Broken Paths (AIR Book 2)

by Amanda Booloodian

  I didn't bother to whisper. "Why?"

  "In less than an hour, his slap will be like a baseball bat. Without causing physical damage, he can do it again."

  Chapter 25

  Pain without damage. Turning that thought over and over again in my head only worked to increase the activity of the unsettled masses inside.

  Vincent's hands were gripping the arms of the chair, but his voice was flat. "You didn't ask anything."

  Jin let out a long, sad breath. "Asking now does no good. I have to believe the answers you give, and she will provide that assurance."

  "Injecting her was a mistake." Vincent looked around Jin to include the doctor who was leaving the room. "For both of you."

  "I'll be back shortly," Jin said. "Cedric will keep you two company."

  Jin left and was replaced by a large man that stood by the door, watching us.

  Looking widely around the room for anything that might help us, some means of escape, got me nowhere.

  I watched Cedric for a while, wondering if there was any hope there, but Jin wouldn't have left him watching over us if there was a chance he'd help us.

  The soul fragments were shifting, wanting to reach out through me. One of these had to be useful, right? Who knew what was there?

  Who knew what would happen if I let one of them take over?

  Vincent's face remained impassive, but his hands twisted around, testing his restraints.

  Twisting my arms didn't do anything, although, it did hurt more. Were the ropes rougher against my skin? It had to be my imagination, but I stopped moving.

  I looked at Cedric again. Could we get him on our side? "You must have the most boring job in the world."

  He smirked but didn't respond.

  The look on his face made my skin crawl. He was enjoying this. "Are we allowed to talk?" I asked.

  Cedric's only response was a grunt.

  Vincent's eyes looked straight ahead, but I don't think he was really seeing me. His pupils looked like saucers.

  "Vincent?" I've seen him go down this path a few times before. I glanced at Cedric again but plunged forward. "Can you get out of here?"

  "No." His voice was hollow.

  "No you can't, or no you won't?"

  "Both."

  My face began to throb in time with my heartbeat. "Why can't you go? You could get help."

  He blinked twice and focused on me. "You're suggesting I go between the worlds, strapped to a chair?"

  For once, I was thankful I couldn't really read his expression. "Right, stupid idea."

  Nothing in the room, no way to go for help, and the Path was out of reach.

  The cuts on my arm ached dully.

  Closing my eyes, I inspected the throng of souls. Most pieces were my own, which was good to know.

  "Don't." The demanding tone Vincent used made me look up.

  "Don't what?"

  "You cannot go through the void."

  I raised an eyebrow and frowned at him.

  "That wasn't a challenge." Vincent's voice was firm, but he backed off a little.

  "I'm not taking it as one," I said. "I don't like being told what to do, but I'm not stupid. You said it wouldn't work, and I trust your judgment."

  Closing my eyes again, random souls jostled their way forward. Trying to sense what type of Lost they had once belonged to, had my mind spinning and I chased after one shard. Down I went until it felt like smashing into a sheet of ice. As I fell, a burst of energy was able to urge itself forward.

  No, no, no! I had to stay me. That I was sure of.

  My body felt like it was speeding up, but I was sitting still. Anxiety crept over me, urging me to move. A sensation of someone else looking at the world with me became unnerving.

  Pain bloomed everywhere. Each bruise and bump, each rope digging into my arms and legs. Everything.

  Feeling the spike of pain, the little scrap of energy retreated to the group of others, allowing me to gain control.

  The need to move died away, but the pain stayed.

  Looking at Vincent, I could tell he had noticed the change.

  "Burst of adrenaline." Did that even make sense? "I think it kicked the drugs in faster."

  "You're a bad liar."

  I tried to hide the strain I was feeling. "The explanation is close enough."

  All those little pieces, but none of them merged. They didn't seem sentient, yet they all felt like they wanted to have their own chance out.

  After being torn to shreds, only a small bit of their nature remained. It's no wonder they wanted out to feel the world again.

