong. Everything about Ryder does. His kind eyes are dull, and that vibrant spark he carries with him is fizzling.
More Forsaken rush into the tent, armed with knives and guns. Chaos haunts the air, along with the foul stench of blood.
“How do I help them?” My chest constricts as I whirl toward the woman. “The voice—your voice, I’m guessing—told me this could help me save them. That if I lay down, I could save them. How do I do it?” I think about what Reece told me about spirits and how Lex possessed my mind when I was in the caves. “Can I possess one of them?”
She shakes her head. “Only a pure Grim can do that.”
“Then what can I do?”
“The only way to help them is to let a memory go and return to your body.”
I squeeze my eyes as Ryder lets out an agonizing groan. God, I can’t bear to hear any of them in pain.
“Okay, how do I do that?”
“You need to think about this,” the woman says. “The memory that you have to let go is probably going to be an important one.”
“I don’t care. You told me if I lay down and shut my eyes, I could save them.”
A scowl etches her face. “That wasn’t me.” She straightens her back and looks around at the torn walls of the tent, the broken fragments of wooden furniture all over the ground, and the knocked down curtains. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
Ryder groans again, and her words barely register.
I inch toward her, deathly afraid but refusing to reveal my fear. “I don’t care what’s g-going on. Y-you know how to fix this. Now, please, just tell me how to do it.” I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe.
“I can’t …” She swiftly shakes her head, backing away from me, terrified. “You can’t forget stuff. It’s too important.”
“I won’t …” I crumble to the ground as two men seize Reece by the arms and drag him toward Zinnia, who has managed to escape the chain.
They viciously shove him down, and his jaw clips the edge of the cracked trunk. He staggers before collapsing to his knees. The taller of the two men reaches inside his leather jacket and retrieves a gun.
“No!” I shout as the man aims the barrel at the back of Reece’s head.
“Not yet,” Zinnia groans hoarsely, rubbing her neck, her skin red and raw from where Reece choked her with the chain. “We need three of them for the sacrifice.”
“Fine.” The taller man turns the gun around in his hand and clocks Reece over the head with the handle.
Reece groans as his body slumps to the dirt, face first, and blood trickles from his temple.
The man turns and points the gun at Ryder lying on the ground. “This one, on the other hand, is already dead.” His finger hovers over the trigger.
“No!” I rush forward, my heart thundering in my chest.
> All I can think about is getting to them, stopping Ryder from getting shot, waking up Reece, helping Blaise fight the three men and two women trying to pin him to the ground.
Power surges through my veins, loading my body with raw, magnetic heat. For once, I feel strong, alert, hungry with the need to protect. I let the hunger consume me as I surrender to the silent whisper, begging me to let something go so I can reunite with my body. I feel myself tumbling. Slipping, slipping, slipping closer to present and farther from the past …
Chapter Fifteen
Destruction
I bolt upright, gasping for air, trying to figure out how I got on the ground. The last thing I remember is Wrath and Blaise fighting and me head-butting Wrath.
I bring myself to a crouch and look around the tent. Any warmth is abruptly ripped from my body when my eyes rove toward the entrance of the tent.
Ryder. On the ground. Blood. So much blood. And a guy is about to shoot him.
I feel like I’ve missed out on moments leading to this point, but I act instinctively and sprint at an alarmingly fast pace. Strength pumps through my veins and fuels my body as I slam my palms against the guy pointing the gun at Ryder. A loud zap crackles through my body, and the man cries out in pain.
Just how Lex stole life from my veins, I feel myself doing the same thing. I want to drink this guy dry, feed the monster inside me.
“Don’t do it,” the voice whispers. “You can’t ever let that hunger get control of you.”
My body goes rigid. Who said that?
“Then what do I do?” I ask aloud.
“Fight.”
Prying my hands off his back, I jump up and hitch my arms around the guy’s neck. He chokes out, begging me to let him go, while Zinnia screams at everyone to stop me. I only squeeze more tightly, choking the air out of the man.
Blaise moves up and snatches the gun from the guy’s hands. Blood is splattered across his face like raindrops, and bruises and welts cover his face, but the bruises have already yellowed, quickly healing.
What is he?
Blaise catches my gaze, and not a speck of remorse haunts his eyes as he aims the gun at the guy.
Forsaken (Broken City Book 2) Page 12
