Page 95 of Shadows of Nightshade
It was going to collapse. The air shrieked as it grabbed and pulled at our ankles. The presence was trying to take us down. We couldn’t fall. We’d be trapped in here with it.
“Bianca!” Finn wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me from the ground. However, instead of setting me back to my feet, the wind was knocked from me as he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I was too scared to be offended, or even embarrassed. In fact, I barely registered his short whistle and the following flash of light diving back behind us as we stumbled forward into the brightly lit kitchen.
22
We might have escapedfrom the basement, but we were far from safe. Finn did not stop running until we reached the backyard. It was only when the grasping force had dwindled down into almost nothing that his steps slowed.
I pressed my fists against his back and pushed my chest off his shoulder. I ignored the rain pelting against my face as I stared behind us. Professor Hamway’s yard was abundant in trees, but the branches were mostly bare for the upcoming winter, so there was no protection from the elements. I was watching for signs that anything had followed.
“What was that?” I asked.
Finn’s frame tensed as his hold shifted, and an instant later, I was back on my feet while he stepped away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “You’re really clumsy.”
I frowned. That was not true, and he knew it. “Anyone would have tripped.”
“I didn’t,” he pointed out.
That was because he was naturally gifted in athletics. What Iwouldn’t give to see him fall flat on his face at least once. And I would have told him so too, but there was a twinging pain in the center of my chest that was growing harder to ignore.
I turned my attention back toward the house and pushed my fist against my sternum. The pressure helped, at least. We were standing in the middle of a downpour, but it hadn’t been raining when I went to bed.
“What do we do now?” I asked. I didn’t have my phone or student card with me, so there was no way to swipe into my dorm room or contact Damen. Maybe the guys were looking for me? But it was unlikely they realized I was even gone.
Instead of answering, Finn grabbed my wrist. “What’s wrong?” he asked, attention riveted to my chest.
My skin grew clammy under his scrutiny—it wasn’t like this nightshirt was made of hardy fabric—and I stuttered, “W-what?”
There’d only been one time I’d been this close to being unclothed around him.
“Why are you holding yourself like that?” There was a panicked edge in his expression, and I wasn’t sure why. But the way his features drew together in pinched concern scared me.
“N-no reason,” I said. The pain was already getting better, so why was he acting this way?
“Are you taking your medication?” Finn grabbed my shoulders, fingers tight, as he stared into my face.
This was the third time he’d asked me this question, but, this time, I could truly see the terror in his eyes. Why was this so important to him? “N-no.”
His complexion turned ashen, and he brought his hand to his forehead. “Bianca”—Although he was the one who’d betrayed me, why was he looking at me like I’d hurt him worst—“why?”
“I-I don’t want to,” I reasoned, and that should be enough of an answer. Nothing bad had happened so far. “I’m okay.”
Why was I reassuring him?
It didn’t work. Finn was not comforted. His jaw locked, and his expression closed into a blank mask. “Fine,” he said. A short movement rippled along the bottom of my feet, quick and vanishing, and the outside atmosphere changed.
Finn squared his shoulders as he held his arms out by his side. “Then I’ll just have to do it the hard way.”
I bit my lip. Do… what?
He did not explain. He looked at the rain, at the bare branches towering above us, and his jaw locked.
What did he see?
A crack popped against my ears, and the wind knocked me from my feet as I was suddenly pulled into Finn’s embrace. We fell to the ground, him over me, as a thick branch crashed to the ground where we’d just been standing.
“Stay down,” Finn told me, and when he jumped to his feet, he had a long sword ready in his grasp. Not even once in the entire time I’ve known him had I ever seen Finn use a weapon—he didn’t even fence! He’d always been into fisticuffs and more personal methods.
