“No, but you know Ash will be confiscating whatever’s left in that warehouse now.” Dusting his hands off on his jeans, he grabs another rock with a grunt. “Might put us on the short list if we’re the ones to find her body soon enough to salvage enough blood for another batch.”
Two seconds later he’s flat on his back with my fist buried in his eye. Every insult, every denial that I want to scream in his face seizes in my throat until I’m choking on them, unable to breathe. It all blurs together into white noise; the blood rushing through my veins, the chatter around us, and the thoughts I can’t put into words. With each heavy heartbeat pulsing in my ears, I slam my fist into his face, the rhythm the only thing I have left to cling to. The harder I hit, the faster it beats until it becomes my single-minded focus, a comfort. Constant.
ThisI can do.Thismakes sense. Because finding the person I love, only to lose her before we’ve even had a chance to really live? That’s not something I can wrap my mind around.
“Slade.” Shrugging off Kaige’s hand on my shoulder, I throw another punch, but he doesn’t let up. “He’s dead, man. I get it, but it’s time to put that energy to better uses; getting them out of there.”
This time when he grabs my arm to help haul me to my feet, I don’t fight him. I just stare down at what remains of the bloody pulp of a pathetic excuse of a man painting the rubble beneath him. Tracking the small rivulets of blood that run down the stones, my stomach twists violently at the images they evoke.
Voice a rough croak, I rasp, “Tell me they’re okay. Just... I need to hear it again. Please.”
Clasping my shoulder reassuringly, he squeezes once before leading me away. “They’re fine. Think about it. With the harsh incline in this area, the avalanche of dirt would have pushed them downward before the rocks fell.”
A frantic apology has us looking towards Ash in time to witness him grip the throat of the other bastard that must have run when I started beating the life out of his friend. Giving up the pretense of passing himself off as a regular shifter like the rest of them, the dark haze makes a reappearance on his skin, sending a chill down my spine. Every one of the three hundred and some odd men working to unearth the rubble comes to an abrupt halt, looking on in morbid fascination as shadowy tendrils snake from Acheron’s body and onto the man begging that it was a misunderstanding. Curiosity morphs into fear in the face of the pained scream that tapers off into strangled, choking gasps as a dark tendril rushes down the man’s throat. The acidic scent of burning flesh is followed by Ash snapping the bastard’s neck.
Once the thrashing stops, he drops the body without looking back, turning his furious attention onto the onlookers. “Find. Her.”
As they frantically get back to work, I scrub a shaky hand down my face. “There has to be a faster way.” Kaige falls into step beside me as I stride right up to the bane of our existence. “The caves; you know them better than anyone. Therehasto be another we could break into from above that would be quicker.”
Jaw clenched and wild-eyed, he snaps, “You think I haven’t thought of that?” He gestures a hand at the cliff above us. “These landslides have been happening since she was born, let alone all the ones that collapsed when this happened in the first damn place. This entire fucking place is unstable.”
Kaige growls, “But weknowshe’s in this one! We could just dig a little way down; it’s not any more of a risk than removing the rocks is.”
"There wasn't one here!" Chest heaving, he begins pacing, taking a few deep breaths to compose himself. "The entire thing was set up as two closed loops studded with cave pockets to house as many demons as possible, and the only access was at the peak of the mountain so humans couldn’t blindside us while we were sleeping. But there wasn't. One. Here. So we have to assume it's an air pocket and do everything we can not to trigger another collapse, because it'll be a miracle if she survived the first."
My heart plummets into my stomach, but Kaige has always been the one that believes in the impossible and isn't willing to drop the issue. "You had Elementals create that, yeah?" At Ash's terse nod, he states with absolute conviction, "Nobodycreating a hiding place for people in the middle of a war wouldn't have had an emergency escape route. If you didn't know about it, that means they had their doubts about your intentions, too."
Several agonizingly long minutes tick by, even the men at work trying to be as silent as possible so as not to draw Ash's attention after his brutal display. Eventually, he dips his head in agreement. "Take the other two with you to the base of the mountain. If you can find where it lets out, go at it from that route."
Searching over my shoulder for where the twins ended up, I only make it a single step before he adds, "She better be alright, oreveryoneis going to pay the price for your failure to protect her."
Walking away, I don't bother responding. If we find her and she's not breathing? This world isn't worth living in anymore, anyway.
***
“Assuming it was a relativelystraight shot down, it’s got to be around here somewhere. If no one has noticed it all of these years, maybe a hatch that’s hiding in plain sight?”
The twins have already shifted, tearing apart everything they come across as we spread out. Kaige opts to stare at the area from a distance, trying to see things from a tactical perspective, leaving me near the river that leads out toward the fields. There’s no drivable path in this area, everything an overgrown mess broken up only by the occasional fallen trees in various states of being hacked up. It’s amazing how much everything is starting to bounce back with as patchy and sickly green as the grass was when we arrived, especially since the Slaughters’ territory isn’t nearly this lush.
“Kaige?” Without tearing my eyes away from the scene, I shout, “Has this area always looked like this, or just since Sabrina got here?”
The crunching of his footsteps proceed him as he joins me. “Not to this degree, but yeah, it’s always been a bit better; it’s right next to the water.” Crouching down, he swipes Reid’s glasses off of the ground before they get crushed underfoot, tucking them to hang on the front of his shirt.
Gesturing a short distance away, I point out, “Even over there?” Finally facing him, I take his silent contemplation as confirmation and jog over.
“What are you thinking?” he demands, rushing to follow me.
“That this area has been getting watered somehow and it’s too far from the river to pull it off. Look on the other side; same distance, yet it’s nowhere close to as overgrown as this section is.”
The grass is up to my knees, moss clinging to the bottom of a few of the tree trunks and rocks littered across the slope. Splitting up, we start rolling boulders, Cinjin and Reid catching up and ripping away vegetation at the base of trees; all of us desperately trying to level the area with our bare hands.
“Over here!” Before the final words have even left Kaige’s mouth I’m on my feet, weaving through the trees to find him crouched in a mass of greenery a little higher up the mountain. “Look.”
As he tears out another handful of grass, it reveals one of the smallest trickles of water I’ve ever seen in my life. Joining him, I yank out a handful, trying to clear the area.
“Cin!” He and Reid are there a few seconds later, the two of us backing up to give them room to dig.
“Should one of us shift to help them?”
