Neeva arched her fingers back, exposing her palms as a series of blasts forced Treycore against the floor, beating his head against the tile below and making him feel like the back of his skull was about to break open.
“Stay,” Neeva said, as if she was speaking to a dog.
His vision blurred.
His mind filled with thoughts of Kid. They’d had such a short time together. But Kid loved him. That was all he needed to know. Regardless of what happened, as long as Kid was safe, he’d be fine.
As his vision cleared, he saw Kayvan and Dartavore kneeling on either side of him. They rolled him on his stomach, seized his wrists, and ensnared them in cuffs.
***
I can’t do it, Maggie thought.
When the higherling guard had bucked her off his back, she’d fallen on her leg and it had been crushed like it’d been made of glass. Because of her injury, Kid and Hayde had assisted her down the stairwell and led her into a room on the first floor, but as they’d entered, she’d tumbled to the floor in pain. She couldn’t go on. Between the pain that coursed through her body, making her joints feel as if they were about to burst and the sting in her leg that only grew worse as they dragged her through the hall, it was too much to bear.
And after her vision, she knew all this pain would only worsen. Her own baby had devised this twisted, cruel punishment for her. How could a baby do that to its own mother? She knew the answer, though. He wasn’t her baby. Just a monster—a beast she had been the vessel to bring into the world.
I should have just told Kinzer.
She regretted her lie. What if it got away? What if it went on to destroy all of humanity… to torture them just as it had tortured her?
“Maggie!” Kid exclaimed, kneeling down to help pick her back up.
“No, no!” she exclaimed. Their hauling her through the house was only making it worse. And she couldn’t take it anymore.
A surge of pain rushed through her, and she screamed out.
“Don’t worry,” Kid continued. “We’re getting you out of here.”
Maggie didn’t understand what was going on. Where were they? Why did they need to travel so far? Where was Kinzer? And why was the immortal who had tricked her and Kinzer helping her? She was too disoriented to make sense of it all.
“Come on,” Hayde said, wrapping his arm around her and helping her to her feet. “We’re so close. Everything’s going to be alright.”
Another sharp pain.
It was too unbearable. She couldn’t take it anymore.
Her thoughts skimmed through her life, the cruel life she had endured… the suffering… the pain… the agony. The Almighty, God, had been right. It wouldn’t get better, and there was nothing she could do to rid herself of the sting that plagued her.
Until she realized, there was something she could do.
***
Hayde helped Kid haul Maggie to a window in the room he and Kid had decided to escape through.
She didn’t look good. Her face, withered and worn, was even paler than when they’d first seen her in the house. Even her hair, which had still maintained the occasional streak of dirty-blonde when they had last seen her, had turned entirely gray.
Kid handed Hayde back the loaned dagger, and Hayde returned it to its sheath, as he’d done with the other. Kid unfastened the locks on the window on the opposite side of the room and opened it.
“Okay,” Hayde said. “If you can just get outside, I’ll help her out to you.”
“You got her?” Kid asked.
“Yeah.”
Kid stepped over the sill.
Hayde wrapped his arm under Maggie’s legs and hoisted her into the air.
