But it’s no good. The Elders are flames at our heels within minutes as we crash through the woods. My legs are cut, a series of vicious slashes from bushes and fallen trees seeking revenge for the havoc I wreaked behind us. “Chloe?” Kellan yells. “Know that I’m sorry about this.”
Like a whip, he yanks and then hurls me into a series of bushes nearby. I land hard, my knees bruising instantly while bubbling red. What just happened?
I find Kellan twenty feet away, his feet still, hands out, face determined. The two Elders are squealing, twisting up high in the air and then flattening, like towels whose water is wrung out. He thought to take them on himself? Oh, hells no. I scrabble forward, ready to build some kind of hole like the one I’d helped construct last year that now houses Elders below the streets of Annar, but new hands grab hold of me and jerk me to my feet.
Harou. The Tide.
I’m running once more, although this time, not willingly and not with the person I want to be with. I order him to let me go, but he ignores me. It takes a few tries, but I eventually rip free of his grip. Unlike my Connection’s, it’s not ironclad.
Harou tries to reclaim me, but I dart out of his reach. “Lilywhite!” he hollers, but I’m already off. “I have to get you to safety!”
Screw that. Screw him. I’m going back to find Kellan, and then—and only then—will I concede to find any so-called safety, if such a thing can truly exist in these woods.
The screaming intensifies, and I know I’m close. And then, there he is, standing over two Elders squirming on the ground. Within seconds, I’ve dropped an entire slab of concrete on top of them. “Let’s go,” I order, grabbing his hand. We’re off.
“Won’t hold.” His grip is a vise once more. Weird as it sounds, I feel a thousand times safer with his hand in mine than I would with a hundred Guard shielding me.
He’s right, though. The two Elders are already back on our heels, raging bloody murder. Kellan and I run, and run, and my breath is fragile and ready to expire, and part of me wants to just lie down and give in. But then I remember who’s with me, and the thought of a single hair on his head being harmed causes a bomb to go off behind us.
“A cave,” he yells. And there one is, thank the gods, miracle of miracles, a hundred feet before us. “Get ready to collapse the entrance,” he adds.
I love that he has confidence in me to get the job done. “On it!” I stumble, but Kellan manages to keep me going.
Fifty feet.
Thirty feet.
Twenty feet.
“Get ready,” he reminds me.
I tighten my hand against his. “I know.”
We plunge into the darkness, and I do exactly as he asks.
As the last rocks crumble into place, all light ceases to exist. I can still hear the screaming outside, though. It’s frenzied to the point of hysteria.
“Do you think they can get through this?” I’m shaking all over, and I can’t figure out if it’s from straight-up fear or the sub-Arctic temperatures of the cave. We’ve gone from sweltering to freezing in a matter of moments.
I quickly create a pair of coats and shove one in Kellan’s general direction.
“I don’t know.” I can’t see Kellan’s face to tell if he’s lying to me or not, but he sounds calm. “Can you make it so they can’t get through?”
The wall in front of us is rocked again. Chunks of debris rain down against me, but I gather my fragile courage and push myself forward. I stick a hand out and lay it against the cool stone, willing the walls to become impervious to anything other than a Creator’s touch. Relief for our assured safety, as sweet as it is, disappears as terror reclaims me.
I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but it just doesn’t happen as fast as I’d like. I stumble backwards right into Kellan. His hands momentarily settle on my shoulders to orientate me before dropping away. “Did you get a look around before I shut out the lights?”
“Uh, no. I was a little busy just trying to get you away from those things.” He pauses. “It’s a good idea, though, having a look around.”
“Don’t leave,” escapes from my mouth before I can stop the words.
“I need to scout our location and see if there are any exits available to us. Conversely, it’d be nice to know if there’s a secondary way for the Elders to get in, don’t you think?”
It suddenly occurs to me that I have the perfect solution. Why didn’t I think about it sooner? I close my eyes (not that it matters in this black), reach out and grab a piece of Kellan’s shirt, and will time to freeze, like I did last year when the Elders attacked Annar.
When I open my eyes, it’s still dark. But it’s quiet. My heart leaps into my throat. I did it!
Only, no. The screaming begins again. Okay . . .?
I try it again. Everything just stop, go silent, go still, let us escape, I will everything around me. But the silence only lasts seconds before becoming a din once more.
“Chloe, I need to have a look around,” Kellan tells me.
Why didn’t it work? “It didn’t work!” I yell to him.