Page 202 of Stormbreaker

I’m exhausted, my legs and feet aching, my throat parched. But I don’t complain. At least I’m not fucking bleeding.

A bang sounds in the distance, and we both stop, our eyes meeting in the low light.

“Did they find us?” I ask.

“Faster,” he says. “The exit is here.”

He points to what looks like a dead end.

I can tell he’s struggling, desperately trying to keep up.

But he’s growing paler by the moment.

I wonder how much longer he can hold on.

If he dies . . . I can’t even think it.

“This is it,” he says, turning toward me. He stretches his fingers out, waiting for me to accept. I meet his eyes before I look back at the darkened tunnel.

“Poet, I won’t force you to come with me,” he says, reading my mind. “But you aren’t safe here anymore.”

After a year of uncertainty, I stand at yet another crossroads, forced to make another impossible choice.

Another decision that will alter my life forever.

“Who are you?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“I’m exactly who I told you, Poet.”

“Are you?”

“The essence of me, yes. But there were things I couldn’t share. I came here to accomplish something, and I didn’t think I could trust anyone at Amery.”

“Did you accomplish it? This thing?”

He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I didn’t even come close, but my instructions were to leave the city if anyone found out what I was looking for.”

“Instructions from who?”

With every word out of his mouth, I have more and more questions.

“My superiors,” he says, and I’m about to ask what that means when another bang in the distance draws our attention.

We peer into the darkness and then look at each other.

“We have to leave,” he says, still offering me his hand. There’s no order in his voice, only a plea. I watch his face, his hazel eyes, understanding that the lines of Rook’s truth have blurred. He claims he’s exactly who he told me he was, but it’s obvious I don’t know him at all.

I have only two choices.

I can leave with him and take my chances, or I can stay here and die for good.

“Do you trust me now?” I ask.

I don’t know why it matters, but I need to know.

Rook doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He inhales sharply, groaning as a wave of pain consumes him. “And I’m asking you to trust me. At least to get you somewhere safe.”

He promised he’d protect me. And maybe I’m the world’s greatest fool, but I believed it.