“Clear,” Lionel murmured, his voice steady even in the shadows.
The others followed through the window one by one, practiced and silent. Ashley landed in a crouch beside me, her hair in a messy updo and her grin sharp despite the danger. Nate dropped behind her, a coil of rope in one hand and a half-muttered joke dying on his tongue when he saw the chains.
“Damn,” he breathed. “You two look like you’ve had better dates.”
“Not now,” Lionel warned, scanning the room. His gaze fell on me, softened for a heartbeat. “We’ll get you out.”
“Where’s Faelin?” I asked, my eyes searching.
I saw them stiffening as if I had whipped them across their backs.
“She… She didn’t make it,” Eve answered quietly.
My heart stumbled, another life lost to this blasted war…
My eyes went to Jaden who was tense, the only one of the newer recruits who had survived this long. Was it because of me? Had we not prepared them enough? Was there anything I could’ve done to—
No.
The answer was simple; there was no way to reverse what had already happened.
Death was as natural as life, and yet I feared I’d brought all of my friends straight to their doom. But we had no time for fear or sorrow, our lives were on the line and if we hesitated or stalled even the slightest, we would all perish.
Eve knelt beside my restraints, fingers already working the clasps. Her expression was focused, impersonal, but I caught the flicker of relief when the lock clicked open. The moment the chain fell away, I pushed to my feet, shaking off the ache.
“Easy,” Lionel said. “We don’t know what those glowing chains binding him will do when we touch them—”
“I don’t care,” I said, already crossing the room towards Malakai.
Ashley and Jaden were studying the glowing chains that kept him at bay, muttering between themselves.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jaden sighed, brows furrowed in annoyance.
“Nothing a bomb can’t handle,” Ashley shrugged.
“We want to leave with him in one piece, not thousands,” Nate pointed out behind them.
“Details,” Ashley smiled and locked eyes with Malakai, but his expression was blank.
His eyes looked up as I neared and the shift in his visage stopped me cold.
He was pale, too still. The runes on his cuffs pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, a quiet, cruel reminder of hisimprisonment. His eyes had dimmed, now glowing faintly crimson in the dim light, but there was no rage in them. Just exhaustion, and fear.
Lionel moved to help, but Malakai’s voice cut through the silence.
“Don’t.”
Everyone froze.
Malakai’s gaze swept the room before settling on me.
“Leave me in these chains,” he said quietly. “I can’t—” His breath hitched. “I don’t trust myself yet.”
“No,” I snapped, the word harder than I meant it to be. “We’re not leaving you like this.”
“Ethalyn,” Malakai growled sharply. “I said,leave. The moment these chains hit the ground, your life will end.”
“Splendid,” Nate joked. “So maybe we’ll all stay here and make it easier for the demons to tie us up once they find us,hmm?”