  "What?" Lost in thought, I had missed what Vincent said.

  "I don't know what the drugs do." He looked pained. The blank slate that he used to shut out the world was cracking.

  I hesitated, not knowing if it was better for him to know or not. In the end, Vincent's imagination could probably get much worse than any drug.

  "It's temporary." I swallowed hard and tried to keep my voice light. "Mostly, it's going to make me cry without being hurt."

  Vincent was gaining his composure, but he stared at me, waiting for the rest.

  "It lowers pain tolerance, that's all." I didn't even want to think about what this was doing to Vincent. "It's going to look like I'm hurt, without them actually having to do anything to me."

  There was silence apart from Vincent's arms twisting under their ropes.

  I ground my teeth together and shoved the misery into the farthest reaches of my mind. Feeling around the room without opening the Path, I received a taste of Vincent's hostility, which was like venom in the air. It was candy to a few shards of soul, and the minotaur pushed me aside before I had the chance to ground myself. In a frenzy, I began pulling up at the ropes, straining to break out. Agony in my arms combined with dread that it would only get worse, allowed me to gain control.

  My head lolled down and I didn't bother lifting it up. Small pieces of soul crowded me, my body was tormented each time I moved, and Vincent was going to be forced to sit here and watch what they did to me. Despair was coming around the corner, straight for me. A person can only take so much broken.

  Crying would only cause more pain and anger for Vincent, so my eyes itched with unshed tears.

  There was Gran to think about, Logan, Rider, and all the other Lost that might be taken so that Jin could do business.

  There had to be a way out of this. "The thing on my head. Is it like the jewelry? A small part of the whole?"

  Vincent didn't say anything.

  When I looked up, his eyes were completely black. He looked as lost as I felt.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to think of anything else besides what I was feeling. "Look, if we are going to get out of here, I need to know more."

  There was silence.

  "You owe me."

  Vincent flinched.

  It was a cruel thing to say, especially in anger, but I had to drag him out of himself.

  I shifted in my seat and the ropes burned into my arms. The drugs had truly set in.

  "We're out of time." I hated myself before the words were out. "Do you want me to die in pain tied to a chair, or die fighting to get out?"

  Vincent closed his eyes.

  "I'm sorry, but they are taking Lost along with humans with special abilities, including psychics." My own words caused tears to flow.

  "Your family?" Vincent spoke softly.

  "Gran has moved in with Logan. Mom is discreetly protected by AIR." I sniffed and tried to rein in the crying. "The Path is there, I can feel it. I need information if we are going to get out."

  Vincent looked up and kept his voice slow and steady. "This is nothing like the others. It is a small piece of a whole, but even a small piece will devour you if you try to pass through it. You can't make this go away."

  My heartbeat ratcheted up as my discomfort grew. "Jin has answers we need."

  Vincent went stony. "Jin will die screaming."

  Cedric chuckled, and
I looked over, surprised to see him in the room.

  I turned back to Vincent. "We're taking Jin in. Does he wear a piece of his own jewelry?"

  "We don't talk about that." Cedric sounded alert.

  "Around his neck," Vincent said.

  Cedric rapped on the door, which opened a crack, and Cedric said a few words to someone outside.

  I lowered my voice and kept an eye on Cedric. "About Gran. If I don't..." My throat tightened, and I couldn't finish those words. I looked at Vincent, making sure he understood what I wasn't saying.

  He had a small, sad smile. "We'll have all the time in the world to talk after this is over."

  The only way I could fake hope was through my words. "Of course we will.

  The ropes dug into me like knives. Looking down at my arms, I wondered how it could be that they weren't bleeding.

  "It's now or never." My vision began to blur with tears that I had no chance of stopping.

