Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
And there was no time to devise and plan.
No time to deflect or anticipate.
None of us were prepared for the fiery tendril that streaked from the sky.
One that struck me in the side, as deep as a blade.
Chapter Thirty-One
Pax
The tendril whipped out of nowhere, striking down from above, aimed directly at Aria, who was a few feet out in front of me.
“Aria!” I shouted, my chest in a clutch of anxiety.
But the warning came too late. There was no way for her to get out of the way before the belt of fire struck the lower left side of her abdomen.
Horror squeezed my heart as I watched her grip the spot where she’d been hit.
Her hands pressed to it as blood gushed from between her fingers, her eyes wide with shock and pain as she stared at me like she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
We were both held in it.
In this devastating awareness that passed between us as evil hovered overhead.
One second later, she floundered one step to her left. A blip away from losing consciousness.
It snapped me out of the trance.
I ran for her, but I didn’t make it before she toppled over, landing hard on her side, then flopping onto her front.
Unmoving.
Panic assailed my spirit as I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Aria! Aria!” Frantic, I rolled her over.
Nothing.
No movement.
I patted her cheek to try to get her to open her eyes.
“Aria. Please. Baby, please,” I begged as my fingers went to her neck. Couldn’t get them to stop trembling as I searched for a pulse.
It was present, but thready and bare.
Terror slicked down my spine, and I ripped up her shirt to reveal where she’d been struck, and a gush of distraught air blew from my lungs.
“No.” It raked out of me on a low cry. “No, baby, no.”
The wound was gaping, but different from when we were burned in Faydor. It was deep. Flayed open. Blood pouring out.
I pressed my hands against it to try to stop the flow.
“Oh my God,” Dani rasped from where she’d run up behind us.
I blinked through the agony. Through the torment. “We have to get her to the hospital.”
It was a terrible fucking option. She’d be ripped away from me. Incarcerated or committed after what had happened at the mental facility. She’d be vulnerable, and Ambrose or whoever he sent would get to her.
Every fucking ignorant hope I’d let bloom inside me lost, but I couldn’t give in to all the turmoil that wanted to hold me back from taking her there.
Because the alternative wasn’t acceptable. She had to live. It was the only thing that mattered in this moment.
Saving her.
I’d deal with figuring out the rest later.
I tore off my shirt and balled it against her stomach, pressing hard as I scooped her up in my other arm and stood.
She felt too heavy and too light.
Those sweet, delicate arms didn’t wrap around my neck the way they normally did.
They were limp. The same as her head, which bounced listlessly as I ran.
Ran through the fields toward Dani’s car.
Dani and Timothy were right there, racing beside me, their gazes slanting to me with every pounding footstep.
Dread poured from their beings.
Heavy and harsh.
We ran through it, Timothy pushing himself faster so he could get the door on the rear passenger side open to have it ready when I got there. I ducked through it with Aria on my lap.
Timothy slammed the door shut and hopped in the front passenger side. Dani was already inside and had the car started and in gear. The tires spun in the dirt as she gunned it, and she made a U-turn in the middle of the field, the car jostling back across the uneven terrain as she headed for the road.
While I held Aria in my arms. Begging and begging her. “Stay with me. Please, you got to hold on. You can’t leave. This world needs you. I need you.”
I hugged her to me, rocking her, my mouth at the top of her head as I kept breathing the unintelligible words into her.
Begging her to stay.
Pleading with her to be okay.
Her wound was pressed tight against my abdomen. I could feel the sticky warmth of her blood saturating my stomach and crawling down into the waistband of my jeans. Could feel it spreading with every second that passed.
Dani flew, even faster than she had the first time. Though there was silence in the car as we blew down the two-lane road. A baited disquiet that clawed through the dense, suffocating air.
“What the hell is that?” Timothy asked as he sat forward, peering through the windshield.
A woman was in the distance, pulled off to the side of the road. She came up fast since we were traveling at such a high speed.
She stood at the back of a big white work van.