He hesitates, and I wonder how much I could get him to agree to if we kept going. I don’t expect him to follow through on any of it.
“I’ll settle for an ostrich.”
I don’t think he knows what that is.
I know I’m losing him when he starts to turn back to the lab. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.
I move as quickly as I can, setting my grip, pushing myself up first to get the momentum as I drop and swing…
Pulling both of my legs up, I kick him backward, out of the cage. His curses are in Sianese, and I understand them all.
He hits the console behind him with a loud thud and a hard rush of his breath from his lungs.
Dropping to the ground, I snatch the device on his belt and turn for the door.
I only get a few feet away before the cavrinskh circle.
I freeze, but they’re not snarling. They look at me curiously, like they can’t decide what I am.
Atker shouts, not at me, but at them. Whatever command he gives them, all it does is pull their attention away from me. And when they don’t move, he kicks the closest one in the snout.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” I say, holding up the device to show him I have it.
All of the blood drains from his face. He tries to run at me, and then for the door… but they trap him in, herding him.
If they’re going to eat him, I don’t need to be here to watch that.
I run straight out into the hallway, rebounding off the wall, and I see my cold boys making their way to me.
I go straight into Arc’s arms.
ARC
Chrys is a dirty, dusty mess, but she kisses me so sweetly, I briefly forget where we are.
Relief—mine and all of theirs too—floods me.
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I hand Chrys off to Risk. “Wait out here with her.”
“Absolutely not.” She glares at me. “Keeping me out here isn’t going to keep me safe. But I have this. It should keep us all safe.”
She hands me a small device, hard plastic, the size of my palm. “It’s what he uses to control them.”
That’s very helpful. “You can come, but you stay behind us with Kissu.”
She nods and I kiss her forehead before turning to the doorway she’d run out of moments ago.
Shock moves in close behind.
A quick sweep of the space almost makes me think he escaped, but the cavrinskh circle near the corner.
The Maker climbed up the wall and crawled part of the way across the ceiling, dangling from support scaffolding. The cavrinskh take turns jumping up to snap at him.
He sees us almost immediately.
“Do something!” His commanding tone is thin, tired.
“You tortured us for years and we thought that fire took care of you,” Shock says, and I note the burned skin where it’s visible around his neck. “Why would we save you now?”
