“Can you fight?” he asks.
Can I? My body feels like one giant, throbbing bruise.
“I can try.”
He nods, trying to look at our surroundings without lifting his head. The sounds of movement become a little louder, as if people are starting to wake up.
“My dad is a few feet below you,” he whispers, raising the sword off the ground. “Get him up. If we can take down a few of them, we make a run for it. Yeah?”
“Okay.” This might be the first conversation that hasn’t ended in insults with us. But right now, it’s life or death. And clearly, we’ve been abducted. Not sure which forest we’re in, but I’m mostly confused how it’s so hot outside. It’s winter.This isn’t right.
“Now,” he mouths.
We spring up at the same time, blood rushing to my skull, pain exploding down every nerve ending. I jump toward Uncle Niles as Niklaus impales two men while they’re still on the ground.
“Hey! Wake up!” I shudder at the amount of blood dripping from his shredded hands and arms. Ribbons of severed skin hang from his palms. That bright red staining his white shirt, his coat, puddles being absorbed into the dirt.
“Uncle Niles!”
“Sapphire, come on!” Niklaus shouts over the clanking metal.
I shake his shoulders harder, getting his eyes to flutter open. He winces against the burning sunlight, fighting to understand his surroundings.
“We have to run!” I tell him, trying to pull my uncle to his feet. “Hurry!”
A stampede of footsteps thunders behind me. I pivot to a desert landscape of rocky terrain, and tall towers deep in the distance. But most importantly, the parade of soldiers running toward us.
Uncle Niles lifts his head, seeing it too.
“We’re in Vexamen,” he utters in cold, quiet horror.
“No, we’re not—”
“Sapphire!” He grabs my arm with his bloody hand. “I still have nightmares about this country. We’re in Vexamen, and I cannot run.”
“What?!”
He points to his ankles. “They’ve cut my Achilles tendons.”
Deep, gushing wounds are ripped open just above his heels. It’s grotesque and shocking, and I begin to cry.No. He can’t run…
“We have to go now!” Niklaus shouts.
“We’ll carry you,” I tell my uncle.
Niklaus drops down to a knee, panting and covered in splatters of red.
“We have to carry him.” I point to my uncle’s ankles.
Niklaus follows my hand with dread morphing his entire face. Those crushing blue orbs trail back up to his father. They lock eyes for a single, terrible, devastating moment.
“Leave me. Find Ruth and Warrose.” Uncle Niles stares at his son without a sliver of doubt or fear. “Hey! Do you understand me? I’ll be all right. But if you try to carry me, they’ll catch us all!”
The soldiers grow dangerously close.
Niklaus nods tightly. Jaw clenched. Eyes shifting to me.
“No!Hell no!” I sob.
