Panic filled me.
He laughed, the sound cruel. “Don’t fight it, Yun. When did fighting it ever help? Has it just been too long for you to remember all that training I put into you? No matter, I don’t mind breaking you all over again.”
He grabbed my shoulder and twisted me, turning me toward the men, gripping my chin to force me to watch.
He wanted me to see them die…
But I couldn’t. I’d been ready to end my life before, and if I had to still, I’d do it without question, but I wouldn’t let them pay that price.
So I gathered up the powers inside me, the sparks that I had hated before, the cause for my nickname, and I let them go.
I let them flash out of me, rewarded with a scream then a sharp retreat that hurt so badly, everything crashed in around me.
Had I won?
I didn’t know, but at least I’d donesomething.
Carter
I stared at Yun’s unconscious body, her hand in mine. Even if Shear had assured me that she was okay, that it was only mental stress of breaking that connection, I couldn’t seem to let her go.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Ingram asked from where he leaned against the wall, watching over her just like me.
“Of course I did.” That face was burned into my memory. When Yun had used her defenses on him, it had lit up the entire space, so brightly I’d nearly shut my eyes against it.
Then, the second before the connection had been severed, before he’d disappeared, I had seen a face I’d never expected to see again.
“I don’t know about a god,” I said softly, “but that sure as hell seems like a demon’s work. I’d say it isn’t possible, but I don’t usually discount my own sight.”
“How can he be there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And it doesn’t matter. We were blamed for his death once already—we might as well actually do the deed ourselves this time.”
Corsa Ray, our one-time squad member who had died—or so we thought—last time we’d gone into The Pitt, seemed alive, and still a fucking thorn in our sides.
“The fucker is going to wish he’d stayed dead,” Ingram said.
And for once we could fully agree on something.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Yun
My entire body felt overly sensitive, and my headache had refused to go away no matter what I did. I drank water, I pressed ice against my eyelids, but nothing helped.
“You should sleep more,” Shear said, sitting on the bed beside me. He hadn’t left me since I’d woken, plastered to my side.
Kenyon had checked me over as well, but it seemed as though Shear was less willing to give me any space.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I said.
“Yes, I do.”
I rolled over to look at him, noting that he was more casually dressed than usual. Sure, he’d stripped down before, but seeing him in pajamas was strange. He had on a pair of bottoms made of a soft black fabric, and no shirt.
He wasn’t as built as the others, his body more lean, but like all espers he still had a nice physique. He had an ereader in his hands, and the back light cast a yellow glow on his face.
He was strange, too pretty to be handsome, and perhaps with features too ethereal to even be considered pretty. His black hair was tied back, and it made me wonder what it would look like if it were down.
