The smell of sweat and blood hit me, and I wrenched my lids up.
The sight of Remo’s tensed face rid me of breath. “You saved me . . . again.”
Glistening rivulets ran down his brow, and his cheeks puffed with ragged breaths. “Yeah, but not for long if we don’t make it out of here.”
A stair fell and exploded at his feet, bombarding us with sharp projectiles. Flinging his face to the side, he curled himself around me until the glass pellets stopped coming. And then his attention zipped to the exit, and cradling me against his pounding chest, he took off, zigzagging around the collapsing rubble. I tried to hook my hand around his neck, but a bolt of pain shot through my elbow when I lifted my arm.
I swiveled my head, trying to see around us. We were almost outside.
Almost—
A sharp gurgling cry tore out of Remo’s throat, and his body pitched forward, sending me careering toward the road. I rolled and rolled, molars gritting from the knifing pain. The second I stopped, I dug my palms into the ground. The road might’ve been safer, but the tall buildings were bound to come crashing down over us. My left arm gave way, and I almost toppled back onto my face, but I gritted my teeth and heaved myself onto my good arm and then onto my knees. Slowly, I rose and turned toward Remo.
A scream, louder than the one which had escaped when I’d been pitched off the spiral, surged out of me. I sped toward where he lay and dropped onto my knees as the ground gave another violent shudder, obliterating more of the skyscrapers.
A shard of glass was lodged between his shoulder blades, and a pool of blood darkened the concrete beneath him. I didn’t know whether I should pull it out or if that was the exact thing I shouldn’t do. Nima would’ve known. She knew injuries, human and fae alike.
“Remo?” My voice sounded as broken as the world around me. I brought my face closer to his. “Remo, you can’t leave me. Hang on. I’ll get us to the train.”
His lips were open, and yet no breath pulsed against my nose.
“Remo?” I brought my shaky hand to his neck and tried to feel for a pulse, but my fingers were numb and the leather-like material ensconcing them, thick. “Don’t leave me,” I whispered desperately.
Before my stinging eyes, his body turned gray and then exploded into ash.
“NO!” I hunched over the spot where his body had lain, where only his blood remained, running in rivulets through his ashes and into the fabric of my torn suit. I cried until my voice was hoarse and my eyes burned as violently as my elbow. Even though I welcomed my own death, no glass tore through my vital organs. “Why?” I shrieked at the white sky and the hailing shrapnel, which was probably butchering my face and neck.
I was too numb to feel anything.
Too numb to care.
I rested my torso onto my trembling thighs and my head on the bed of glass. “Why?” I cried. “Why?”
Why did you follow me inside the portal?
Why did I go after the damn apple?
Why didn’t you run away when the ground rumbled?
Why did you sacrifice yourself to save me, a girl you hated?
And why does my heart feel as broken as this glass city?
14
The Rubble
The ground stopped shaking at some point. The glass stopped falling. And my tears dried on my chilled cheeks, salting the little wounds.
I’d stopped crying.
I’d also stopped yelling and pounding my fist at the white sky.
I felt empty and crushed, the gashes on my skin as deep as the ones on my heart and mind.
I tried to cradle my smarting arm against me, but my elbow would neither fully bend, nor would it fully extend. It was stuck somewhere in between and throbbing as though my heart had slid into it. I pressed myself up, then stumbled over the grains of glitter like alupapup. The dome over the chrome train had crumbled too. Unlike the buildings which were only half-ruined, jagged edges gleaming like brandished swords, nothing remained of the station, except for the train.
The train which had led Remo and me to this nightmare of glass and concrete, now the repository of his ashes.
