We reached the hill. Ceris rushed down, dragging me along, but each hurried step was more unsure than the next, and soon we were sliding down the hill. Ceris lost her hold on me as we toppled into a roll. I raised my arms to protect my face, and my side scratched against a stone.
More wounds. More hurt. More exhaustion.
I stopped rolling and lay on the grass, trying to catch my breath and remember what we were doing. I blinked several times at the dark sky. The clouds closed in on me—thick, dirty, and suffocating.
Then the shrieks echoed through the darkness and vibrated over my skin.
I shuddered and pushed up on my elbows. The Akuma were coming at us. Fast.
Ceris was on her knees about twenty feet from me. We both looked up the hill where Keisha landed blows on the Ornek, as she slowly retreated. However, she couldn’t contain them all. Some sensed Ceris’s aura and bypassed Keisha.
“No!” Keisha screamed, running down the hill after them.
There were too many. Dozens on the ground. Dozens in the sky.
We would never make it.
Keisha would never make it.
“Come on.” Ceris grabbed my arm and tugged me back. She dragged me to the wall. “Climb.”
My muscles locked, and my gaze was glued to Keisha as she hurried down in large, graceful jumps, landing blows left and right, like a warrior on a battlefield.
Ceris tightened her grip around my wrists, letting her long nails graze my skin painfully. “Climb!”
When I didn’t move, she used magic to hurl me over the wall. It wasn’t too tall, only about five feet. I fell face-first on the other side, but I used my hands to break the fall.
She climbed over next, but stayed on top of the wall. “Come on!” she called.
I watched her, my eyes narrowed. There was a moment when I thought Ceris didn’t care if Keisha made it or not, but now she was waiting for the girl.
“Oh, by the Everlast,” Ceris muttered.
I opened my mouth to ask what happened, but words failed me when I saw what she meant. Omi and Imha were on the path between the buildings, gliding on black clouds in our direction.
Miserable, painful cold took hold of me, and I gasped. Suddenly, there was no air in the world.
“Seize them!” Imha shouted.
Growls, roars, and heavy footfalls filled the darkness.
“Keisha! Now!” Ceris extended her arm.
I couldn’t see what was happening on the other side of the wall, but the noises weren’t good. Grunts, growls, shrieks, yells, thuds, clashing, and things I couldn’t identify.
I stepped on a loose stone and looked up the wall. Like a ninja, Keisha hurled herself in the air, flipped, and landed on her knees by the wall. She clasped Ceris’s hand. A demon threw itself at her and weighed her down on the opposite side. I propped myself up on the wall and grabbed her other arm.
Ceris shot a pink bolt at the demon and it let go.
We helped her up, but then something grabbed my shoulders, and flung me down the wall. Air escaped my lungs, and pain shot through my back as I hit the ground. A demon hovered over me. It lifted its sharp claws. Fear erupted in me, and I prayed death didn’t hurt much. I shut my eyes, and clenched my fists. The dagger. I had forgotten about the dagger in my hand.
The demon scratched my shoulder as I plunged the knife into its chest. It opened its mouth, its razor-like teeth too close to my face, and it growled. I winced, holding my breath.
Its lifeless body fell over me, its weight squashing me like mashed potatoes until Keisha and Ceris tossed it aside.
“No!” Imha yelled from the other side of the wall. She raised her scepter toward us.
A purple bolt flew from the orb atop her scepter just as Ceris held our hands and transported us to safety.
Ceris brought us to seven different locations before actually arriving at our destination.
“To make sure they can’t follow us,” she explained.
On our penultimate stop, somewhere in the middle of a forest, Ceris pulled out a bag from a hollowed tree trunk. Meanwhile, I leaned against another tree and, not being able to hold on any longer, I slid to the ground.
“Nadine.” Keisha knelt beside me. “No, no. Hang on.”
My eyes were heavy, and all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep. “Just a minute,” I whispered.
“Ceris, she needs healing.”
“Not here. Put this on her, then grab one for you. Quick.”
Keisha lifted my arms as something heavy fell over my shoulders, and I felt suffocated and hot.
“Hang in there. Just a minute more.”
Then it changed. The sky was dark, but everything around us was bright. And it was cold. Too cold.
My eyes fluttered open. Snow. We were somewhere with lots of snow. I wanted to look around, but my energy was at its last drop.
Arms surrounded me.
“What took you so long?” a deep, rough male voice asked. I knew this voice, though I couldn’t match a face to it.
“Don’t start,” Ceris said. “Just take her inside.”
The arms folded my body against a hard, warm wall. I snuggled against it, wishing it could take away the pain.
“You’ll be fine,” the voice said. “You’ll be all right.”
14
I felt a damp cloth on my forehead, the softness of a mattress under me, and the warmth from a comforter tucked around me.
“Darling.” Micah’s rough voice penetrated through my dizziness, and I focused on it. “Are you waking up?” he asked. I took the cloth off and blinked the blur from my vision. My eyes met his. “Hi there.” A corner of his lips curled in a sympathetic smile.
I turned my head away, desperate to focus on something other than the sympathy in his eyes and his voice. I couldn’t take that. I scanned the place. I was in a twin bed in a small bedroom with white walls and no windows. The door was made of metal and looked thick.
“You’ve been out for a day and a half,” he said. The noise of the metal chair he sat on being dragged closer to the bed rang in my ears, making me cringe. “Sorry,” he muttered. “How are you feeling?”
I thought about it for a moment.
I was okay. I could feel my legs where the demons had cut me, the side of my stomach where I had grazed the stone, and my left shoulder where that last demon had slashed me, but none of these injures hurt too much. Physically, I was okay. I would be okay.
What hurt was the emptiness inside me.
My family was gone.
All I did for them, all I tried doing, all in vain. In the end I couldn’t protect them; I couldn’t save them. In fact, I put them on the path of danger.
If I had stayed away, or if I only had stopped by for a couple of hours, the demons wouldn’t have followed me there, and my family would be safe. My family would be alive.
Oh, God.
I tried curling into myself, but my injuries hurt too much. I gave up and pulled the pillow from under me instead and hugged it, hiding my face.
A sob choked me, and I prayed to die too. Why? Why hadn’t Omi killed me too?