For the first time since destroying him, I didn’t dream of the Prophet or the family I’d ruined. No screaming. No commands. No blood.
I woke late to crumbling stone and the sharp tang of metal. A warped piece of what must’ve once been a red car braced the ancient wall beside me. I stared at it far too long, letting thesilence press in—letting the absence of nightmares feel wrong in its own way—until reality slammed back into place.
I lived. He didn’t. I could either master this world or drown in what I’d done.
Quinn needed me. Letting the darkness take me wasn’t an option.
The bakery was almost empty. After finding a table and ordering, I slipped a book from BT out of my pocket-void. Everly had recommended it to Brit in our group chat. I hadn’t even known romance was a genre before now. But something about it drew me in. The entire thing took place in Quinn’s time, and the details were vivid. It helped me feel more connected to her.
A woman with sandy-purple hair winked at me as she dropped off my bill. The price turned my stomach. I was nearly broke.
‘You awake yet?’Rowan asked.
I scowled. Distance didn’t affect our connection, apparently. I chose to pretend it did.
‘Xan and I are going to try to remove Quinn’s collar even though we are miles away,’Rowan said.‘Would you like to join us?’
Rowan never stopped until I answered. Ignoring him hadn’t worked when the bond first formed. I sighed.‘No. I’m busy.’
‘Get your head out of your ass. We need advantages, Cay.’
I dog-eared the page in my book and slipped it back into my void. The Westwaters couldn’t keep Quinn from me, rules or not.
‘Then find them.’
His disapproval dug in, and the look of betrayal on his face when I left last night hit me again. Guilt—foreign and sharp—needled me. But Quinn came first. Always.
Thirty minutes later, I tied my horse to the remains of a car on the east side of the Westwater borders. Their security was at least double what it had been yesterday. But it wasn’t perfect. The ideal moment to slip past arrived. I cast my runes for stealthand made my move, easily passing through their first gate via the small guard door.
The next gate came and went just as easily. The Westwaters were no better than the Architect.
I took two more steps before a body slammed into my backside. A second weight smashed onto my shoulders, grinding my face into the asphalt.
I yelled and bucked, but a third body joined the first two. The weight left my back, and the two men on my shoulders each grabbed one of my arms and forced them behind my back.
“We will kill you next time.” A gruff, lanky Westwater tilted my head up. “I know your face now. Rules be damned. If no one finds your body, then it wasn’t us.”
My heart raced. Would Quinn think I abandoned her?
The man pulled a hood off his belt and put it over my head. Blind. Deaf. My heart hammered as the hood trapped my breath—hot, suffocating. Every gasp scraped raw.
Time slowed. My body was jostled and carried. Someone punched me in the gut before my feet suddenly rose higher than my head as if I were being carried upstairs. Suddenly, the hood was ripped away, and I was falling. I hit the ground hard, and pain bloomed up my side. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t hit my head, but I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
It took me precious seconds of gasping and fighting back pain to realize where I was. The gate I’d first slipped through loomed. A few voices from the other side of the tall wrought iron barricade laughed.
I took deep breaths, sucking in the cold air as if it were water. Finally, I pushed off the ground into a seated position. It took me two tries to draw my healing runes. Tears slipped out of my eyes. Without my tattoos, my body was useless. Fragile.
Gradually, my pain eased. There were other gates. Enough of my confidence returned for me to stand and search for my horse.After stumbling around for a few blocks, I turned a corner and found his unhappily swishing tail. Another two steps brought him into view, and a person darted from behind him.
I bolted forward, cursing my lack of speed runes. My well-trained mount let out a whinny of recognition as I ran past.
Although I couldn’t see the guy, a set of pounding footsteps joined my own, and I followed. Two turns later, a hint of the Architect’s trainee uniform turned into an abandoned building. I followed, only to be walloped by a metal pole the moment I stepped through the door.
The pole smashed me into the wall. My shield flared green just in time to block the next strike. I dropped to the ground to keep from being bludgeoned while a dark glove of forest green formed around my fists.
I threw the pole off of me. A hand covered in sticky olive green reached for me. I didn’t need to see Brody’s face to know it was his hand. I could still see it from The Pit, clasping Quinn’s wrist as his sick green magic sank into my best friend.
The world turned red.
