Page 122 of Awry
I open my eyes, not realizing I’ve closed them.Lines of essence are now suddenly woven through the room.In the second it takes me to get my bearings, I see a slow creep of black along the threads emanating from Chains and his two berserkers.
Well, that’s uncomfortably new.
But the slow creep of those pending deaths makes one thing immediately clear.
I can stop this.
“Zaya,” Rought murmurs from behind me, concerned.
Theknowingtugs on me, gently but in three separate directions — Presh, DeVille, and Kris.I need to get them out of the building.
Presh curls her fingers around mine, and I spare a moment to offer her what I hope is a comforting smile.“Stay with me,” I whisper.
She nods tentatively.“Do I need to close my eyes?”
Theknowingshoves at me, pushing me in the direction of the bathrooms and presumably the rear exit beyond.“Grab DeVille.”
Presh instantly wraps her hand around DeVille’s.
Without looking at her, I grab Kris and attempt to tug her away from Doc Z and toward DeVille.Even after desperately flirting with him all evening, the teen shifter resists me, yanking her arm free from me with a short, terrified scream.
She stumbles to the side, instantly snagging Chains’s and the berserkers’ attention.But they quickly look to me.
“Already, twist?”Chains laughs, leering.“Practically begging for it, ain’t she?”
Doc lunges for Kris, grabbing her arm and snarling under her breath, “Go with —”
It’s too late.
Theknowingslams into me, and all I can do is move with it, taking Presh and DeVille with me.I turn and walk off the dance floor, cutting back through the tables.Not running, but moving at a steady pace.The bikers close ranks around us as we go.Rought and Cayley shift forward to back Rath.
We’re at the start of the hall when Chains smashes a potion vial on the floor at Rath’s feet.He must have had it tucked in his hand.Black shadowy essence pours from the vial, instantly flooding the floor.
Presh screams a warning and tries to tug away from me.I keep moving.Theknowinghas me in its grasp, and I’m not foolhardy enough to try to manipulate or even bend it to my will.Not yet.
Two more vials crack on the floor behind us.Presh is thrashing against my hold.DeVille, surprisingly focused, flips her up over his shoulder and grabs my hand instead.
She shrieks again.
DeVille snarls.“Keep your fucking mouth shut and hold your fucking breath, princess.”
I don’t glance back.I already know what’s happening behind us.It’s the sharp cries of pain that really sell it.Shifters typically have a high tolerance for pain, likely because they start transforming in their late teens.Even though they harness their internal essence to do so, rearranging your entire physical being into a completely different form hurts.
But I don’t turn back, because theknowing— thick threads of it still wrapped around Presh and DeVille, even while the tie to Kris thins with every step — pushes me, pushes me, pushes me all the way to the club’s back door.
The universe wants, maybe even needs, Presh and DeVille to survive whatever is about to happen.But fate and destiny are always somewhat malleable — free will and all that — and Kris clearly made a different choice in the moment.
I get a flash of memory, of a note I recently jotted on a piece of motel stationery.For Doc.At the behest of the universe.
Choice, not fate, not love or devotion, twists the path.
And not always in the way intended.
I shove the unhelpful recollection away.
Behind us, the hallway lights start to wink out, though from the blackened essence swelling behind us, not any sort of electrical issue.DeVille is squeezing my hand so hard that he’s grinding my bones together.Presh has gone quiet.
The miasma of dire magic keeps filling, keeps flooding into the hall behind us.We pass the bathrooms and a couple of offices on our left.I can see the glow of the emergency exit sign just ahead.
