“Have you forgotten the rain?” Bastien removed his window rod from his jacket pocket and pulled the two pieces apart. A screen ignited between them. “I can do this walking. I’d feel much better if we get out of here before a flood hits.”
“Yeah. Let’s—” I looked over at Bastien and caught a glimpse of someone passing outside. Though the window was made of thick glass and a little distorted, I knew that hair and that walk.
I pushed past Bastien on my way out. The old door stuck a little when I yanked it open, the bell attached jingling angrily. My boots slipped on the last step down, and I righted myself.
He was a ways down the passageway, looking from side to side as if he were searching for someone. It was only his back, but I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. We’d spent nearly fifty thousand hours together since he was born. A perfect image of him was burned in my memory.
Nick?
Chapter Eleven
Three Greyhillians, fine feathers covering their faces and thin plumes falling around their shoulders like hair, blocked the passageway. The slight curve of their bodies told me they were girls. Except for all the feathers and beak-shaped noses, they looked and acted like teens from the human world.
“Did you see how he was staring at you?” one of the girls with blue and yellow feathers said.
“He wasn’t looking at me. Stop teasing,” the girl with yellow feathers and black plumes answered.
“Excuse me,” I said to a girl with red-tipped white feathers.
Her black, marble eyes studied me as she stepped aside to let me pass. “You should get to higher ground,” she called after me. “The rains are coming.”
My boots pounded against the bricks as I flew down the passageway. Nick was getting farther away from me. He disappeared into the blackness of a tunnel cutting through one of the tall buildings surrounding us.
“Nick!” I slowed down before stopping outside the tunnel, my eyes stuck on the entrance. “Nick!”
I could barely make out his white shirt in the darkness. He turned and sprinted for me.
My lips tugged into a smile.
He’s okay. We found him.
He was getting closer.
Nick was free.
I wanted to cry. Why was I just standing there? I started to take off, but someone caught my wrist, stopping me.
“Wait,” Bastien said. “Look at his eyes.” He moved in front of me and ignited an electric ball between his hands.
My gaze went to Nick’s fierce glare. His black pupils were so large I could hardly see any white in his eyes.
No, no, no, no, no. He’s compelled.
A loud crack sounded over our heads, and rain dumped down so hard that it stung my skin. My hair and clothes were instantly drenched.
Nick was almost to us. Like a charging bull, there was no stopping him. He was coming fast. Bastien pointed his hands in Nick’s direction.
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t. You could kill him.”
“He could kill us,” he shouted over the clapping of rain. A bright flash and another rumble of thunder shook the buildings.
“I won’t hurt him.” Bastien shrugged my hand away and let go of the charge. It exploded by Nick’s foot. He stumbled to a stop. Another charge left Bastien’s hand and hit Nick’s shoulder. He slipped and landed on one knee. His glare rattled me. I’d never seen such evil.
“Hey,” Demos yelled from the bakery’s steps.
I glanced back at him.
He pounded down the steps. “Do you see it?” He pointed up the passageway. Water trickled down the cobblestones. “Get inside. The flood’s coming.”
Just as he said his last word, a river rushed him and came fast at Bastien and me, knocking us off our feet. Demos collided into me and grasped my waist.
“Hold on,” Demos cried.
The debris-filled water stung my eyes, went up my nose, and scratched my throat. We were going to drown. I caught a glimpse of Nick climbing a wire trellis on the side of a building.
Bastien.
Where was he?
Think, Gia. What did Pop always say? Keep your feet pointed downstream in a flood. I struggled against the water until my boots were aiming in the direction it was going. Demos, still clinging to me, did the same. We rushed by Bastien; he’d made it to some steps and was climbing up them.
Demos’s hand slipped from mine. My head went under, and I choked on the rush of water. I pushed up, my head breaking out of the waves. Heavy coughs tore from my chest.
“Gia,” Demos yelled. “See that wrought iron on the side of the tunnel?”
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me and shouted, “I see it!”
“When we get closer, I’ll grab it.”
“Okay.” The muscles in my arms burned as I pushed them through the raging water and wrapped them around Demos’s neck. He reached out his arm, readying to grab what looked like an open gate pushed up against the brick wall.
Angry water slapped my face, blurring my vision. I could barely make out the tunnel as we came up to it. Demos grabbed the gate at the same time a wooden chair crashed into me. I lost hold of his neck, the flood taking me into the tunnel. The darkness was terrifying. I reached out, hoping to find something to grab on to, but there was nothing.
I couldn’t form a globe. It took both arms and all my strength to keep from going under the water. And what good would it do, anyway? I had no control.
All I could do was keep my feet pointed downstream.
Keep my head up.
Try not to drown.
I gulped in some more rancid water and gagged, trying to catch my breath. My body twisted in a swirl of water while exiting the tunnel. A swoosh sounded above me, and then another one.
Another gate.
I crashed into the metal and clung to it.
Hands covered in white feathers with red tips grasped me under my arms and lifted me out of the water. We went high, the ancient city with its tall buildings and rope bridges falling away. She headed back the way I’d come, my stomach roiling.
The girl descended and placed me on one of the rope bridges. She lowered herself and stood on the planks in front of me, her marble black eyes narrowing. “I told you to get to higher ground.”
Water dripped from my hair and soaked clothes, wetting the planks of the bridge. I shivered, my lips shaking and my teeth clattering against each other. “Th-thank you. I don’t know how to—”
Her hand raised, stopping me. “I know who you are. My parents talk about the presage all the time. You don’t look like much. I’m not sure how you’re going to save the worlds; you can’t even save yourself from a flood.”
She was definitely like some of the girls at my school—a lot of attitude and no filter. “And thanks for your vote of confidence,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Shyna. Not like you’ll remember it.” She stretched out her wings.
“Did you have those earlier?”
“They retract into my back. I must go. I’m late.” She flapped her wings and took off into the sky. No goodbye or see you later. She just left.
Nick.