But there’s nothing. No matter how far I run, no matter how many corners I turn, I can’t find anything that might point me to an escape route. I’m gasping for air and though I can normally run a lot longer than this, fear is making my chest ache and my breaths come in choppy little bursts.
I turn another corner and nearly scream in frustration as I realize it’s a dead end. I’m trapped.
Afraid, angry, determined, I turn so my back is to the wall and prepare to fight. I don’t have much of a chance against his magic, I know that. But I have to try.
Less than a minute passes before he appears at the end of the hallway. He’s bleeding pretty badly from where I stuck him with the knife, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down much. He’s got a crazed look on his face and a gun in his hand—a gun that’s pointed straight at the center of my chest. Suddenly this whole back-to-the-wall thing doesn’t seem like a good idea.
He advances slowly, and I can tell from the look on his face that he wants me to beg. But I’ll be damned if I’ll plead with the sick fuck for anything—even my life—and I tilt my chin up. Refuse to back down.
“Don’t be stupid, Xandra.” His voice rings down the corridor. “There’s nowhere for you to go. The only chance you’ve got is to give up Chumomisto. Tell me where he is and I’ll let you live.”
Not for one second do I believe that. And I wouldn’t give Declan up even if I did. But before I can tell John to go to hell, there’s a flash of light in front of me. Suddenly two strips of fire are racing down the hallway straight at John. He stares at them, shocked, then stumbles backward. But it’s too late. The fire’s already on him, flames climbing up his legs, wrapping themselves around his calves, his thighs, his waist.
He screams, once, twice, and starts to flail wildly. In the mayhem, his gun goes off and I brace myself for the impact of a bullet. It never comes. Instead, Declan is there between John and me. He wraps himself around me as he lifts me into his arms, covering every inch of my body with his. And then we’re barreling through the flames.
I close my eyes and hang on tight, and try to pretend not to hear John’s screams as the flames devour him inch by painful inch.
* * *
“Are you okay?” Declan asks as he careens around a corner. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.” He makes a sharp left, then a right and another left. Suddenly a staircase looms in front of us and he runs for it, flat-out. Fire alarms are going off and people are stirring—I can hear shouts echoing down the corridors. I can’t help freaking out.
“One more minute,” he tells me. “We just need one more minute.”
I glance over his shoulder to where people are staring after us. “I’m not sure we’re going to get it.”
“Oh, we’ll get it.” He takes the stairs three at a time and the second we’re fully above ground, I feel it—that strange, shadowy tugging again. It’s the last thing I feel before things turn black for the second time in an hour.
This time the effect on my senses isn’t as dramatic and it doesn’t take as long. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with Declan. When I can see again, I’m standing in the middle of my living room with Lily hovering over me.
“Is she okay?” my roommate asks Declan.
“I’m fine,” I answer.
“Oh, good. So then maybe you can explain to me how you materialized from nothing? One minute I’m watching Netflix, wondering if you’re planning on coming back here after work, and the next minute you two are in the middle of the freaking room. And you were looking,” she adds critically, “a lot worse than you did when you left the house this morning. And that’s saying something.”
I turn to Declan. “Can you tell her what you did? Because I’m not sure—”
I break off at my first good look at Declan. He’s pale, ashy, weak. Some instinct I didn’t know I had has me reaching for him, but I’m too late. His knees give out and he hits the ground, hard.
For a second it’s so shocking that all I do is stare. But as he falls face-first onto the carpet—his arms spread wide—I fall to my knees beside him.
“Baby! What’s wrong?” Even as I ask the question, I see the blood seeping onto the hardwood beneath him. I flash back to that moment when the gun went off, right before the flames swallowed John, and I know what’s happened. Declan’s been shot.
“Call 911!” I shout to Lily as I rip at his jacket and shirt, determined to see the wound. There’s a lot of blood on my floor and it’s only been a few seconds. I can only imagine how much blood he lost while he was running through the underground passageways of the ACW.