AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

  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 house 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."

  Vincent stared at the man on the ground. "If he can't die between the worlds, at least his soul will."

  "And you?" The need to leave was crumbling. I was pushing my luck too far. "You will always carry a small piece of him with you."

  "It's a small price to pay."

  "How do you think that will make me feel?"

  Vincent turned to look at me. A joist twisted and cracked before falling free. Another followed while he stared, the blackness in his eyes retreating.

  "We may be too late already. I'm going to be seriously upset if I die down here next to him." I was trying to make light of the situation, but in truth, I was convinced we were about to die.

  Vincent backed away from Jin and his hands clenched and u
nclenched repeatedly.

  Water and worse flooded the room from broken pipes. Something sounding like a wall hitting the floor above us was followed by drifting dust. Sirens could be heard in the distance. My luck stirred when Vincent moved beside me. He reached for my hand but stopped before touching me. Remembering what had happened when we touched in the club, I understood the hesitation, but things couldn't get much worse. I took his hand and it nestled warmly in mine.

  Luck urged us to the stairs, but even fighting through the pain, I was moving slow.

  "You're going to hate this," Vincent muttered. He picked me up, trying to be gentle. "Tell me where to go."

  Every part of my body that was pressed into Vincent felt like spikes being driven into my skin. The nightmare I held, fighting with the new soul, managed to spread through me and dull my senses once again.

  Directing Vincent upstairs, we found a perilous jumble of falling walls and debris. He maneuvered us through the back door and into the cold night air. Vincent slowed when we were out of the house, but I urged him further away.

  So many things could happen in earthquakes. The house was on fire and gas lines could be burning, but I had a nagging suspicion that this was different.

  When I told him he could stop, I leaned my head against Vincent's chest as we watched the house sink into the ground. Emergency crews in front were yelling to move back as the ground cracked. Their lights lit up the night and reflected off the white houses along the street.

  When everything stalled, the house was nothing but a tangled heap of sticks, shingles, and stone. In front of the house, someone talked loudly about sinkholes, and they began evacuating the rest of the street. I was confident that everything else on the street was safe.

  Chapter 26

  "We shouldn't stick around here." My mind was fuzzy, but dealing with the police right now wasn't high on my to do list. "We can go through a neighbor's backyard and circle back around to the street."

  Vincent didn't move. "I don't think we should be seen around here."

  "I'm not sure what time it is, but most of the houses look dark. No one is going to help us if we wake them up to use their phone. There are people here, and maybe we can borrow a cell phone to call."

  Vincent moved into the neighbor's backyard.

  "I can walk." I didn't relish the idea, but I didn't want Vincent packing me around after what we had been through.

  Vincent didn't even slow down. "When we're further away."

  Listening to his heart beating steadily was a distraction. Right now, I think the worst thing for me would be to think about what had happened. The rhythmic thump helped me let everything fall away and allowed my mind to float in an exhausted haze.

  We moved quietly between houses. Vincent put me back on my feet, and we watched the flurry of activity from the darkness between houses.

  "Are you sure you want to go out there?" It looked like he was focusing on the emergency vehicles.

  I scanned the people that had come out of their houses. "I'm sure. I want away from here the fastest way possible."

  Vincent put a hand on my face and looked into my eyes. For this rare moment, his face looked soft. Worried, but real. The real Vincent.

  Mesmerized, my foggy mind clutched at this new distraction. Vincent's hand moved up, and he ran it through my hair, his gaze followed, so I shut my eyes and concentrated on his hand moving over me. It snagged in my hair. I whimpered. Whatever drugs they gave me should never have been made.

  Did I seriously whimper? In front of Vincent?

  Avoiding everything was apparently not the right answer. It was time to let my brain move again.

  "Sorry." Vincent kept his voice low, but it was tinged with concern. "But I need to get this accursed thing off your head."

  "It's okay. You caught me off guard." For once, I succeeded in keeping my voice level and normal when I wanted to.

  Vincent took away a hair clip, with a small jewel sitting among beads. He turned it over and over again in his hand.

  "It's gone." Vincent looked down the street at the remains of the ruined house. "I need to go back."

  "Don't." I ignored the sensation of my heart being squeezed.

  "Even that small fragment could wreak havoc in this world. I'll borrow a phone on the way and call Logan. I'll let him know where you are."

  "You don't have to go back."

  "It has to be done." Vincent's face was already hardening and looked as though his mind was focused on the task ahead.

  "I have it."

  "You have it? Where?"

  "It's inside me."

  Vincent frowned and took a step back. "I don't know what you mean, but I am sure you're mistaken."

