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“Hurry!” shouted Grimm. “This way.”
Both Hunter and Axe chipped at the sides of the walls, trying to start another cascade of rock and dirt. If they weren’t careful, they were going to kill the shifters.
Janik set me down against the wall. “Stay here,” he ordered then went to join the dwarves, kicking the walls at a furious beat.
Distant shouts sounded from outside. Guards and pirates! They were catching up to us, were only a few hundred feet behind us.
I couldn’t let them destroy us. Crawling past Flare and the dwarves, I rallied the last of my energy, intending to use it to block the pursuers from entering the ancient tunnel.
“What are you doing, sweetheart?”
An instant later, I let off a blast that knocked me into the wall, bringing down the roof in front of me.
Flare and the dwarves stumbled backward.
Dazed, I moaned, my head leaning back against the wall.
Someone came to my aid, their hands rough and strong, lifting me.
More of the roof caved in, one big dump crushing us. That was all I remembered before I blacked out.
***
I awoke backin my bed in the resistance compound, my body aching, my skin covered in bruises.
Phantom sat on the chair beside me, and Flare leaned in the doorway.
“We made it back alive?” I asked, shock stealing through me. I’d thought we’d been done for back in the tunnel.
“Some of us,” muttered Flare, his eyes holding a rawness I’d not seen in him before.
“What?” I asked, sitting up, my muscles grumbling with complaint. It felt like I’d been hit by a ton of rocks. That thought brought back the memory of what had happened before I’d blacked out. How the hell had I survived that?
“Do you want the good news or the bad news, sweetheart?” Flare asked me.
Bad first…always. Then the good lightened it. “Bad,” I said, tensing at what it might be.
Flare broke the news to me. “Shadow didn’t make it, sweetheart.”
Claws tore at my heart. Whoever had rescued me may as well have left me to die in that tunnel.
“What do you mean?” I stuttered. “He was killed?”
Phantom sat on the edge of my bed, taking my hand, giving it a squeeze. “We assume he was captured by the guards.”
It felt like a knife cut at my insides. Anger and hurt swelled inside me. Why had Shadow been so foolish? What had they done to him? Tortured him for information? Locked him up with the remaining shifters? Left him to die in a cell where the collar would kill him?
“And the shifters?” My voice wobbled. “Your father?” I asked Phantom.
“We rescued about one hundred shifters,” Phantom said. “They’re all
resting or being tended to by the healers. My father is well, thank you.”
While the resistance had achieved a small victory, they had also suffered a defeat. I tried to be grateful, but I couldn’t shake the gloom clawing at the back of my mind.
I leaned my head against the wall behind me. “Then what are you doing with me? You should be reuniting with your father.”
Phantom shrugged. “I came to check on you.”
