Page 82 of Spoils of war
For a second, I pretended I could feel it.
But it didn’t last.
Near a vendor stall, a group of soldiers stood clustered together, rifles slung across their backs. One of them turned, tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair curling at his collar. His eyes swept the crowd.
And then they landed on me.
Everything stopped.
It wasn’t Arche. I knew that, but my body didn’t.
The world tilted. Blurred. His stare sliced through me like a blade, straight to the bone. My lungs stopped working. My feet wouldn’t move. The air thickened, choking, turning to smoke. Everything around me turned into a haze. His stare cut straight through me, clean to the bone, and I couldn’t breathe. The air shifted, thickened, turned to smoke in my lungs.
I was backthere.
I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t pull myself back. The market fell away. I wasn’t standing beside Will anymore. I sawhim. I saw his uniform. His stance. His eyes. I could feel him all over me. His weight. His breath.
The snap of leather.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Arche.
It wasn’t him,but it was. Not his face, not his voice, but my body didn’t care. My body only remembered rough hands and cold steel and fire.
My vision went white and I heard nothing but the pulse in my ears.
And Iran.
I shoved past a child, barely noticing the startled cry. A woman shouted after me, but her voice dissolved into the noise around me. My legs moved on instinct, pounding against the cobblestones. I had to get away. I had to get out.
The air felt wrong, like it was being pulled straight out of my lungs. My ribs tightened until it felt like they were caving in, stabbing into my heart.
“Kera!” Will’s voice tore through the chaos, but I couldn’t stop running. I couldn’t. I wasn’t even in my body anymore.
I was back.
Back on the floor. Back in the smoke. Back where he,they,had me.
I turned into an alley and I nearly collapsed, as the walls narrowed, trapping me. My knees hit the stone and I pressed my palms against it, as if it would stop the world from spinning.
I clutched my chest, nails digging into my skin, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel my body, and yet I felt everything.
He was there. He was going to take me again. He was going tolaughwhile he did it, while the world burned.
While they all died.
I curled in on myself, pulling my knees tight to my chest and tucking my face against them, shutting the world out as I tried to breathe. Tried to find something solid to hold on to.
And then I heard Will again. His voice, calling my name, and something inside me snapped. Fury erupted in my chest, sudden and hot, like it had been waiting for the right moment to explode. I wasn’t running anymore.
I was burning.
"You shouldn’t have left!” I snapped at him. “You should never have left.”
“I know,” he retorted. “Don’t you think I know that? Can’t you see that I’m drowning in it too?”
“Don’t leave again,” I cried. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. “Don’t you dare—”
