Page 27 of Wings of Lies
Shit! I shrugged off his touch and waved my hands around, begging them to go out.“Come on!”
“Lucy! They’re almost on us!”
I bent over my knees, heaving, keeping my flaming hands in front of me. “Something’s wrong. I can’t breathe.”
“It’s called panicking. Calm down, take control, and breathe!”
“I am breathing!”
My white flames shuddered. Purple intertwined with the white.
“Damn it, Lucy, that’s not even closeto what I said!”
“What you saidsucked! Fix this! Make it stop!” I yelled, staring at my traitorous powers, unable to rub at the pressure pushing down on my chest.
“Keep those away from me, okay?” Oliver scooped me in his arms and luscelered away.
We blurred through the forest. I held my hands as far away from our hair and bodies as possible.
Lightning hit a tree to our left. I yelped, jerking my head into Oliver’s chest and shielding my face from the exploding shards.
“Marriage-carrying you is slowing us down! They’ll catch up to us if you can’t figure out how to put out that crazy heat and channel that power into running.” With my ear to his lungs, he wasn’t lying. I could hear the toll this took.
“I don’t know how.”
“You need to need it.”
Oh, my heavenly hell. I wanted to shake him.Need it. Need it.How much more could I possibly need it? The answers to my past and my mom were in Elora, and these elementals, whatever they were, stood in our way. Of course, I wanted to move. Of course, I needed?—
Oliver flinched, and I fell.
I slammed into the ground, tumbling across roots and pine needles. A trunk the size of my wrist caught the last of my momentum, snapping into my back. I gasped.
“Lucy! Are you okay?” Oliver blurred to my side, kneeling beside me, hands hovering in the air. “I’m sorry! So sorry. I didn’t mean to drop you, but your skin was blazing. I didn’t know if you were seconds from erupting or something. You scorched my hands through your clothing.”
Groaning, I rolled off the miniature tree I broke with my back. “I tried to need it. But I think I only made the squeezing pressure worse.”
“You panicked?”
“Sure.”
Oliver reached for me, thought better of it, and stood. “At least your flames are put away.” He nodded down to my grimy, lightless hands.
Yay, no more suffocating, needle-poking pressure, only shock and pain shooting into my back from being thrown into a tree.
“Think you can try luscelering again?” he asked, peering around at the ominous sky. The wind blew on a gentle breeze, no longer an angry tempest.
I stood, poking at the base of my spine, flinching. “I’ll try.”
Oliver held out his hand. “When you’re ready.”
As I was about to place my hand in his and dive into my power, my hair stood erect. Thunder roared with deafening force as lightning flashed, crashing down on us.
I don’t know how I did it, but I moved out of the way—fast.
Oliver grinned like a fool, despite the fact we almost became charred flesh, and grabbed my hand. “That was need. Now you’re going to do it again. I’m not letting go. So, either it’s run with me, or I rip your arm out of its socket while I drag you.”
Wonderful.
