“It won’t last long,” Lynx warned, eyes darting to Atlas and then the door.
“We need to go, Oakley.” Atlas held out one hand, using the other to still clutch me, making black smog fill the room, then he dragged me outside, leading me down the hallway.
I resisted every step. “We can’t leave them.”
“They are perfectly capable of handling themselves,” Atlas said, directing me down another hallway and toward a stairwell. “They’ll need to make sure Aleander and Festus are subdued. It’s you that I’m worried about.”
Boots pounded behind us, and we ran for the stairwell, quickly bounding up it until we reached a landing. Then we sprinted along a few hallways before turning off to head through another door, heading down a few levels. When we got to the next landing, Atlas pulled me close, conjuring more smog in the direction we’d come from as bootsteps thundered down the stairs.
Swish.
It was the only sound I heard before Atlas released me with a gasp.
“Oakley…” His gaze trailed downward, my eyes following it to the serrated knife partially lodged into his side.
His illusioned smog began to dissipate, revealing Aleander standing behind him, hand still wrapped around the knife’s thick handle. He twisted it in deeper, making Atlas grunt.
“Thought you could get away that easily, Ms. Brooks?” he taunted before ripping out the blade. Crimson spilled from Atlas’s side, the scent of iron filling the air, dizzying me.
I was going to be sick.
He groaned, eyes darting back down to see the wound for himself.
“Run,” Atlas urged, aqua eyes pinched in pain when they drew back to mine. One hand braced his abdomen as he released more smog in my direction.
Swish.
Aleander’s arm banded around me, squeezing so hard I could barely breathe, the crimson-coated blade clutched in his fist. He held it out at Atlas, dragging me backward with him. We ascended the stairs one at a time, my legs trembling violently with each step.
Atlas staggered forward, trying to get to me, smears of red painting the yellowed wall he used to support himself.
“Atlas!” My throat was scraped raw, screaming his name over and over, hoping someone, anyone, would come. “Atlas!”
Bootsteps grew steadily closer, Lynx and Saros shouting my name from above. I craned my neck, Aleander releasing me just as Lynx dove for him, and both of them tumbled down to the landing.
I ran toward Atlas, reaching for him. He lost his balance and tipped forward, collapsing into my arms and taking me with him to the floor.
My eyes stung, Atlas’s heavy body pinning me beneath him, as leaden as the sharp ache lancing my heart. “A-Atlas.”
A sputtered cough over my shoulder was his only response.
Warm blood spurted from his wound, soaking through my dress. I tried to roll him off me so I could staunch the bleeding, but his limp body was too heavy.
The agent stilled, eerily silent as Lynx’s brows knit in concentration. Saros grabbed Aleander’s head, holding him in place until blood seeped out of his ears, trailing in twin rivers down his cheeks. Saros shifted his grip, wrapping his hands on either side of his handler’s neck and twisting it quickly with a sickeningcrack.
Aleander’s body crumpled in a heap on the ground next to us, his haunting orange-blue gaze colliding with mine.
A second later, Saros lifted Atlas off of me, and Lynx came around to help me sit upright, looking me over with concern. When his eyes drifted to Atlas, his hands tensed. While he was drawing ragged breaths, the blood continued to pool from his abdomen. I shook at how much red coated his clothes and my own.
This can’t be happening.
Not now.
Footsteps echoed around us, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Atlas, off the way his skin was much too pale, or the way the aqua of his irises dulled into a glassy sheen.
I hadn’t been able to stop fate.
And now Atlas’s hex had come to claim him.
