Page 10 of Hallowed Bones

In my hasty excitement, I start to sign the letters in fast, jerky motions. Her face scrunches up and her eyes squint, and then, finally, she reaches out and grabs my hands, stilling the movements.

Electricity passes from her fingers to mine, and I freeze.

She flinches but doesn’t pull away. Shock halts my thoughts. She’s a witch. A female witch—in my dream realm.

How the fu—

“You’re going way too fast,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s not…” I don’t hear whatever else she says, as one end of the hallway we’re in starts to creak and bend. Both of our heads shoot up, and we turn, as one, toward the direction of the horrific sound of metal groaning and wood snapping. Glass cracks and then shatters.

“What is that?” she asks, pointing.

I don’t even have the time to tell her that I have no fucking idea. No matter how many times—and it’s been hundreds by now—that I’ve been in this dream, never before has one side of the corridor completely … collapsed.

That is exactly what it’s doing now. Windows bow outward as a shower of glass rains in on shattering and splintering wooden beams as the roof above caves in.

“Oh my god—”

I reach out and haul the girl against me, clamping a hand over her mouth to stop that stupid saying from escaping her lips. As if there was ever really just one god.

We have to go. Now. There’s no possibility of signing that to her. We have no time. But where else is there to go?

The corridor of the dreamscape is long and never-ending, but if one side is capable of collapse, then the other surely is too. We could run, but I’ve been here enough times to know that the dream will end when it wants to and no sooner. We’ll just end up running to tire ourselves out, and then … when we come to the point where we can’t run anymore, we’d still end up trapped and crushed by the caving building.

My mind races with thoughts and potential solutions. Do we stay and let it kill us? Dying here doesn’t mean we’ll die in reality, but we’ll still feel the pain of our deaths as if they were physical. So what do we do? Do we run?

My choice ends the second the woman against me wraps a hand around my wrist and pulls. Hard.

“Come on!” she shouts. “This way!”

I blink, and suddenly, the harsh tug on my wrist becomes a manacle that I can’t remove. Her fingers dig into me as she yanks me along behind her, the two of us rushing—running—breathing hard as we try to outrun the disaster that’s coming straight for us. Her hand is firm in mine, holding on for dear life, and there’s a bolt of electricity, a feeling akin to lightning burrowing beneath my skin that forces me to close my fingers back around hers and return the hold. As if a silent ghost is warning me not to let her go.

Hot pain licks at my spine, and I snap my head around to see that the sides of the hall are sparking with scorching tendrils of fire. The long gold-and-red coils lash out like fingers stretching for us. Perspiration slicks down my spine and over the sides of my face.

It’s alive, that fire. Angry. Hurt. Sad?

A face appears in the flames, a screaming man. A second face replaces the first, a sobbing woman. Desolation drenches me—a mimicry of the souls captured in the flames.

I face the woman running ahead of me, her hand still clutching my wrist. “Exit. Exit. Exit,” she repeats, muttering to herself. Her eyes are focused on scanning the corridor even as her nails bite into me, refusing to let go as we run. “Where’s the freaking exit?”

The corridor groans behind us—stone sweating with heat, the air blistering with screams that don’t belong to any living thing. I don’t look back. I don’t need to. I feel it—the fire chasing us, grasping at our heels, crawling with faces that writhe and mouths that open but don’t speak. They just wail, the sound of an echoing horror that stalks us.

We run until my legs ache and my thighs tremble with the threat of giving out, and still the hall behind us closes in. The fire grows ever closer, nipping with each crack and snap. The girl’s breath catches as if she senses our impending failure to get away.

I could have told her that some time ago, but something kept me running, following after her. A sense of importance sliding through my veins, both a warning and a knowing. She is important, and I can’t let this place destroy her. Protective instincts I’ve felt for no one besides my coven claw to the surface, urging me to keep going—to give her whatever she desires even at the detriment to myself. I want to save her even if I can’t save myself.

The girl’s feet begin to slow. When she glances back at me, her heart-shaped face tips upward, and those unusual eyes, glowing with two different colors, one a topaz brown shot with amber and the other a cruel jade green, meet mine. When she stops entirely, I realize it’s not out of exhaustion, though I’m sure she feels it, but out of defeat. Her expression is tight, helpless. An ache blossoms in my chest.

“It’s impossible,” she whispers, her hand leaving my wrist and falling away. “You should go.”

I stare at her, waiting for her to meet my eyes as the collapsing hallway pauses its self-destruction. Connected as we are, the dreamscape and I, I know that it senses our movements and it realizes we’ve stopped our attempts at escape. It hovers for a moment, unmoving, then the flames dive forward, moving around us in a storm of fury. The heat burns through my clothes and singes my skin. Still, I stare at her, waiting for her to look at me.

“It wants me.” Her voice is even quieter than before. “You can still get away.”

How does she know that? My lips form the question, but no words escape. Yes, the dreamscape senses her presence and, unlike mine, her existence is a threat to it. That’s why it’s attacking us this violently.

Then her words penetrate my mind. Get away? She really thinks that’s possible? No. There’s no getting away from a beast that’s all around you. The dreamscape is alive. It will follow us no matter how far we run or where we go.

I take a step toward her, turning her to face me fully with gentle fingers. I cup her cheeks as I grit my teeth, no words able to make it past my lips no matter how hard I try. They catch and stick in my throat. Forcing my hands not to curl into fists where they are against her face, I instead focus on her.