“River, are you okay?” Erin demanded.“River!”
I tried to clear my head, but the bloodypictures of my brothers and Kobal would not be so easily shed. Ithad been soreal.
Hawk took hold of my chin and turned my headtoward him. I blinked at him, trying to bring him into focus,trying to put myself in the here and now. “River?” he inquired.
I fought the tears clogging my throat andchest. My lungs burned as I labored to get air into them, but theyfelt as frozen as the rest of me. Erin stepped before me. Liftingher fingers, she brushed them over my cheeks, wiping away theliquid warmth there. I dimly realized her fingertips shone with redwhen she pulled them away.
“What did they do to her?” she whispered asshe stared at what I now realized was my blood on her fingers. “Wehave to get her out of here.”
Turning away, she pushed aside the crowd ofbodies trying to cram through the doorway to the hall beyond. Witha wrenching of metal, the door was torn from its hinges. The weightof the people caused it to be flung aside.
Vargas helped Erin to shove the people therest of the way through as more pushed against us from behind. Hawkkept me cradled protectively against his chest, his arm around mywaist as he maneuvered his way through the crowd behind Erin andVargas.
Stumbling through the door, we broke intothe hallway beyond. Air finally rushed back into my lungs, causingme to wheeze as my system flooded with oxygen. The images hauntingme diminished as warmth returned to my body. My feet finally foundtheir own way across the rug and through the doorway. I inhaledgreedily again as the sensation of holding Bailey’s broken, tinybody in my arms finally faded away.
“Better?” Hawk asked as he dragged me out ofthe way of a bawling girl with blood streaking her face.
“I… I think so,” I managed to stammerout.
“What did that thing do to you, River?” Erindemanded.
“Mynightmares… the worst of them…” Ibroke off as the last of the ice melted from my lungs.
Erin rested her hand on my arm. “It wasn’treal.”
But it could be.I didn’t say thosewords out loud though. I couldn’t admit them to myself right now,never mind someone else.
Hawk and I moved faster toward the door atthe end of the hall and the gateway beyond. Glancing behind me, Ispotted a handful of lanavours still making their way toward us.Most had been taken care of by the guns and fire, or they were toobusy feeding on their victims to pursue us. They nearly blended inwith the smoke drifting down the hall behind them as they floatedforward. How many more might be behind them, hidden within thechoking cloud?
I focused forward again. Thrusting my handout, I pushed open the door at the end of the hall. Hawk releasedme as we stumbled down the steps behind the others. Across the way,people used the butts of their guns, feet, and fists to beatagainst the back wall of the room the skelleins had built aroundthe gateway. No matter how haphazard and unsteady the wall looked,it held up beneath their battering.
Some of them turned away from the wall andran to stand at the edge of the pit. My heart leapt into my throatwhen I realized what they were contemplating, but going in may beour best and only hope. My gaze went to the ceiling. Despite theholes the gargoyles left in the roof when they’d burst free ofHell, there was still enough wood and beams there to crush someoneif the back wall collapsed.
“The roof,” I whispered.
Hawk lifted his head to take in the raftersover our head. “Stop!” he shouted at the people battering the wall.“You’ll collapse the roof onto us!”
Most of them stopped beating on the wall totake in the ruined remains overhead. “What do we do?” a womanasked, and I recognized her as Jackie, a woman who had voiced herdispleasure with this mission many times since we’d left thewall.
I looked to the pit, and then back to theclosed door leading to the bar. I could practically feel thelanavours steadily approaching from the hall. Smoke spiraled underthe edges of the door and up to the openings in the ceiling. It wasonly a matter of time before this part of the building was on fire,and I would make it happen a whole lot faster if I blasted thelanavours with my flames again.
“Does anyone have any ammunition left?” Iasked.
They all glanced at each other beforelooking at me and shaking their heads. Some of them pulled outknives and others removed swords or katanas from their backs, butmost had either lost their weapons or been caught unprepared whenthe lanavours arrived.
We either tried to topple the wall over,most likely collapsing what remained of the roof onto us, stayedhere to face the fire and lanavours, or climbed into the pit withthe hope of finding some place to hide until it was safe to comeout again.
I might be able to take out the lanavourswith my ability to wield life; it had certainly grown over themonths. However, I didn’t know how many of them remained, and evenif I killed them, I couldn’t put out a fire with my bare hands.
But how far into Hell would the humans beable to go until they were unable to continue? How far wouldIbe able to go?
I’d go as far as necessary to keep thesepeople safe.
I lifted my head to take in the hundred orso faces before me. There had to be other human survivors, ones whohadn’t made it into the bar, but right now this was all we had, andthere weren’t many options.
“Hawk,” Sarah whimpered and separatedherself from the crowd to come toward him.
“Stay there!” he commanded brusquely.
