The words don’t land at first. Then they do and my chest caves in.
The windows are barely wide enough for me to fit through. I could force myself out, scrape skin, maybe dislocate my shoulder to make it, but Lucian wouldn’t stand a chance.
“No,” I shout, grabbing his arm. Smoke burns my throat, my eyes. “I’m not leaving you.”
Fire roars behind us, greedy and closing in, and for the first time since I met him, Lucian looks at me like he’s afraid. But not of the flames.
Of losing me.
And I feel it too. That bone-deep fear like when I’d discovered de Santis’s trap for him, and again when the gun fired with a bullet meant for Lucian. I’d felt it then the same way I feel it now. Like something vital is tearing loose inside me.
“Go!” Even as he’s yelling it, his grip is iron on me.
But I can’t leave him behind. I can’t.
I don’t want to live forever if it means it’ll be an eternity without him.
The heat swallows the room, stealing breath and hope in the same cruel pull.
Pulling me close, Lucian’s arms lock around me as the flames roar closer. I bury my face against his chest, breathing him in, trying to focus on the soft thumping of his heart.
His mouth brushes my ear, and I feel the unspoken words sinking deep into my soul.
With death closing in around us, there’s no reason left to deny it—not to him, not to myself.
I…I love you, Lucy.
And then—Hell on earth.
Chapter
Twelve
Lucian
Fire howls all around us, heat clawing at my spine as the wooden beams of the ceiling groan. Smoke eats the air. Screams cut off mid-breath.
I glance up to see movement nearby.
Raleigh bursts through the smoke like a ghost dragged up from hell, face streaked with ash, eyes feral. He doesn’t shout. Doesn’t waste breath. He just locks eyes with me and jerks his head toward a dark smudge on the ground between the flames.
A sewer grate.
A way out.
He’s already there by the time I reach it, his fingers digging into the iron cover embedded in the concrete floor. With a snarl, he rips it free like it weighs nothing and the metal skids aside.
The stench hits immediately—rot, filth, stagnant water—but it’s an escape.
“Get going,” Raleigh barks.
I don’t hesitate. I tighten my grip on Elliot’s hand and jump, dragging her with me as we plunge into the darkness.
We hit the bottom hard. Filthy water soaks us instantly, cold and slick, splashing up my legs to my hips. Elliot gasps, choking, and I haul her upright before she can lose her footing and go under. A few of Raleigh’s men drop in after us, but only a few. Most of them were claimed by the fire.
Raleigh is last to make the leap, and the moment he hits the bottom, he starts trudging through the muck without looking back. He splashes through the narrow sewer tunnel, and we follow. The panic inside me doesn’t fade; it coils tighter, sharper, but Elliot’s hand is in mine, small but real, and I refuse to let her go. At her shorter size, it’s harder for her to move through the water, but I don’t let her fall. I don’t let her slow.
The tunnel stretches on, echoes of the commotion we left behind chasing us through the dark.
