Shit, he’s pissed. Rightly so, but at the same time, there is chaos going on all around. What did he expect? “There was screaming, and you ran off. We were worried.”
“Wait,” he holds a hand up and his eyes widen. “Are you telling me you’ve been out of the closet since I left?”
Time to face the music. Too much is going on to be petty right now. “Yeah.”
He rubs a hand down his face. “You both need to leave. Right now.”
“Not going to happen.” This situation has escalated, and they need more hands on deck. There is no way I’m leaving. “We’ve seen the demons and know things aren’t going according to plan. I’m staying to help. You need it.” I motion to the prisoners rushing past us down the hall and the reapers trying to keep up with all the reapings. They can’t.
“What do you expect to accomplish here?” He takes a step to me. “Your friend almost got hurt by a prisoner and you still want to stay.”
“But she didn’t.” I touch his shoulder. He has to know I’m making sense.
“Because I intervened.” His voice is getting louder, and his hands are forming fists. “What if I hadn’t?”
Christina licks her lips. “Hey, maybe we should go.”
“What about your parents?” I turn to her and point. “I know you don’t want to leave them like I don’t want to leave Charlie. Can you leave them behind in all this?”
Her blue eyes widen. “No.” She shakes her head. “You’re right. I can’t. If I can stay and protect them, I should.”
“You can’t help them if you distract them.” Charlie’s jaw clenches and his nostrils flare. “You both need to go.”
That’s when I hear the one sound I’ve been dreading this entire time. I look over at Charlie and reach for him as the world explodes around me. I’m slammed against the concrete wall by an invisible force. Pain radiates down me.
My ears ring.
I open my eyes. I breathe in dust as parts of the concrete ceiling fall onto me. I can’t see a dang thing. Holy shit, I think the bomb exploded and this area wasn’t protected like they expected it would be. I bet that demon had something to do with this, like he did with revealing Christina and me to the prisoners.
The first thing I have to do is find Charlie and Christina. I stay quiet trying to listen for them, but all I can hear is the damn ringing in my ears. Shit, how am I going to find them like this? I call out their names in frustration, and it sounds like I’m shouting through a tin can.
If I can’t hear them, then I have to rely on sight to find them. The dust is settling so I roll over on my knees. My body complains but I push through it. As I force myself to stand on my feet, an arm wraps around my waist. I jerk away but the hand grabs my hand pulling me to face them.
I’m not going down without a fight. As I get ready to fight whoever is attacking me, Christina’s face comes into view. Some of the stress leaves my body. She’s okay. I’m not sure how she found me, but I’m not going to question this blessing.
Her mouth moves, but I have no clue what’s she’s saying. I can now hear bits and pieces of it. “I can’t hear you.”
She grabs my hand and points to the door and tugs on my hand.
Charlie. Where’s Charlie? There’s no way this went as planned.
I scan the area and see most of the inmates laying down, severely injured as well as several reapers hurt, like me. That’s the one good thing about our kind. We are a lot more resilient, but this is still a huge blow to us.
Right in the heart of the cells is what took the hardest blow. The walls are still chipping, and smoke is billowing up. Crap, I bet that’s where most of everything is including the prisoners that still haven’t gotten through the main door.
A blond head catches my attention and runs straight into the mess. The figure so familiar that there’s no mistaking it’s Charlie.
Yeah, I can’t leave. I’m going in after him. Without a word to Christina, I break out into a jog, chasing after him before he disappears from my sight.
14
I race to keep up with him. If I lose him, who knows when I’ll find him next in all this chaos? He’s stopping to help pull people out of the debris and then racing to the next section to see who needs help. He’s weaving in and out of people and it’s a struggle just to keep him in my line of vision.
Something grabs at my waist and swings me around hard.
A deep chill courses through me as I come face to face with one of the guards.
His eyes are sunken and his movements are unnatural for a human. They’re more fluid and even tend to hover off the ground. As if the demon presence can’t stand to be tied down to the limitations of a physical form any longer.
The longer I stay here, the more uncomfortable I’ll be. I glance around and realize I’ve already lost sight of my brother. I’ll be damned if I freeze up. I elbow him in the side and spin around fast, getting out of his grip.
He stumbles back and clutches his side. His dark, beady eyes land on me with raw anger bleeding through.
Oh, yay. This is going to be great. I bet it isn’t used to feeling pain like that though. So at least that’s a small win.
After a moment, he charges me and wraps his arms around my waist.
Not knowing anything else to do, I raise both my arms up and slam my elbows into the top of his head. Then I bring his face to my knee striking him in the nose causing
