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Chapter Twenty-Eight
“How is this possible?” I asked, running beside Kaden. We’d stopped the car by a memorial park. There was nowhere to hide. No buildings close.
He grabbed my hand, pulling me with him through the gates. We ran until my lungs were burning acid and my muscles were screaming bloody murder. He kept going, running toward a mound of fresh dirt, and my stomach lurched into my throat.
“In the hole,” he said. “The ground will help.”
Oh no. I’d already be in a grave. This seemed like it would make it easier to kill me somehow.
“I’m not going—”
He leapt, pulling me with him. I fell and stumbled into him.
“In the corner.”
He pushed me down, pressing me against the earth walls as he used his body to shield me.
“Don’t speak, don’t move, try not to even breathe loudly.”
I nodded—barely, afraid to do even that. It wasn’t only Chaos that made it hard to breathe now but the feeling of being buried alive. This wasn’t the way I wanted to go out.
Just as my heart was pounding out of my chest from the claustrophobic feeling of being tucked into the corner of a grave, the feeling of Chaos growing closer piled on top. A cold sweat coated my skin, a tremble growing and spreading until I bit down with all my strength so my teeth didn’t chatter. Kaden tightened his arms around me, and instead of making me more claustrophobic, it calmed me slightly. I didn’t know if he’d tinkered me or what, and I didn’t care. As much as I’d said I never wanted him to make me do something against my will, without asking, not even sleep, right now all rules were thrown out, and the only thing left was survival.
The heaviness of it began soaking the air, filling it and charging it with dread. If I were capable of breathing, it would have stolen the air from my lungs as it spread over us, clung to the air all around, poking into every little crevice.
But it didn’t see us. As I huddled under Kaden, it felt like its tentacles grazed over us, moving along the surface, as if we were part of the dirt and earth, nothing for it to see or sense at all.
It had passed, and yet we were still huddled. He leaned back slightly, and I pressed my head to his chest, my body seeming to instantly follow his. I gulped down deep breaths as if I hadn’t breathed in the last few minutes, which I might not have.
Kaden grabbed my shoulders. “It’s not completely gone. I can still feel it. We need to get out of here and to Nowhere, where it can’t sense you.”
I nodded. I would’ve agreed to anything that was away from that thing. He jumped out of the hole with no effort and then reached down, pulling me out behind him.
I turned to head back in the other direction, but he stopped me.
“No. The bridge is too far. We’re going to have to take an unorthodox way.” He raised his hands into the air, feeling for something I couldn’t see. “Look for a sharp tool. Even a pointy stone will work.”
There wasn’t much in the way of choices other than a few items left near the machinery that must’ve been used to dig the grave.
“What about this?” I asked, holding up a pickaxe.
“That’ll work.” He took it from me and then motioned for me to move back.
I moved a few feet.
“Farther,” he said.
I kept going until I was about twenty feet away, and he nodded.
“Stay there until I tell you. These openings aren’t stable.” There was something grave about his tone, and I took another step back, wondering if we should be doing this at all. Maybe we should’ve just run?
He was already at work, and interrupting didn’t seem wise. He whispered words that I couldn’t quite make out. The snippets I did catch didn’t sound coherent, but they were doing something. There was a slight fizzling happening in the air, as if someone were holding up a few of those handheld sparklers.
Then he took the pickaxe and swung into the air.
It sounded like it hit a brick wall, with a loud smashing noise accompanied by the smell of burning.
A blast of light exploded from a tiny spot, bright enough I had to squint and turn away. When I looked back, Kaden had shoved his hands into it, physically wrenching it open, Nowhere’s night sky visible beyond him. He shoved his body into the opening, straining to force it bigger.
