AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Everything hurt. I was tired of running. Tired of fighting. Consciousness started to slip away. That sweet darkness crept over me like a blanket. I wanted it to take me. Take me away from here.
The man shook me. “No!” he commanded. “You cannot rest. I know you are hurt, but we need you. You must fight. I promise I will take you to a place where I can protect you, where you will be safe, but you must fight now.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to summon my strength.
I knew what he wanted. He didn’t mean fight with the rifles like Logan and his friend had. He meant with what I had done earlier, but my light was even weaker than my body.
I tried to bring the light, any energy to the surface, but the drugs were still too strong. I couldn’t concentrate on anything.
I breathed in again, feeling the spray of concrete rip into my skin. I focused and tried to imagine energy flowing from me. Instead of building the energy I craved, it sparked, and then fizzled out like a sodden match. Not even one noteworthy lightning streak.
I groaned and jerked my eyes open.
The men were getting closer; Logan and his friend were treading backwards toward us while they continued to shoot.
Logan’s friend grunted. A bullet struck his abdomen. I saw his steps falter. His body lurched to the side. Logan reached for him before he could fall onto the ground. He supported the man’s weight on his shoulder. Logan drug him and ran toward us.
I looked up at Gray Eyes. “My light. It’s too weak.”
He adjusted me in his grip and started back-peddling away from the approaching soldiers. “Open your mind, draw on my energy.”
“I-I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know how!” I cursed, gripping his shoulders.
In Logan’s room, I’d taken something from him, accidentally, but I couldn’t do it to Logan again. Not now when he needed every bit of his strength.
Something began nudging at the back of my mind. Soft at first, flowing into me, ebbing away the pain in my head. It filled me, my thoughts, overwhelming everything else. I kept my eyes closed. I concentrated on the waves coming into my mind. They overflowed past the depths of my unconscious and into every space in my mind. They smelled like saltwater and citrus. It tasted tart, with a subtle hint of nectar.
It broke through me and threatened to escape the boundaries of my mind. It was irresistible. I couldn’t contain it. I wanted it to consume me.
It felt different than the energy that stemmed from Logan. Logan’s energy was warm and subtle. Gray Eyes was pouring part of himself into me, and my whole being sought the overwhelming ancient strength within him.
“Please, elskan mín, take what I offer,” he said softly through the connection. His grip tightened. He enchanted my light with something I didn’t understand. “Protect Logan, elskan mín. We need you.”
He was in my mind. He knew I cared for Logan, and he understood the desire to protect them now.
Everything stopped. The alarms silenced, the air stilled, time ceased.
Then I let it go. I pushed it beyond myself, beyond Logan, beyond the blood trailing them. I forced it deep into the tunnel we had come from.
The ground shook as I released it. All of it. Straight into the tunnel, into the men who wanted to kill me.
When the light built, it had been pure bliss. But as I expended the essence inside me, I was torn apart. The harshness of its absence left a cold numbness behind.
I opened my eyes.
The tunnel began to implode. Wave upon wave, the blast was like a synchronized eruption, echoing away from us.
The soldiers were thrown violently back, away from the trembling walls. The concrete cracked under the force of the impact and then crumbled, creating a barrier between us and the approaching men.
The tunnel began to break away in pieces, heading our direction.
Logan dragged his friend, running farther down away from the rubble.
The silver-eyed man kept hold of me, thankfully, because even my neck started to sag under the weight of my head—my last bit of strength gone. I could’ve sworn the man brushed his lips over my forehead, but it was so quick I thought I’d imagined it. He turned and darted down the decline toward our only exit.
We reached a metal door at the end of the tunnel. Gray Eyes kicked it open while holding me close. The exit led to a large storage bay, almost a football field long and two stories high. Over a dozen vehicles stood in rows, waiting.
Logan’s friend pointed toward a large black SUV. “This one has a full tank. I worked on it yesterday.”
Logan opened the back door and hoisted his teammate into the back. Gray Eyes imitated him and laid my body gently into the back seat on the opposite side.
Logan went to the driver’s side door.
Gray Eyes closed my door and climbed into the passenger seat. Logan started the engine and navigated out of the storage bay at top speed. He yelled to the gray-eyed man in the passenger’s seat, “This exit leads two miles away from the compound. It’s a secondary escape in case of cave-ins and, well, ambush—where are we headed?”
“Go to the southernmost harbor. Don’t stop for anything,” the man said.
Logan exited the large bay and up another passageway to the surface. “What’s at the harbor?”
Gray Eyes looked to me in the backseat. “Friends.”
