Page 75 of Shadow Weaver
“Focus.”
“Right.” He climbed off Athos, and I joined him.
“I can’t control this,” Kash said. “Once I start siphoning, it will get everyone in my radius.”
The Academy was prepared for it. The students had been told to either sit or lie down to avoid injury if they lost consciousness.
“I know.” I sat on the ground. “I’m ready.”
Athos lowered himself beside me. I swear he understood every word coming out of my mouth.
Kash looked at his watch. “It’s time.”
Dark shapes materialized around us, running toward us.
The infected. They were headed this way.
A hulking figure raced out of the mist toward me. I threw up my hands instinctively, but a dark blur intercepted it.
I recognized the back of that dark tousled head.
Aidan.
Carlo appeared beside him. They fought off the infected.
“Justice.” Devon hauled me to my feet. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “We need to get down. All of us.”
“What?”
I tugged him to the ground as a blast of energy skimmed over us, ruffling the air.
The rune on the wards was active.
The mist filled with bloodcurdling screams and angry, pain-filled roars that tore at my ears. The black-veined cadets who’d been fighting Carlo and Aidan fell to the ground and began to convulse.
I looked to Kash. “Now!”
He scooped the herb from the pot and slapped it onto his cheek. “Fuck. Shit, it burns.”
“Carlo, Aidan, get down.”
The guys hit the dirt.
Kash closed his eyes, and the screams intensified.
It was working. Black shit began to rise into the air. Kash’s body began to shake, and my vision began to dim. He was taking … He was draining, and then I was floating in the darkness, and the weave was pulsing faster and faster as if in warning.
Kash.
Kash was in danger. The siphoning was going to kill him. I didn’t know how I knew. I just did. The knowledge unfurled in my mind, and the answer to helping him followed.
I had to find him. There, the red thread. I had to touch it. I needed to connect with it. With every ounce of will, I drew myself along my own dull thread toward the bright red one.
Danger, it said.
Death.
