Gradually, the heaviness clouding my vision lifted, and I willed the last tendrils of the haze to dispel.
A set of high cheekbones came into view, each smeared with dust. Then a straight nose, also covered in filth. Blue eyes, the hue of a clematis flower, a poisonous plant I’d once read about.
Zion.
Huh. This was weird. Last I’d seen him, he was standing beside me, not looming above me.
He brushed my temple, frowning as his fingers came away red. “Can you hear me?”
Groggily, I rasped, “What…” and fell into a coughing fit. My spine bellowed in pain as I rolled onto my side. Numerous spots in my body joined the cacophony ofIt hurts so bad, I fear to move half an inch more.
Zion patted my back, waiting until my convulsions subsided. “Someone set off a bomb in the building. It detonated beneath us.” Tucking my hair behind my ears, he inspected my bleeding head. Satisfied with whatever he’d discovered, he nodded.
I cleared my throat and licked my lips coated in a bitter layer of dirt. “A bomb?” I echoed, failing to comprehend the implication.
He poked and prodded my limbs, maneuvering my joints, bending my fingers?—
Eyes watering, I hissed.
“Your pinky is broken.” Warily, he raised my left hand into the light.
Because yes, the sky was open above us. The city below was too. A gust of wind ruffled my clothing as I gaped at the expanse of roofs, buildings, streets, and the commotions breaking out in different neighborhoods. This high up, I barely heard a thing besides the whoosh of air and the creaking of?—
A block of concrete behind Zion collapsed. It snapped in half, and a shower of dust particles swirled around us as the Spiretrembled.
Falling back on his heels, Zion cradled his right arm, grimacing so hard it had to be tearing his tendons apart.
I scrambled to an upright position. “What is it?” I pushed out through the swimming world. Someone, something, was hammering my head so furiously it was going to rupture with the next strike.
“My wrist.” He demonstrated how his hand dangled at an awkward angle. “The explosion fractured it.”
“Shit. You can’t move it at all?”
I cringed, regretting my question immediately. It was clear his wrist was as useless as my pinkie.
But instead of glaring at me for my stupidity, he simply grunted, “No.” As he slowly stood, his outfit covered in layers of grime, the state of my soldier’s uniform matching his, he asked, “Can you walk?”
Tentatively, I pushed off the ground. Although my muscles were far from happy for forcing them to work, my legs held me up. “I think so.”
“Good.” He extended his intact hand to me, and I took it, stepping over a slab of concrete and the fragments of hardwood floorboards, furniture, appliances, glass, and whatever else had filled Peter’s apartment.
Wind lashed at us, whipping the particles of filth into tiny tornadoes that dissipated as soon as they reached the edge of the Spire.
I still couldn’t believe the walls were gone.
Approximately six hundred feet up, the upper floor—or what remained of it—suddenly seemed so small.
Too small.
Especially when one wrong move could seal your fate as death by falling and splattering onto the streets below.
I shuffled closer to Zion. “Where—” I swallowed the gravel in my throat. “Where’s Gedeon?”
“I haven’t located him.” Scanning the rubble, he wiped away the blood pouring from his nose. “Yet.”
My heart stalled. Gedeon had been leaning against the floor-to-ceiling windows when the floor had opened and the world had turned upside down.
Dread settled in my gut as I realized not a single sheet of glass had remained. The windows were gone. The possibility of a free fall beckoned me to crawl toward the edge of the building and take a peek below, to uncover what, orwho,lay below.
