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“They shot my wing.” The words rumble from my throat. At the guttural sound, I remember he can’t understand me.
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says quickly, as if remembering the danger encroaching all around us, “It doesn’t look too bad.” His voice is a low rasp and I know he’s lying. It looks bad.
With a final jerk of his hand, my wings spill free. Again, agony. Red-hot as fresh blood rushes back into the abused appendages. The sensation makes the edges of my vision gray, my head spin. I open my mouth wide on a silent scream.
This pain is worse than the last time I was hit, the first time hunters pursued me. The pain was intense then, but I healed. Mom treated the wound . . . Mom. Has she left her room? Did she even notice I was gone? The notes won’t be waiting for her.
Will’s anxious eyes flit over me, and then to the surrounding press of trees. “We’ve got to go . . . Jacinda, can you change?”
He’s asking if I can demanifest.
I nod once. The fear is gone—can’t force me to stay a draki any longer. At the moment there is only pain . . . and more pain to come as I force my wings to merge back inside me. Especially the injured wing. But there is no choice. He can’t drive out of here with me sitting in the front seat in full manifest.
I take a deep gulp and clench the edge of the seat with bloody-slick fingers, burying my draki, pushing it back down, hiding it away.
My features relax and loosen, bones decompressing. My wings shudder, quake from their recent abuse. One wing settles back between my shoulder blades with ease. The other one possesses a life of its own, quivering, resisting the demanifest . . . the pain. Tears stream down my cheeks in steaming paths. I arch my neck, fight the scream that bubbles there.
With my draki finally buried, I breathe again, ease my grip on the dash, and crumple back against the seat.
Will tosses a blanket over me. Even though I was trapped in a hot, airless van for a day, I snuggle into the scratchy fabric, glad for the comfort.
“Jacinda, are you okay?”
I try to still the trembling aftershocks, but the harder I resist, the more fiercely the shudders rack me. “Just get me out of here.” The words sound rusty, unnatural.
With a single nod, he’s around the truck and inside the car in a flash. Soon, he’s guiding the vehicle out of the woods, through the thick trees until he reaches a small country road leading somewhere. Anywhere. Away. Nothing else really matters but that.
I slide weakly in the seat, reach out a hand, and brush the sun-warmed glass of the window. The pads of my fingers squeak as they slide against the smooth surface. Miram.
“Where were you?” I manage to choke out in a scratchy voice.
“I couldn’t come. Out of nowhere, Dad scheduled a hunt. Ever since we spotted you, he’s obsessed over that same area. He paired me up with a group that he sent out on the other side of the mountain. I hoped if I didn’t show up you would just head back home. I didn’t think they would move so close to the pride. God, Jacinda, I’m so sorry.”
I nod numbly. “You didn’t know.”
He releases a heavy breath and I know my words do nothing to alleviate his guilt. If I could say more to make him feel better, I would. I just hurt too much.
I lift my legs up on the seat and hug my knees, thinking about the girl I left behind. Thinking about Cassian’s face when he finds out.
“You couldn’t have helped her,” Will says, reading my thoughts. “She wouldn’t leave.”
“I should have forced her.”
“And caused a scene? You could hardly walk yourself. I practically had to carry you.”
This doesn’t comfort me. I lift my head, relishing the cool breeze of air-conditioning on my face.
“Rest now, Jacinda. You’re safe.”
Safe. The word trips through my mind until I feel so dizzy I have to close my eyes. My lids sink, so incredibly heavy. Bursts of color flash against the solid black, but it’s still better than opening my eyes again and facing the world.
Somewhere between thoughts of Miram and safety and the pain plaguing my body, I surrender to sleep.
I wake in a mostly darkened room. A dull orange light hugs one wall. I sit up, wincing at the pull in my back. With the pain comes reality.
“Will?”
“I’m right here.”
I follow the sound of his disembodied voice and locate him. His dark shape unfolds from a chair in the corner.
“Where are we?”
“In a motel. We’re safe.”
I carefully maneuver myself into a sitting position, biting my lips against the ache of my tender back. Still, it’s nothing compared to before. I can at least move without feeling the overwhelming need to scream. “How’d we get here?”
“You were exhausted. You needed rest. On an actual bed. Food, water—”
At the mention of food, my stomach growls.
“I got you to eat a little before you passed out,” he adds. “Do you remember? You consumed a burrito and soda in less than a minute before dropping into bed. You haven’t moved from that spot. Not even when I cleaned and bandaged your back. I was so worried.”
I shake my head. “I can’t remember any of that.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
I nod. Sleep must have been my body’s way to heal. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Eight, ten hours.”
My entire body tenses. “Ten hours! What time is it?”
“About one in the morning.”
A thick lump rises in my throat. Miram must be far away by now. She didn’t have the luxury of a bed or food. I swing my legs over the bed, my head full of thoughts of reaching her. Saving her. How could I have left her?
“Whoa there.” Will sits beside me on the bed, his warm hand on my shoulder. It’s a touch I remember. A touch I want to lean into, absorb and forget everything else. “Where are you going?”
