Page 178 of Storm Caller

“Again!” I say, jumping up and down.

Another swing. More cracks. More water.

“You cannot have him!” General Sol calls over the fighting. “If it’s not the Solitude, then it will be you, Poet Graves.”

“Just try to take her!” my father screams, turning around to face her, his skin flushed and his eyes wild. “Just fucking try!”

My father swings at the glass again.

“Philip, how could you!” Sol shrieks at Mowry. “Why would you do this to me?”

“I had to,” he says, finally looking up from where he’s huddled on the floor. “I couldn’t live with the guilt any longer.”

“The city will be left in ruins,” she says. “We will have nothing left!”

“If a city’s vitality depends on this suffering, then it doesn’t deserve to stand,” he hisses, finally finding his fucking backbone. “New Manhattan has always been a cancer. It has never deserved anything.”

General Sol steps back like she’s been slapped. “You said that you supported me. That you wanted this.”

“I wanted to help you, but I never wanted this.”

He’s different now. Not the blubbering mess he’s been since we dragged him down here. Now his voice is cold, fused with the certainty that this might be the end for him, but at least he got the truth out while he still could.

I watch it all in a kind of haze, only distantly aware of the fighting and the pounding of metal against glass.

I watch Rook’s lifeless face as he gently bobs in the tank.

I watch Henry and Navy and Justin.

These people who’ve all come to mean so much to me during the last few months.

This family I found when my own rejected me.

These people who offered me a safe haven when I had to run for my life.

I’ve made a lot of terrible decisions in the past year, yet I can’t help but understand how lucky I’ve been to be surrounded by such strong, brave, remarkable people.

Even if I don’t survive this, I can die knowing that.

Then . . . a moment later, the room explodes.

62

Rook’s tank shatters with a roar in a shower of flying glass. I duck as razor-edged shards fire past me against the rush of water. Time seems to stand still as I drop to the floor, and glass scrapes my cheeks and my hands.

I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the chaos to pass.

It takes a few seconds for everything to settle into stillness. I peer up to find everyone on the floor, knocked off their feet, flattened in an inch of water.

Rook lies passed out, slumped in a heap, his body limp and lifeless.

I’m up in an instant, stumbling over my steps and falling on top of him. “Rook!” I shake his shoulders before I press my ear to his chest. Nothing. No breath. No pulse. I tell myself not to panic. I need to fucking hold it together right now.

I rise to my knees and begin chest compressions before I tip his head back and blow into his mouth, thankful that my Storm Guard training included lessons in basic first aid.

As I work, I’m only partially aware of people moving around me. Navy at my side. A struggle in the background between Sol, her Guards, and the Fog.

My father’s hand on my back as tears stream down my cheeks.