I was hoping the stampede was almost done, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold it.
“Very well.” He bowed slightly and tossed the metal scrap on the floor before taking off at a run. He leapt onto the back of a passing Galadria and immediately started to pet her neck and whisper in her ear. Then she kicked off the ground and disappeared into the opening.
“Almost fully evacuated,” Damien told me, looking over my shoulder.
‘Kit Steele will die!’ A breeder broke through my mental defenses as a headache crashed into me.
No!
“Where is Jeremy? Did he get out?” Panic gripped me; I didn’t think I could hold it much longer. I hadn’t been paying attention to how many of our group had flown by, but I heard the whirring of helicopter blades as Jack maneuvered the chopper behind me and into the shrinking portal.
“He’s safe! That was the last of our group. Let’s go!” Damien shouted.
I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked over my shoulder, and when I saw the unconscious green and blue youngling Galadria being eaten alive by the acid, the portal snapped shut in my anger. The headache tightened and I had to work on my breathing. I needed to gain control of this before I killed Damien and myself.
“We can’t leave the Galadria—I won’t,” I told Damien as a drop of acid ate through the sleeping bag and landed on my shoulder.
Damien growled. “I thought you might say that.”
In one swift move, he chucked the sleeping bag to the side and picked up the sheet metal that Master Aki had been standing under. We ran side by side over to the youngling and tried to cover it best we could with the metal, while also keeping ourselves from getting hit too badly.
‘Galadria scared. Hurts,’ he told me, and my heart pinched. I bent down, inspecting all the burned feathers and raw skin. Ronnie could fix this. Maybe…
‘I’m going to get you out of here. Can you fly?’ Most of the younglings could hover at least.
He looked up at me sadly. ‘Was born… broken. Can’t fly. Ever.’
That was enough to send me over the edge emotionally, but I tamped it down. This headache was rocking me hard, battering at the walls I was trying to erect.
“What’s going on with you?”
Damien must have noticed I was… off.
“Breeders…” was all I offered, then I crouched. “This Galadria can’t fly, so I’m going to open a portal and we are going to throw him on the piece of sheet metal, and then we jump through.”
Damien’s eye widened. “Jump through? And what?”
I didn’t tell him, but I’d tried to reach Dawn a few times since the portal closed, with no luck.
“And hope Dawn and friends are waiting to catch us.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a lot of trust you place in these creatures. I know you have known them a while but—”
“I’ve known Dawn since I was twelve years old, Damien. I’ve spoken into her mind, shared intimate things, for over a decade. You don’t know her like I do. She will be waiting for me.”
Dawn could be dying of blood loss right now, but I knew she’d still be airborne, waiting. I had to believe that. Nothing would pull her from making sure I was okay but her own death.
He sighed.
“Do you trust me, Damien? You don’t need to trust her, but do you trust me?” My calves were getting rained on and we needed to make a quick decision.
He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”
I nodded. “Then let’s do this.”
The rain ramped up then, almost as if the breeders knew we were about to expose ourselves. Maybe they did, maybe she was in my head seeing what I was seeing. I wasn’t confident I‘d kept her out like I normally was. Taking a deep breath, I felt for those edges, the ones that tugged on my mind and signaled the parting of our two dimensions, then I ripped it wide, no longer caring to be slow or cautious. My fucking body was on fire and my head was going to explode. The second I saw the blue sky of Earth, I threw down the sheet metal and Damien and I started to heave the injured Galadria on top of it. Doing this, while in pain, while keeping the portal open, was hell, utter hell. My brain hurt, my body hurt, my soul hurt…
A wave of dizziness washed over me as Damien and I heaved the piece of sheet metal up, with the injured Galadria on it, and started to run.
Don’t pass out! I told myself. Not yet.
I just needed to get out of here and close the portal, then the breeders’ hold on my mind would be no more.
‘Kit comes back. Kit will die,’ the breeders taunted.
I didn’t like threats.
‘When Kit comes back, you’re all going to die,’ I promised, and then Damien and I jumped through an opening in the sky and started to fall.
‘Dawn! We’re falling!’ I shouted.
I tried to hold on to the sheet metal and the Galadria, but it was no use; he slipped off and was on his own.
No!
‘I see Kit!’ Dawn shouted as I looked down for the first time.
A sob formed in my throat.
Every. Single. Galadria was still in the sky and waiting for us. Every single one. It was like they had made a promise not to land without us. A blur of pink flew right under me and I spread my arms and legs trying to slow my fall and maximize my ability to grab on to her. I crashed onto her back and she yelped but I hung on. Looking over, I saw Damien do the same to a blue Galadria that had gone for him. And a purple one had gone for our injured friend, spreading her wings wide so that she could catch him.
We made it. And by the looks of it, we were near a lake. There were trees for
