“Roland!” she shouted over the din. “Come on!”
He turned to her, his eyes wide and dark, but he nodded. Hurting others hurt them. But there was no way around it; to save their lives, they had to do what they must.
She crawled around the edges of the pool as the humans who made it out of the water surge coughed and hacked. If she and Roland moved quickly enough, they could be through the crevasse and out of the cave before the humans gathered themselves.
With Roland behind her, they made it to the opening where they could stand fully. Then they ran.
“Find the fucking witches and burn them!”
She tripped over her own feet at the shout, but Roland caught her arm. She shook it off and pushed at him, trying to get him to move faster. As long as he was safe, she would be okay. She jumped over a fallen log, the bark digging into her hands as she tried not to fall flat on her face. Her feet ached and her muscles quaked and the last of her energy reserves were depleting far too quickly.
Leah ran behind her twin brother, her pulse racing in her throat. They were coming. They knew. Roland reached out behind him, and she pushed his hand away.
“Keep going. I can keep up. Don’t worry about me and end up tripping yourself.”
She wished she could pull on the water around them now that she had enough in her system thanks to the cave, but it was too dangerous. With those behind them and her body wearing down after running for far too long, using magic would be a death sentence.
“I’m not leaving you behind, Leah. So run your fucking ass off. There’s a safe house up the road.” He grinned over his shoulder, that lock of hair she loved falling over his forehead. “I’ll never lead you astray, little sister.”
She smiled at him despite the fact that they were both running for their lives. “You’re not that much older than me, Ro.”
“It’s enough. Now let’s go.”
He turned back, only to freeze in his tracks. It took a minute for the crack in the air to register. Roland fell to his knees, and Leah screamed.
“Roland!”
She raised her hands, the water on the leaves of the trees from that morning’s rainfall rising into the air with her pain, her agony.
Another crack rent the air.
A gunshot. That’s what that was.
A sizzling pain seared her side, a fiery heat that wouldn’t be quenched by the water at her fingertips. She tried to breathe, only to cough, her legs going out from under her.
She fell beside her brother, her arms reaching for him, only to come up short.
Roland lay at an odd angle, his face toward her. His eyes wide, unseeing in death. While the second gunshot had hit her in the side, his had hit him directly in the chest.
Her brother, her twin, her fellow witch.
Gone.
The darkness came, and she didn’t fight. She’d been running for so long, and now she had nothing left.
Only hollowness.
They had come for the witches…and they had won.
Screaming.
Silence.
Pain.
Numbness.
Breath.
Choking.
Drowning.
Leah couldn’t drown. She was a water witch. Drowning for her would be an insult to everything she was…or was it everything she once had been?
Was she dead?
She had to be dead. She couldn’t feel anything, yet could feel everything all at once. It didn’t make sense. If this were hell, she didn’t know how she would make it for eternity with this sense of unknowing.
Something brushed against her arm and she flinched.
Wait. She’d felt that. Felt her arm and felt herself flinch.
Maybe she was alive and merely had to open her eyes.
Never had the word merely been such a lie.
Her eyes wouldn’t work. How had she opened her eyes before? Why couldn’t she quite remember?
Murmurs of voices filtered in through the deafening silence and Leah froze. Or at least she thought she had. She didn’t know what was what anymore.
“I think she’s waking up.” A deep voice.
“Will she be dangerous?” Another deep voice.
“She was all but dead when we found her. Be thankful she’s alive at all.” This voice was just as deep, but it hit her like a sledgehammer. Her magic perked up, reaching out toward the man who had last spoken. She didn’t know why it was doing that, but just the sound of his voice let her body relax and her eyes feel lighter, not so heavy and weighed down.
“Did you see that?” The first voice asked. “Ryder, speak again. She stopped thrashing at the sound of your voice.”
Ryder.
His name was Ryder.
Why was that important?
And where was she? Where was Roland? What had happened? And had she truly been thrashing?
She pried her eyes open and promptly shut them at the bright light overhead.