Save Precious.
Gaze still locked to his father, Reck is actually shoved off kilter at my push.
The Cataclysm pauses, then slowly turns to look back at me. As if he disapproves of my interference.
I’m using too much power, I think. Even with whatever the Cataclysm somehow managed to drain, even though I still can’t sense any essence from him, stolen or not. But I don’t have time for refinement.
I send another pulse of intent toward Reck, rash and reckless with it. Save Precious. It’s possible I’m completely fucking with Reck’s mind, with his fate. Except I know this is a choice he would already make.
A choice he already has made.
Even if I don’t know all the details of my first death, Reck has already sacrificed me once. Twice, if you count bringing me here into Bellamy’s so-called trap.
He shudders under my press. As if trying to fight it? Why would he —
Reck abruptly scrambles for the driver’s-side door, throwing himself into the SUV. I catch Precious’s scream of “No!” before the engine kicks in and Reck yanks the door shut.
Utterly exhausted but still actively implementing my brilliant distraction plan, I start dragging myself — literally — toward the portal.
The Cataclysm watches me, not amused anymore.
Reck hits the accelerator. The SUV fishtails, then shoots forward, almost rolling as it swerves onto the road.
The Cataclysm doesn’t bother to give chase, though I have no doubt he could catch up to the vehicle. Or maybe he has other roadblocks in place that Reck will have to fight through?
I make it onto my hands and knees.
The Cataclysm sighs as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders as he watches the SUV speed away.
But the weight of the world doesn’t rest on his shoulders.
It rests on mine.
Desperate to keep the Cataclysm’s attention on me, I crawl toward the seething maw of the portal. I’m fairly certain the berserkers who went through it unassisted were disintegrated.
I have no idea what sort of essence the Cataclysm can harness and wield. But if I disintegrate, what will the universe do to bring its Conduit back? Seeing as how it’s already abandoned me in the now, perhaps the power will simply fall to another.
I don’t get anywhere near to testing that supposition, though.
Choosing to secure me over chasing after the others, the Cataclysm closes the space between us in a few strides. He yanks me up onto my feet by a tight fistful of my sweater. I’m not actually holding any of my own weight.
“Point to you, little Conduit,” he snarls in my ear. “But I’ll eventually win, win everything I want. And I’ll use your own power to fuel the coming war. This earth will be mine.”
He lifts me up like a bag of garbage and tosses me into the churning vortex of the portal.
I’m instantly swallowed whole, my scream trapped within my lungs.
Everything goes dark, pitch black. I lose sight, sound … touch.
I’m suspended in nothingness, connected to nothing.
The hair in my nostrils freezes. My next breath fills my lungs with sharp shards of crystalline ice. Pain, utter agony. I can still feel that, even as all my other senses have been stripped from me.
This is death.
True death.
I’m utterly lost, utterly alone.
