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“I need you, baby. I need you—I need you so badly.” Emotion choked every word—threatened to choke him. “Please, baby—please.”
Bandit barked. I can see her! Bark! Bark! I see her!
Darien’s head whipped toward the dog, vision swimming. “What do you mean you can see her?”
She’s fighting! Bandit barked again. Bark! Bark! The alarm kept wailing, red lights oscillating through the room, lighting up Loren with streaks of vermilion. She’s trying to come back! She’s trying to come back to us!
A sob caught in Darien’s throat. “Go, Bandit—please!” Moisture stung his eyes. “Bring her home!”
The dog disappeared into Loren’s shadow with a bark.
And Darien struck the table again, veins of magic zipping through the transparent material. “Don’t give up, sweetheart. Don’t give up. I’m here. I’m here, and I’m waiting. I’m waiting for you, baby—I’m waiting. I know you can hear me—I know you fucking can.” The next strike of his fist sent wisps of shadow through the room. “WAKE UP!”
In the heart of the universe, somewhere between life and death, the girl and her dog stopped walking.
“No.” Loren’s soft whimper was swallowed up by outer space as she glimpsed the end of the path up ahead.
It just…stopped. Another three hundred yards, perhaps, if she was measuring correctly, and after that there was nowhere to go.
It was far too quiet here.
Singer whined and pawed at her foot—another thing she could not feel.
She was hollower now than before—she could sense it, as if she were a cup with a chip in the bottom, the last of her life dripping through the crack far too quickly.
“What do we do?” She had barely got the question out when the path beneath her shuddered so violently, she nearly fell on her ass.
She threw her arms out to steady herself. Looked over her shoulder—
The path was crumbling away. The dirt and grass was just falling away, and the destruction was moving toward her—rapidly.
“Run!” she shouted. She bolted down the path as fast as she could, Singer sprinting just ahead of her, his ghostly white body lighting the way. “Don’t slow down! Keep running!”
Behind them, the ground continued to fall away, quicker now, the dirt crumbling under her heels.
Up ahead loomed the end—the space where her path ended, leaving nothing but a dark and gaping mouth full of stars, waiting to swallow her whole.
She had no choice but to keep going, sprinting toward that mouth of endless sky.
Another dog was running this way—body black and misty, ears and tail cropped, eyes red. He was barking, the noise generating sound waves she could feel—the first thing she had felt in forever. She would have wept with joy, had she been able.
The strange dog fell into stride beside her, running with her now, the powerful muscles in his body shifting with every bound. You have to keep going, he told her.
The girl cried out in frustration—exhaustion. “I don’t know if I can.”
If you don’t, you will fall.
“I’m so tired,” she gasped. Tired was not a good enough word to describe how she felt. She wasn’t tired, she was hurting. Maybe not the physical kind, but it hurt all the same.
Keep going! Faster.
“I can’t!”
You must. He is waiting for you.
“Who?” she asked. But his face flashed into her mind, and as she ran, she sobbed.
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