My feet moved quickly as I dragged us out of the fray. Her team members were right on our heels, but that was fine. As long as they didn’t attack us, because I wouldn’t hesitate to end them.
“How do you know about the water?” Odessa asked when we were far enough away from the fighting. A rogue bit of magick went whizzing past, barely missing us.
Sweat gathered beneath my jumpsuit where the pack pressed down onto me.
“My team. They both went in. They didn’t come out.”
“Are you kidding me? What a crock of shit,” Killian responded from the other side of the tunnel.
“Feel free to test it out yourself, but don’t come crying to me when the acid eats your flesh and bones.”
Killian swallowed, but kept moving, his eyes darting from the the small path in front of him to the water below.
The further we went, the more distant the voices and screams from the other teams became.
I wondered how many were lost. There was no way to salvage their powers, and I’d made peace with that. There were plenty of powers still up for grabs. Two more and I would tie for the record number that had been acquired.
Odessa still clung to my forearm. I didn’t even know if she realized she was doing it, but I didn’t mind. It warmed some cold dead part inside me to know that I brought her comfort. During our time here, she’d burrowed beneath my defenses and brought out a protective side that I didn’t even know I possessed. Maybeit was the way she looked at me, or her fight against herself to hate me that did it. All I knew was that we were here now, and I wasn’t going to let her go anytime soon.
She was the only one in Nocturne that could claim they were safe from me. No matter how many times I went over it in my mind, I couldn’t bring myself to envision her any harm. Doing so sent me into a panic worse than what I experienced in the tombs. Leaving without her wasn’t an option and I’d kill anyone that dared to cross us.
I’d even foiled my chance of getting more powers just to make sure she didn’t plunge into that river of acid. No one had ever come between me and my goals before. It shocked me that I was able to compartmentalize those feelings of loss, moving quickly to assure myself there would be more opportunities. And there would be.
There were at least three powers in my vicinity now that I could take for myself, but we had to keep moving to get out of danger first.
Gods only knew what other traps might lay ahead, but for some reason a part of me felt that getting through the beginning was the easy part.
Chapter 19
Odessa
It felt as I had been walking for miles. With how long and winding these tunnels were, that probably was the case. No one had spoken in hours, each of us trudging cautiously along the sides of the tunnel. Careful not to disturb the water below. Occasionally, small bits of rock would slide off from one of our shoes and ripple the top of the still murky black water, echoing off the short, rounded ceiling.
“We should stop to get some rest soon,” Nat said.
“Oh, yeah? How are we supposed to do that? We touch that water and we’re dead,” Killian retorted.
I shuddered, imagining the worst. It might have been foolish of me to trust Dex, but I didn’t think he was lying. Plus, he’d helped me more than once when he didn’t have to. Staying behind to warn me just so I wouldn’t be engulfed by the acid. There’s no knowing what would have happened to me if he didn’t take the time to do that, maybe even to his own detriment. He could have gone off and had a head start if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He stayed, and I knew he stayed for me.
I could feel my emotions shimmering just beneath the surface threatening to spill over and take the wheel, but I couldn’t afford to break. Not down here.
“There’s got to be a break in the tunnel sometime. It doesn’t just go on forever, nitwit,” Nat snapped, bringing me out of my thoughts.
Though it did feel like the tunnel was endless. There hadn’t been a turn or anything that we could see yet. And knowing that the other teams were right behind us, didn’t make me feel like we could stop. At least not safely.
While our alliance between each other was fragile at best, it was a whole lot better than facing the other teams alone. There was no telling how many of them were even left after the kind of bloodbath that was unfolding before we peeled out.
“I think I see something!” Reed said.
And sure, enough just ahead there was a fork in the tunnel, breaking off into three separate directions and no way to know which one was the right choice.
The water became shallow and eventually nonexistent. The floor turned into an uneven cobblestone, making it difficult to walk without twisting an ankle. At least the boots they gave us had good traction.
As we got closer, shapes carved into the limestone arches appeared. One of an anatomical heart, another that had the gods’ symbol of ribs, and the last one that resembled leg bones made into an ‘x’.
“Which one do you think is the right way?” Killian said, holding the straps of his pack and tilting his head back to study the symbols.
“Obviously, it’s the gods’ symbol,” Reed said.
