We hang suspended like that for a breath, waiting. The Cataclysm holding my wrist, struggling to absorb whatever my essence is doing to repel that touch. Me holding Muta, waiting for the universe to intervene.
The universe has to step up, step in, right?
The Cataclysm suddenly yanks me toward him, wrenching my shoulder and sinking his teeth into my neck even as I’m tripping over my own feet.
I scream. In pain, yes, but also in utter confusion.
More power, more energy pours out of me, raging against the Cataclysm, against his hold. My body is utterly paralyzed in his bite, his long, sharp teeth buried under my skin. I’m trapped, trapped —
The Cataclysm pulls from me.
Not my blood, though I’m sure that’s pouring from the wound as well. He’s drinking, consuming my energy.
Other shouts rise around us. Muta, who I’ve managed not to drop, tries to rally but is barely able to loop around my wrist. The same wrist that the Cataclysm grips so tightly that I can feel my bones rubbing against each other.
I can feel Muta’s life force again, as weak as it is. I can touch it.
Go to Presh, I whisper through those threads, breaking my own unvoiced rule to never manipulate those closest to me, even if I’m doing so out of love. To Presh, Muta, I press. Then I manage to loosen my hold on him just enough to let him drop to the pavement.
The bushmaster, despite never having obeyed me in all our time together, listens to me now. As he listened to my mother before me when she sent him to me.
Maybe I’m dying and Muta can sense it. As he knew that my mother was dying. Maybe I’ll be murdered by the same person who took my mother from me, took my childhood. Took the only person, the only parental figure who ever loved me. Me, Zaya. Not just me, the vessel of the Conduit.
The Cataclysm takes another slow, deep pull of my power.
Everything goes hazy around me except for Presh screaming and Reck shouting. I hold onto those connections even as I reach, sightlessly reach, for any other thread, anything that I can use to free myself.
I just need to give Muta time to get to Presh. For them all to get in the SUV. If I don’t have a weapon to wield, I need a distraction.
“You can’t kill me,” I whisper to the Cataclysm, reminding myself of that fact at the same time. “You can’t cage me.”
He chuckles, finally withdrawing his teeth from my neck. The wound stings, aches.
“I will indeed keep you close and will be very careful not to kill you.”
He runs the flat of his tongue over the bite, sending streaks of pain down my neck and over my shoulder.
I don’t understand the power he wields. I don’t understand how he connects to the essence that fuels the universe. I can’t see or feel it.
“You won’t be able to sneak away a second time,” he whispers against my skin. “Conduit.”
My heart thuds in my chest as the ramifications of that statement slowly penetrate the paralysis that’s flooded my body and mind under his bite.
He releases me abruptly.
I fall, seemingly boneless, barely catching myself on my hands before my chin hits the pavement.
He steps over me, crossing toward the SUV with that slow and steady gait.
I manage to shift enough to track his movements, narrowing my eyes and desperately trying to see anything I can touch, manipulate. There is something very wrong about how he moves through the world, neither attracting nor repelling energy.
But I don’t have time to dissect any of it.
Reck is the only thing standing between his father and Precious. Precious and DeVille. Muta hangs limply across his shoulders, unable to twine even once around his neck. Unable to get to Presh in the SUV.
I reach for Reck’s threads, finding that I’m still holding fast to the essence I snagged earlier.
I shove an intent at him.
