Seeing her like this just makes me sad.
“What happened to you?” I ask, afraid to hear her say it…
The corners of her mouth twitch as if she wants to smile, to maintain the attempt not to frighten me. But her face remains stoic and detached.
“I’ve lost the only man I’ve ever loved,” my mother says.
And there it is. My heart crinkles around the edges and folds in on itself. I’ve known this. I’ve read about this. But seeing her, like a villain in a massacre, step into a room I was never supposed to enter—it kills me.
She thinks my dad is dead.
And I can’t even tell her otherwise. Because guess what? One day, he’ll be as good as dead. He’ll be in a coma my entire life. How much better does that sound?
I lift my head in understanding and the acceptance to keep my mouth shut. And before I can muster a response from my fried brain, Niklaus appears behind my mother. The whites of his eyes are pink, surrounded with heavy shadows, and his black shoulder-length hair is wavy and unkept. He looks as exhausted as I feel.
“Shit,” Niklaus says through a breath. “Are you what happened to the hallway?”
My mother has to look up at him to meet his eyes. She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even nod. Her stare is carrying so many emotions, so much heartbreak, I can feel it crushing her insides.
Niklaus flexes his jaw and turns to me, approaching my corner with caution. He kneels to get a better look at me. “Hey, Spitfire. Ready to get the hell out of here?”
I try to hold it in. I try to be strong likeher. But the fact is, I am not like my mother. She took this entire place down and never looked back. I am about to witness it firsthand. My eyes water, and I nod my head with a quivering chin and bottom lip. But Niklaus doesn’t let me fall apart here, not now. He scoops me against my chest, and I throw my arms around his neck.
“Can we leave?” Niklaus asks Mom, standing me upright.
“Yes.” My mother steps out of my room. “But you should run. This place won’t be standing for much longer.”
Without another word, a goodbye, a second glance—Skylenna Winter Ambrose is gone, releasing an asylum of patients back into the world.
Standing is unnaturally painful. It’s like trying to reshape or bend a slab of hardened concrete. I’m sore and stiff, and the thought of running down flights of stairs, out of this giant rat maze is inconceivable.
“Can you stand?” he asks, as the sound of the Emerald Lake Asylum becomes an inaudible tomb. Perfectly still. Hollow yet still breathing. Still holding the years and years of anguished memories from those who have died here. Who didn’t have a mother like mine who could free them before it was too late.
Niklaus assesses my hunched stance and lack of answer. He lifts me off the ground and sprints down the hallway, like he has all the energy in the world to move us to safety. Like he was never abused with sedatives since we got here.
The stale air of the asylum blows through my hair as we descend down to the lobby. The patients have all escaped. Papers and files are scattered across the floor. Orderlies hang like puppets from the archways. Drops of blood puddle like spilled ink across the white marble floors. And moments after we reach the cool weather with smoky clouds and bustling winds, Niklaus and I hide in the tree line to watch the asylum explode into flames and a black mushroom cloud overhead.
“You said you were not Skylenna Ambrose,” Niklaus says, breaking the silence with his scratchy baritone. “You said you aren’t like your mother at all. You can’t do what she’d done.”
I take a deep breath as we take in the view of bright yellows and orange and floating snowflakes of ash.
“And you’re right,” Niklaus adds, tightening his hold on me. “You are not like your mother. You do not have a halo, Sapphire Valdawell. You have horns. I’ve never seen so much power.”
I sigh and rest my head on Niklaus’s shoulder. Before I can respond, one last patient exits the asylum.
My mother doesn’t seem to care about her appearance drenched in blood as she walks away from the catastrophe of a crumbling landmark. Her bloody bare feet leave ominous footprints in the damp soil and wet grass as she fades into the shadows of the Emerald Lake Forest.
The sight of it tickles the tangible veil of the Nightlung. It flickers behind my eyes. First, a crisp image of daylight that blinds me. The sound of a woman screaming. The crashing of ocean waves over the top of each other. Clanking metal. Pikes of flames. Clouds of sand spraying through the briny air.
“It’s him…”
Through the flashes, Vrath walks through tall grass in a horizon of evening fog. He’s wearing a new painted face with fresh creases forming from his frown.
Niklaus falters in stance while holding me to his chest. The sickness creeps into my lungs, causing a slight wheeze as I suck in a deep breath.
But it doesn’t stop the world from wavering to that beach, as if something in the Nightlung is seizing too. I’m not strong enough to have a showdown with Vrath here, and I’m not sure Niklaus is either.
“Del—” I can’t breathe. The air dissolves from my lungs too quickly. “De—”
