ExceptTychehad powers. The man had magic, and he knew Yesuntei had magic. Was it possible that they’d made similar deals with gods?
Or…were they gods?
“Shawn!” Tyche shouted. Panic was palpable in his voice and in the tension of his body. “You need to freak out later. Escape now!”
“Yeah, sorry,” he muttered, mentally shaking out of his paralysis. He was right. They needed to escape now. If they survived this clusterfuck, he was going to get all his answers out of Ty, even if it meant threatening him with magic or sharp objects.
Shey rushed to the cell door and waved a hand at Tyche. “Move away. I don’t have great control over this.”
“That’s wonderfully reassuring,” Ty grumbled, but the man moved down the corridor, putting as much distance between himself and the metal bars as he could.
Shey drew in a deep breath through his nose and held it as he reached inside for his connection with the God of Storms. Kaes had never visited him—at least he hadn’t as far as he knew—but sometimes, he swore he could hear whispers urging him to let go, to embrace all the rage that swirled within his chest. It was so tempting to let his control slip from his fingers and wash the entire world away. Especially the evil monsters running this facility.
The energy grew, building like pressure weighing on his shoulders and on the top of his head, trying to shove him into the ground. An electric current crackled and sparked along his skin, flowing to his fingertips. Shey exhaled the air he’d been holding and grabbed the bars of the cell. It was like a bolt of lightning shot out of his body and raced through all the metal. Sparks flew and all the lights flickered. Bulbs exploded in Shey’s cell and in a few of the others, leaving the entire block cloaked in heavy shadows. The scent of blood and burned ozone hung thick in the air.
“Fuck!” Ty lifted his arms over his head to protect himself from the shower of sparks. He danced in a circle, trying to escape the charge, but he was surrounded. “This!This is why you don’t fuck around with the major gods. Nothing good comes of it.”
Shey smirked and pushed his cell door open. It made a long, high-pitched whine that cut through the room, leaving Tyche cringing even as he lowered his arms. “Is that from personal experience?”
“That’s from your sparks show,” Tyche snapped.
Shey walked out of his cell for the first time, his heart racing and his head light as he dragged in a deep breath, but it caught in his throat as his eyes stopped on Yesuntei’s dead body. Bloodpooled beneath her, and her skin was turning grayer with each passing second. She had been so sweet and innocent. At least she seemed that way. Why did she have to die? What purpose did it serve? The world felt darker, a little less colorful without her musical laughter and playful remarks. Even when she’d been terrified, she’d still attempted to put on a brave smile and not give up.
“We’ll get justice for Teitei,” Tyche stated softly, but there was steel in his voice.
Shey lifted his gaze to stare at his companion. It was the first time seeing Tyche without bars between them, and it felt unnerving. Shey had glimpsed the man when either of them were taken from their cells for questioning. He was a skinny, grumpy-faced young man who was at least six inches shorter. His reddish-brown hair was a shaggy mess, hanging past his back—but then, it wasn’t fair to judge. He had no idea how long Tyche had been trapped in the prison, and Shey had to admit that he probably didn’t look all that great, either.
Of course, the blood soaked into Tyche’s shirt and pants as well as smeared on both hands kept him from appearing harmless. In the flickering lights and thickening shadows, he was a monster that had stepped straight out of a nightmare.
“You would have to be tall,” Tyche complained, his lips twisting into a fresh frown.
There was no stopping Shey’s smirk. It would be the one thing that Tyche bitched about. He was torn between wariness over the knowledge that Tyche could be a god and chagrin that this was the same crabby guy who complained about coffee and talked him out of his rolls. He couldn’t reconcile the two images in his brain.
“Let’s go.” Shey brushed past Ty as he jogged down the corridor to the main door.
“Shit,” Tyche hissed under his breath and scrambled after him. “Don’t leave me behind. You promised to protect me.”
“I haven’t forgotten, Little God,” Shey teased.
“Oh, you can just cram that nonsense right now. There will be no short jokes.”
Shey tried to think of another, but his brain went blank as he grasped the metal handle only to have it shock him. He cursed and shook his hand. He hesitantly touched it again and found the current was gone now, allowing him to open the door enough to peek into the hallway.Tease Ty later. Escape now.
“What do you see?” Ty hissed.
“It’s empty, but it looks like there were signs of a struggle.”
The hallway off the cellblock was long and wide with bare white walls. There were not enough signs posted to give them any clues which direction they should head. When he’d been dragged to one of the interrogation rooms, the corridor was always full of guards and workers in tidy black uniforms. Now it was empty except for the occasional shower of sparks that tumbled from malfunctioning lights. Scorch marks peppered the walls and floors as if someone had tried to set the building on fire in places. In other spots, bloody handprints dotted the stark white walls. There were no signs of the guards, but he could hear shouts and agonized screams echoing from deeper in the building.
“The closer they were to Yesuntei, the stronger the impact of her magic would have been. They would have been able to walk around while trapped in their nightmares, unable to tell the difference between nightmare and reality.”
Shey twisted to gaze at Tyche. “Are they still trapped in a nightmare?”
“Some of them, yes, probably. The man who dropped her off must have been watching from a safe distance or been jolted out of his nightmare early.”
“Okay. That might work to our advantage. They might not be organized enough to put up much resistance. Stick close to me.”
Tyche huffed. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
