I slow my breathing and back out of the room. I stumble through the dark channels with rushed steps. I slam into every twist and turn that makes up this maze of a fucking tunnel, but I never stop.
I have to get the others. We have to protect this tomb of memorabilia. We have to handle this. Now!
My palms slide over smooth marble. It isn’t hard rock like the rest of this place. It’s cold beneath my touch, carved down into a perfectly flawless design. I just know it’s the statue of the headmistress. I can hear screams and fighting just on the other side.
But the entrance is closed off.
I shove against it. I whisper a string of words that I think the professor might have said. I do it over and over again.
But the opening never shifts.
Only darkness surrounds me.
And I’m fucking trapped in the unknown channels of Academy of Six.
Six
Izara
A scream crawls from Syko’s throat as the Messenger tears through his wings. He rips them straight from his back with a spray of blood, and I know the sound of cracking bone will haunt me forever.
Tufts of feathers fly around them. Feathers threaded through with gold and light, and now… blood. He shreds them until his wings are nothing but stumps against his back and hanging, marred flesh wet with blood.
Syko screams until his eyes roll to the back of his head, and it feels like it all happens in a single moment. I don’t have time to speed up. I don’t have time to process my shock before the Messenger drops him and he plunges to the earth.
“No!” I shriek. I steer my body after Syko’s falling form, the Messenger’s echoing laughter following after my beating wings. I screech with rage, both my Prod and I, as we’re forced to witness our best friend hurtling toward the ground.
I am all powerful, and yet I feel like I don’t have enough strength to reach him in time. My arm extends to his prone form and latches on to the front of his shirt. His heavy body nearly pulls me down with him, but I splay my wings out at my sides, pulling him to my chest and smoothing out my landing.
We drop to the ground, and I roll Syko onto his stomach to stare at his back in horror. His wings, those beautiful angel wings, are gone. Marred scraps of skin and feather with little stumps between his shoulder blades are all that’s left.
It’s so horrifying to look at that I have to fight back a gag.
“Syko…” His name breaks on my lips as I turn his face. He’s too pale, his pulse too faint. “Syko, baby…” My fingers brush across his skin, but he doesn’t stir. Not even in pain.
Malek kneels beside us. He’s in human form now and naked. His warm body seems to envelop Syko, and finally, my nephilim moves, but a sound of heart-wrenching agony rips from his lips.
I can’t fucking stand it.
“Get him to safety, Malek,” I plead desperately. Those wounds are bleeding so much, too much, and my destructive magic isn’t enough to heal them.
Malek shoots a glare in my direction. I know just how unnerved he is by the trembling of Syko’s body, but his voice is as hard as steel. “What will you be doing?”
My fists tighten, and a lump catches in my throat. “I have to go back.”
“Fuck, Izara. You’re going back to them? After what they did to him?” His expression is full of hurt. “You’re still going to take their side after this?”
Impatience tugs at me. “I’m onyour side,Malek. Can’t you understand that?” I plead for him to understand. Hehasto, because I can’t survive the next few moments if he doesn’t. “I’m onyour side.So fucking take Syko to safety. Help him.Heal him.”
Malek doesn’t seem to understand my words, but he gets up, pulling Syko with him gently. He throws him over his shoulders as easily as he would a child, with barely more than a grunt. His cheeks are flushed, and he’s staring at me like I’m a stranger.
Maybe I am.
All I know is that I’m not the same scared girl that first stepped foot into this academy two years ago. I’m different, I’m changed, and I won’t apologize for doing what’s right.
But I can offer him one slip of truth.
I lean forward, lips brushing along his ear, and whisper the words softly in Spanish, so no one else can hear or understand.