  Closing my eyes, I searched around. Even inside, pain dominated. Before I could find that little sliver of void, I had to shove as much of my torment aside as possible. Things were only going to get worse. When my mind was able to separate the misery, I moved towards the Path, careful not to reach for it. The souls lived here, but they gave me no trouble, they wanted to see outside, not be trapped in my mind.

  The emptiness sat there, directly between Path and me. It was such a small sliver of a thing. It felt like I should be able to move past it, but trusting what Vincent said, I didn't try.

  There was talking in the room, but I ignored it, knowing my chance to reach the Path was slipping away.

  Instead of trying to go through the void, I pulled. It remained resolute in its tiny prison. Souls began to clutter around me, but I kept my concentration on the target and tugged harder until it sprung free; much like the piece of the minotaur soul and the many others since I started to absorb the blockade.

  Cold darkness spread through me. My veins felt like they were covered in fire and filled with ice. My voice locked up as shadows moved in, dimming the aches in my body. Only the feeling of being trapped in an infernal darkness remained.

  A part of me wanted to curl up into a little ball, letting the void stretch out and continue dulling the sensations, but the Path was within reach. I wanted to live in the light of the Path, over the darkness of the shadows.

  Bright color burned away the shadows when I plunged myself into the Path, and then opened my eyes to our captor.

  It was a different world. The roaring Path was here, but there was contrast that I had never seen before. The darker shades made the colors of every flow more vivid in comparison.

  A beautiful yellow-green glow swirled around Jin, remaining independent, but without straying away. New shades to the Path showed me what was lurking close to Jin. Knitted tightly around him, a poisonous blur of greed and hatred appeared to be in a battle with joy and everything was coated in dull misery.

  If this was a leprechaun soul that Jin had stolen, it was hiding Jin's malice, even from himself.

  Jin looked around the room, alert as the glowing Path around him urged him towards the door. Jin raised a hand. Pain ripped through my arm and coursed through my body when Cedric bore down.

  My scream tore through the room. In agony, my system burst into overdrive, trying to deal with more pain than I thought possible. Lights popped behind my closed eyes, and my cries continued as Cedric strengthened his hold.

  The darkness of the void, strong and unsettled, began to fill me again. My scream stopped as feeling and the Path became eclipsed. The torment remained, but bearable enough to take action.

  Jin was checking Vincent's bonds without touching him. He must have assumed the threat came from Vincent, which was almost always a smart bet.

  Reaching out along the Path with an odd sense of detachment, I took Cedric's Path, strengthened it, and wrapped the shimmering orange and green strands around his throat. It didn't take me long to let go, leaving Cedric choking. Gripping air in front of me and making it solid, I slammed it straight into Jin.

  Vincent looked murderous with flat black eyes when Jin crashed into him.

  Before Vincent could do much harm, I connected my own Path with Jin's necklace. The energy jumped to me.

  It was a horrible mistake.

  The new essence scorched the darkness away. It moved around me with more fluidity and felt more solid than any other soul, including my own.

  The Path around Jin was bled into the poisonous concoction that was his life, but an emptiness had begun eating his Path away. He was also draining away into Vincent.

  "No!" I yelled.

  Vincent paused and Jin shifted himself away, obviously drained, Jin stumbled into a wall. Vincent's mouth tightened, and he turned his gaze on me.

  "He will die suffering." Vincent's voice was much like the frost thawing in my veins.

  "His Path is collapsing in on itself. If you pull that into you, I don't know what will happen." I stopped and took a shaky breath. "I'm not going to lose you again."

  Vincent's face softened until he turned his eyes back to Jin. Jin was pressed against a wall, trying to catch his breath.

  We needed to be free. The new soul was crowding me and all the other pieces, but it was also pouring luck.

  There was a noise behind me, but I ignored it, knowing that it presented me with no immediate danger.

  Cutting through the ropes sounded like a good idea, but I wasn't sure I could control that Path with such pinpoint accuracy. If I cut through more than rope, things could turn worse.

