The Stormers narrow the grate to a jet stream that slams Gus in the stomach, and this time Gus can’t fight back his screams.
I try to look away, but Raiden grabs my neck. “You will watch every second, or I will gouge out your eyes, understood?”
I turn back to Gus, feeling my heart break when I see his beautiful eyes pleading with me to be strong.
I owe him that much.
So I watch every minute, trying to pretend it’s not really happening. But my stomach heaves and I cough up bile onto the snow.
Raiden whistles to end Gus’s agony and offers me a white handkerchief to dry my mouth.
I refuse, using the sleeve of the Stormer’s coat instead.
“Ready to talk—or do we need to continue?” Raiden asks.
I shake my head, spitting out the same worthless response I gave him before.
The wheel cranks again, and Gus’s screams turn into deep, guttural groans that will echo in my mind from this day forward. When it’s over, his breaths are so ragged they sound more like gurgles, and blood is streaming from his nose.
“Very few have survived a third blast,” Raiden tells me. “And none when the Shredder was fueled by the squalls.”
My mouth tastes of iron as I bite my tongue.
But Gus is still staring at me. Still pleading with me to keep going.
Raiden gives the command, and I curse the wind for obeying—for blasting Gus so hard he goes silent.
I don’t realize I’m sobbing—or that I’m digging my nails into my hands—until the Stormers at Gus’s side declare him alive.
“You’re both stronger than I thought,” Raiden says, ordering his Stormers to haul Gus away. “But don’t worry, the strongest things are the most fun to break.”
“Then take a turn on me!” I shout.
“I intend to. But for you it needs to be special.”
He stalks away then, leaving me to imagine the horrors he’ll dream up as the Stormer with the scars hauls me down the stairs.
Another Stormer is waiting for us in the courtyard, and he strips off my coat, sending sharp pain shooting through the wound on my side. I suck air through my teeth, trying to keep it together. But when he shoves me again, I heave more bile, not sorry at all when most of it ends up on his shoes.
He pins me against the wall, proving he’s less disciplined than the others.
I can use that.
I spit accidentally-on-purpose onto his coat, and he grabs my hair, yanking my face closer to his.
“You’ll have to do something to make that up to me,” he growls.
“We need to keep moving,” the Stormer with the scars warns him. “Raiden ordered us to take her straight to the hold.”
“Raiden’s not here right now,” he argues, sliding his hands to my waist.
I knee him as hard as I can.
I only manage to hit his thigh, and he grunts and grabs my throat.
The scarred Stormer pries him away and shoves him into the snow. “Get down there and cool off! I’m not facing the Shredder over you.”
The other Stormer snarls threats, but doesn’t follow as I’m dragged away.
“Thank you,” I mumble, tripping over my shaky feet.
“I didn’t do it for you,” the scarred Stormer says.
I follow his eyes to his marked hands, where the pale lines almost glow in the dim light.
“You’ve faced the Shredder before?” I guess.
He doesn’t answer. But the set of his jaw tells me all I need to know.
I probably shouldn’t ask my next question, but . . . I have to.
“What did it feel like?” I whisper.
“How do you think? The Shredder has seventeen fans, and each one carves different edges into the drafts. So when the wind hits, it’s like having seventeen spinning blades liquefying your insides.”
If my stomach weren’t so empty, I’d vomit again.
Instead, I let out a sob for Gus—but only one.
I spend the rest of the walk trying to compose myself. Which is why I don’t realize the crucial information I’ve been given until I’m locked away in my cell.
Seventeen fans.
Now I know what Aston meant about the fortress having more security than anyone could ever need and none all at the same time.
Aston escaped through the Shredder.
CHAPTER 9
VANE
Flying with Aston sucks.
Actually, “sucks” isn’t a strong enough word—but breaking my parents’ Language Rules feels like admitting that I’m really not planning on seeing them ever again.
It’s not just the scratchy broken winds Aston uses, or the way they turn the world into a blurry mess.
It’s that Aston’s, well . . . holey.
He’s still wearing his cloak, but he has the hood down and his sleeves keep blowing back. And when you surround any of his skin with a ton of rushing wind, it makes this constant screeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach.
I lose track of how many hours I spend gritting my teeth through the nails-on-a-chalkboard whistle, but my jaw is aching when we set down in the middle of a field with long, swooshing grass and one of those round, silver windmills with the fin sticking out of the back.
“Why are we stopping?” I ask.