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“Bryn!” Adrian roared over the sound of the rain and the pounding in my ears.
He was close, so fucking close.
Water soaked my hair and sluiced down my face, but I kept driving my legs forward.
The circle of stones came into view as I pushed myself as hard as I could.
I felt him as his arms came around me, but I’d been expecting it, dodging him at the last second, catching him off guard so he slipped.
I closed the short distance between myself and the circle and threw myself at its center, landing awkwardly, sprawled out on the ground.
I lifted my head to see Adrian standing outside the formation. His eyes, now brown, wide with alarm.
“Bryn!”
I stood to face him, tremors raking through my body as I stared at him with regret.
I had almost slept with the enemy.
“Bryn, please—”
A cry broke from me as Adrian pleaded with me.
Out of nowhere, I was knocked back down, the ground hemorrhaging dirt from fresh fissures in the earth beneath me.
Looking up, the panic I found on Adrian’s face terrified me.
He spread his hands out in surrender, urging me to listen to him. “You’ll have access to what you know. Remember what you’re good at.”
But I didn’t have time to make sense of his words before the ground broke beneath my feet and the Earth dragged me to her center, burying me alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
BRYN
Isat in the passenger seat of an armored vehicle with the windows down, letting in the heat of the scorching desert around us. My face was raw from the constant pelting of sand carried on the wind, but it was necessary for the short reprieve of the breeze.
Aaron handed me his canteen from the driver’s seat, urging me to drink from it.
Somewhere in my distant mind I was aware this wasn’t real. Yet seeing him so close to me, the feel of the canteen heavy in my hand, made it hard to remember what reality was.
This had to be part one of Delirium.
Earth Two’s first trial for me. And it was set on Six.
“Where are we heading?” I asked him as the vehicle drove along a barren stretch of road.
“Their last known coordinates are just up ahead. We have twenty minutes to look for any sensitive information before the air strike.”
He was talking about the criminal organization we’d been trying to catch up to for months. They’d been leading us on a wild-goose chase across the wasted plains of sand. The lack of recognizable landmarks a tactic of theirs, causing navigational challenges for our soldiers. In short terms, they were smart. Hiding out in the desert to avoid detection.
But their luck at avoiding capture would run out today.
In my side-view mirror, I saw the line of military vehicles and tanks behind us, our unit’s tan-colored camouflage blending with the backdrop of the landscape.
“We’re here,” he whispered, grabbing the gun fastened above his head on the inside of the roof. I tightened the chinstrap of my helmet, grabbing my own rifle at my feet.
We’d arrived on the outskirts of a small town, parked at a distance behind the cover of a ridge.
