AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sixty-Four
WILLOW
Silvera’s pacepicks up from a trot to a run.
“Wait!” I scream. If she goes any faster, I won’t be able to keep up. She doesn’t wait—she keeps running, maneuvering between the trees, jumping over dense, mossy logs.
“Willow!”
I gasp and stop running when I hear the voice.Hisvoice.
“Willow, do ya hear me?”
“Caz,” I whisper. It’s just like the dream. I look all around me, his voice filling the void, then I look down at my arm, at the purple haze that’s beginning to fade. My brown skin is breaking through. I’m returning to his world—to him. It’s not too late.
I’m close.
I run in the direction Silvera went, as hard and as fast as I can. Darkness descends, swallowing the trees behind me, chasing me, but I keep running, refusing to let it catch me. The wind whips at my face, my locs, and a chill strikes me in my stomach. It takes everything in me not to double over in pain. I glance back as the darkness climbs behind me, moving faster.I clutch my belly with one hand and don’t stop. My lungs work harder. They feel like they’re freezing inside me.
Shit. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Leah Bianchi was wrong too. It could be possible that this Tether doesn’t make you stronger at all, and what Beatrix said wasn’t a lie.
“Willow!” Caz’s voice is louder. Closer.
“I’m here!” I scream. The darkness is blinding now. My purple light is fading. The cold begins to paralyze me, my toes becoming numb, the soles of my bare feet pounding into the ground.
I’m here. I’m here.The thought is fleeting. I hope he can hear it.
And just when I feel I’ll be engulfed in darkness and cold, swallowed whole by this evil that doesn’t want us together, I spot Silvera, and her body clashes with a blur of black fur. Cerberus. And not too far behind Cerberus is Caz.
He’s wearing his trench coat, no shirt beneath. His chest—the black veins that have taken over his pale body are prominent, but that’s not what catches me off guard. It’s the way he looks right now—his face sunken in and hollow, the dark bruises around his eyes, most likely from lack of sleep.
He’s dying and Mournwrath is lingering, trying to take him before I can get to him.
When he sees me, my heart slows in rhythm, but I don’t stop running, and neither does he. Every second counts. No breath can be wasted.
We run, racing against darkness, racing against the cold. The mist in the air clings to my skin, ice shooting through my limbs, but I don’t care because he’s here. I’m here.
And when we meet, we clash. We clash hard, my arms locking around his neck, his going around my middle. He holds me close, and I squeeze my eyes closed, waiting for the pain tosweep through me, waiting for the dark cold to steal us away and suck us dry.
“I’m here,” I whisper. His body is chilly against mine, like a slab of ice. And then I hear voices above me—so many voices.
I open my eyes, and a cloud of purple swirls us. Caz grunts, as if he’s been struck by something, but I hold on to him. Like we’re in the eye of a hurricane, the thick cloud spins faster, faster, and three-dimensional figures pop out of the clouds.
A boy, holding the hand of a woman.
A boy, a little bit older, yanked away from her by a large man. The boy cries and reaches for his mother. She fights to get him back, screams, but someone covers her mouth and she faints.
The boy being tossed into the back of a wagon.
The boy alone in a dark cell, crying, whimpering.
Then, people are hollering, waving their fists in the air, and in the middle of the mad crowd are two boys fighting each other. Bones crunch and blood spills, as if they’re fighting to the death.
With one punch from the opponent, the boy falls backward. He’s taken back to a dark cell, holding his knees to his chest, trembling with fear.
The boy stands, a gunshot goes off, and he cries out, “Mama!” as he holds his chest. I wince. He bleeds as he crumbles to the floor, then another man enters the cell, giving the boy a tiny bottle, demanding him to drink it.
The boy drinks, and when he sits up, the bullet wound heals quickly.Bang. Another gunshot. The boy cries. Forced to drink another tiny bottle.