  "You said I couldn't move past it. So I... I don't know, absorbed it."

  Vincent's face went blank. "You took that into yourself?"

  "It is. With all the others."

  "Others?"

  "Do we have to do this now?" I was standing, but only brute force and stubbornness kept me on my feet. There was also fear about lying down. With the drugs running through my system, it sounded like a nightmare.

  "It's not having any effect?" Vincent asked.

  I gritted my teeth. "It's minding its own business right now. Now, can we please get out of here?"

  "If it's safely contained-"

  "It is," I snapped.

  Vincent grinned. "You still get cranky when you've worn yourself down."

  "I am NOT cranky." I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice level. "And I've worn myself down saving our asses from a collapsing house, and..." I wavered, my thoughts taking turns into bad places. "Did that really happen?"

  "We can't think about that now." Vincent took my hand gently. "We're not through the night yet."

  Right, don't look back. "By now, Logan and Rider are probably searching the city door by door."

  "And you know how much they're going to love seeing me again." Vincent's eyes were darting from one shadow to another, and I sensed his apprehension.

  "They will," I said. "Well, once they know you're not a crazed killer."

  "Let's get you out of here."

  We drifted out of the darkness and out into the street. With each step, I moved slower. I hung back and let Vincent borrow the phone. Someone kindly stopped taking video of the burning house long enough for Vincent to call.

  Vincent took a few steps away from the phone owner and made the call.

  He didn't look thrilled when he was off the phone, but he looked polite and thanked the person for their phone. Instead of taking his hand, I took his arm, using it to help support myself, and we walked away from the house of nightmares.

  There was nothing for either of us to say. As bone weary as I was, with phantom pains springing up each time I touched anything, or even when my clothes pressed too tightly to my body, I could say nothing.

  I made it almost two blocks before stopping.

  "Let's go to the corner," Vincent said. "We can meet the others there."

  It looked like such a long way. Forcing one foot in front of the other, I made it to the corner on my own steam. I wanted to sit down when we got there, but I knew if I sat down, I wouldn't get up. At least not on my own. So I stood, leaning against Vincent, and watched the sky grow light with an early morning glow.

  When I felt Vincent's body tense, I knew my partners were in sight.

  I looked up, and almost cried when I saw them. It was over.

  Logan came around from the driver’s seat and Rider rushed out of the passenger side and dragged me into a hug.

  I didn't have time to phrase the word no, but my scream sent the message, and Rider let go. Vincent grabbed my arm as lightly as he could when I stumbled back.

  "What has happened?" Rider was putting of waves of unease.

  My teeth were clamped together, trying to quell the agony, but I managed to shake my head.

  Vincent looked strained trying to help me stay on my feet without holding me too lightly. "They
called it 'central sensitization'."

  "Are you certain of that?" Dr. Taylor had a bag in his hands.

  I had never been so happy to see a doctor.

  "I don't know what it is," Vincent said, "but that's what they said the drug caused."

  "Move her into the back," Taylor ordered.

  I tried to protest when Vincent lifted me off the ground, but I only managed to wince and grit my teeth.

  When I saw the emergency hospital bed strapped down in the back, I managed more. "Seriously? Is this necessary?"

  "More than I thought." Taylor looked impatient standing by the truck. "Put her on the bed."

  "At least set me down in the truck and let me do it myself." It was the only way to keep a touch of dignity.

  Vincent hesitated, but sat me down and moved to get in the back.

  "Oh no you don't." Logan grabbed Vincent's shoulder. "You're going to tell us exactly what happened."

  Taylor put a stop to any argument that Vincent might have made. "She'll be better off, and I'll work better with only myself back here."

  Logan kept his hand on Vincent's shoulder, but he was watching me. "Is she going to be okay, Doc?"

  "We need to get back to the office as soon as possible." Taylor had dodged the question, which left me unsettled.

  When they closed the door, the sounds of the world became hushed, and I laid back in the bed. The only thing that kept me awake were the bolts of pain that ran through my back.

  "I need to know everything that happened." Taylor was already checking my heartbeat. "This is going to hurt, but I'm afraid it's a necessity. We don't have the equipment to cover this." He strapped me down so I wouldn't roll off as Logan sped away.

  I closed my eyes hard, trying not to scream again.

  "Details, Cassie." Taylor had a needle, ready to start an IV.

  I cringed away. "It's what Vincent said. A drug that causes pain." If ropes could feel like knives, what would a needle do?

  "Did they say what the drug was?"

  "No." I closed my eyes.