“To get Miram.” Where else? A chill skates over my bare legs as the sheet slips to the side. I glance down and see that I’m wearing only a white undershirt that must belong to Will.
“I helped you into that,” he explains, a faint tinge of red coloring his face.
“Thanks,” I murmur, remembering I didn’t have much on when I fell asleep in the passenger seat. Just that scratchy blanket. I curl my fingers around the shirt’s hem, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Here I am. Alone in a motel room with Will, but this solitude is not something I can enjoy. Not with everything that has happened.
“Miram’s your friend?” he asks quietly, patiently.
I wince. “Sorta.”
He stares at me starkly, moments stretching between us. “I’m sorry. Jacinda, she’s gone. There’s no helping her now.”
“No!” I shake my head wildly, a snarl of hair catching in my mouth. I swipe it free. “It’s my fault she was out there—”
“How is it your fault when she wouldn’t come with us? There was nothing you could do.”
I ignore his logic, thinking only of Cassian when he learns his sister is lost. “You can do something! You’re one of them—”
He flinches, but I don’t care. For once this doesn’t twist my stomach into knots. Guilt doesn’t ribbon its way through me because I’m in love with one of the monsters that would hunt me, toss me in the back of a van, bind my hands and wings, and then sell me for parts. In this situation, what he is should be a help.
“No, Jacinda. It’s done. She’s already been delivered. . . .”
Delivered. Like she’s goods, an inanimate object. A package. I feel something inside me withering, pulling away from him.
“You won’t help me, you mean,” I announce, my words a hard bite.
The air-conditioning unit near the wide, curtained window kicks to life, a loud rumble in the tiny room. A rush of cool air wafts over me, but even this fails to relieve my skin or calm my nerves.
In the gloom, his features look drawn and tight, pained that he can’t—won’t—give me the words I desperately need to hear. “I can’t,” he repeats. “She’s at the stronghold by now. Nothing escapes that place.”
Nothing escapes that place. Meaning draki captives live there? As prisoners? They don’t kill them right away?
A flash of my father intrudes. He slips into my crowded mind. The image of his laughing eyes, his handsome face that I can’t recall as clearly anymore, fills my head. Lying in bed late at night, I sometimes flip on the lights and reach for a photograph of him, something real, something I can hold in my hands. Proof that he did exist, that I remember him and see him still, that I will never forget all the wonderful things he taught me. That I never forget him. Never forget his love.
I have no trouble seeing his face now, but I shove the memory aside, not daring to let myself hope for something as unlikely—as impossible—as my father alive after all these years.
“But Miram’s alive? They won’t have killed her, that’s what you’re saying.” I stare deeply into his eyes, their color lost to me in the shadowed room.
He winces, like he regrets implying that. “Yeah,” he admits with a heavy sigh. “She’ll live. If you could call it that. I don’t think they’ve seen too many draki who can make themselves invisible. Just a few. They’ll run tests on her . . . take samples. She’ll live. For a while, anyway.”
A sick feeling swells up from my stomach, but with it mingles relief. I deliberately keep myself from wondering what they would have done with me. I know from Will that they don’t even believe fire-breathers exist anymore. Now they know we do. I do.
What he’s telling me about the enkros is more than I’ve even known, and it gives me hope for Miram.
“So there’s a chance—” He starts to shake his head, but I cut him off. “There’s a chance.” I look at him intently. “With your help, there’s a chance.” My hand reaches across the inches separating us and seizes his.
“But there’s not. There’s no chance.” His voice is deep, that velvet rumble from my dreams pleading with me to accept, to let Miram go.
I can’t. I see Cassian’s face, my mother’s, my sister’s . . . the three of them when they’re left wondering what happened to us. My heart clutches with a pain that makes all I’ve endured seem such a small thing. Miram is lost. Because of me. I can’t just run away with Will pretending that didn’t happen.
Something in me dies, unravels like the last bit of a frayed rope that can bear no more. My grip loosens on his hand, fingers sliding free. I pull away.
He snatches my hand back, lacing his strong fingers with mine, pressing our palms together in a kiss. “Jacinda,” he whispers.
I lock eyes with him, see the need there, read the silent question that he’s asking me. Know that he wants assurance that we’re still on target with our plan.
A part of me longs to give him the assurance he wants. It would be so easy. We’re here. Together. I’m already free of the pride. Free . . .
But am I? Am I really?
I know the answer in my bones, deep in my gut. Even if it doesn’t match up with what my heart feels. Except the way he stares at me just now . . . I can’t say the words.
“I-I’m going to take a shower,” I say hastily. “And then go back to bed. I-I’m still tired.” Not a lie. I feel like I could sleep another ten hours.
For a second I think he’s going to push, demand we have this conversation now. And I can’t. Not now. I can’t tell him there’s no way I can run away with him.
How can I be with him? How can I ever feel free if I subject Mom and Tamra to the torment all over again? Just like with Dad. The wondering, the never knowing for sure. The waiting, enduring the passing of days until you finally have to admit that he’s gone and never coming back. I can’t do that to them again. And there’s Miram. I have a responsibility to her family, too.
