Page 67 of Shadow Warrior
“I think they do.” They rushed toward me, wrapping around me in a momentarily claustrophobic hug.
Brady cried out in alarm.
“I’m fine.” I raised an arm wreathed in shadow. “They won’t hurt me.”
They … As if they were live entities. And maybe they were. They knew what I wanted and stretched out in thick tendrils, like extensions of myself, to grip the vines and force them apart.
“Indie, be careful,” Brady warned.
“Fucking A,” Carlo said.
And then I was through, stepping into a clearing shrouded in a veil of thin mist. My shadows thickened, bulking up as if in response to a threat.
“Lloyd?”
The shadows nudged me to turn slightly, then tugged me forward. They were guiding me. I spotted Lloyd hanging upside down. He was limp and still, his body making a slow circle as his blood dripped and painted the ground.
Metallic jaws were buried deep into his ankle.
“Lloyd, fuck.” I rushed forward, turned him to face me, and cupped his face.
His eyelids fluttered open. “Justice …”
“I got you.”
“Indie?” Brady’s voice floated through the vines, distant but solid.
“I’m okay.I’ve got him.”
The shadows slid up Lloyd’s body and set to work on the jaws. Pressure built in my hands, and there was a sensation of metal pressed against my fingers. It was as if I was pulling the jaws open, even though there was no way my hands could reach them.
Hold on.
The words were a whisper in my mind, but I grabbed hold of Lloyd just as he came free of the trap. I staggered, taking his weight, and then the shadows were cradling him and lowering him to the ground.
He was still bleeding, even though the claws were out of his skin. Fuck, he should be healing by now. Why wasn’t he healing? I needed to get him back to the fortress to the med wing.
The shadows drew me to the vines, and then they were parting them, allowing me through with Lloyd’s unconscious body.
I caught sight of Brady’s shocked face, and Carlo’s impressed one, and then the shadows were retreating, slipping off me like silk.
I sagged and dropped to one knee, suddenly exhausted. Head rush. This hadn’t happened in Lunar Creek. Darkness edged my vision as Devon gently pried Lloyd from my grip, but then the spot at my solar plexus began to heat, and energy slowly trickled through my veins.
The weave.
It was replenishing me.
“He’s bleeding out fast,” Carlo said.
“Go, get him back to base,” Brady ordered Devon.
“Wait.” I stood. “I can get him back quicker.”
“She’s right,” Carlo said. “She’s even faster than me in blur mode.”
Brady studied me for a second, then nodded. “Do it.”
Devon passed Lloyd back to me. I grit my teeth against the scent of his blood, closed my eyes, visualized the terrain, and then set off, pushing into blur mode.
“Hold on, Lloyd, just hold on.”