  The chair didn't look like a much better option. I took a close look at Vincent's bonds, then a close look at mine, or at least those of mine that I could see.

  Luck was on my side. If there were ever a time to work miracles with the Path, this would be that time.

  An alarm went off in my head, and I looked up to see Jin staggering towards me. With such a strong, early alert, I easily tossed him aside, shoving him into a wall. Jin bounced off the wall and fell to the ground. Seeing that his Path was almost gone, I worked fast.

  Twisting fine strands of the Path together was easy, but I was working with air, which was having a hard time keeping an edge to cut through the rope. After the second attempt, I looked at the rope itself. Like everything else, it had a Path, so I grabbed it and yanked it tight.

  Screams tore through me and the Path of the ropes fell out of my grasp.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Once again, I expected to see blood running down my arm. How could this hurt so bad without breaking the skin?

  Taking shuddering breaths, I tentatively took the Path of the rope again, and instead of pulling it, I unraveled.

  I had never done anything like it. The rope frayed, but it cut into my skin to a point I couldn't handle.

  Crying, I stopped. Even with luck, I felt defeated.

  "I don't know what you are doing, but stop doing it to yourself." Hints of emotion on Vincent's face, ones others may miss, howled his anger at me.

  I tried to catch my breath. "It may not hurt if I tried it on your ropes."

  "Do it then."

  I couldn't muster enough energy to get aggravated by his tone. Instead, I poured it all into the Path while I was able. Working as carefully as I could, I unraveled the Path of the rope. My early warning system wailed.

  Jin's Path was gone, and I was burning out.

  Putting as much effort into it as I could, I coerced the Path of the rope apart. All the threads jumped and frayed until Vincent was able to pull free.

  Retreating from the Path wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be. The noise in my brain dimmed, but the Leprechaun soul recognized the imminent danger. "We don't have much time."

  Vincent took a knife out of his boot and he was cutting his bonds when the house and ground shuddered.

  The Path was going to have its revenge on Jin. It didn't care if we were in the way.

  "I'm not sure this luck is going to hold out if the h
ouse falls on us," I said.

  Vincent moved to me, and I grimaced as he cut the rope, causing fresh waves of pain, but it wasn't as bad as before.

  A pipe burst in the corner, pouring water into the room, and then the house stopped shaking.

  If that's all he got for imprisoning a leprechaun and stealing its luck for months, I was going to have to get vengeance on my own.

  "Can you walk?" Vincent asked.

  Without thinking, I agreed. "I've got his luck. I think we can get out if we move."

  Getting up, I saw Cedric on the ground, and my stomach tried to revolt. His face blue, eyes bulged, and he held his neck as though trying to pull away what he couldn't see.

  The chair scraped across the floor as I fell back into it, almost knocking it over.

  I had killed him.

  "You need to move," Vincent hissed.

  "Right." My eyes were locked to the body.

  Vincent moved into my line of sight and knelt down to look directly at me. "You have to deal with that later." His voice wasn't unkind, but there was a dull edge to it. His eyes were normal again, something I spent months thinking I'd never see again. "Get to the door."

  There was no reason for me to look back now. Memories of Cedric, dead on the ground, were branded into my memory.

  I staggered in the direction that held a hope of escape, and the house moved again. Vincent strode over and wrenched open the door. Glass broke in the house above. It surprised me that the door even opened. I thought it has been locked.

  Vincent stood aside, and I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself.

  Back in the room, Vincent advanced on Jin.

  "No, Vincent!" I tried to sound stern, but it came off as desperate.

  Vincent hesitated. The wall around Jin trembled and exploded outward, covering Jin with debris.

  Again, Vincent moved towards the man.

  "Please, we have to go." This time, Vincent ignored me.

  Vincent leaned over Jin. I'm not sure what he said to him, but when he reached out to touch Jin, I reentered the room.

  "You will not touch him." My own anger boiled over, not needing the wrath of the minotaur. "You will not pull his soul out."