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The numbers above the elevator door count down like seconds on a ticking bomb. Luke stands next to me, breathing heavily, struggling with Aydan’s weight. The doors slide open. My tension deflates like a popped balloon. The cabin is empty. We hurry inside, press the button to the ground floor.
Suddenly, Aydan’s eyes spring open. They swivel around from Luke to me. “W-what—” he sputters, coughs. Face twisted in pain, disgust or both, he pushes away from Luke. He sets Aydan down and tries to steady him. Aydan swats him away.
Luke takes a step back, holds his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “All right. All right.”
Aydan sways on his feet, presses his back to the back of the cabin to avoid a fall. In spite of his shaky stance, he manages to stay upright.
He looks down at his chest. “Shit. Oh, shit.”
I want to tell him he’ll be fine, but the elevator is almost there. I stand at the ready. There’s a ding. The doors open onto the marble-floored lobby. We step out cautiously. No one’s around, and I can’t believe our luck.
“This way.” I point toward one of the side exits. The front doors are always guarded by several Eklyptors. Each side door has at most one guard, none when they get overconfident.
I slink to the side, already imagining stepping out of the building and breathing the clean air. We can make it. We will make it.
“Damn it, let me help you!” Luke says in an aggravated whisper.
I glance back and realize they didn’t follow me out of the elevator. I rush back. Aydan is standing in a corner of the cabin, shying away from Luke.
“C’mon, we’re getting you out of here,” Luke insists.
“W-where?” Aydan looks as terrified as a child. “You . . . you’re Hailstone.”
“Aydan!” I mock whisper. “He’s helping us. It’s okay. C’mon, before someone comes.”
He looks at me. His upper lip curls up as he shakes his head. “No,” he says in a loud but raspy voice.
I look over my shoulder. Someone will hear us. For a moment, I stand frozen, a cold, sharp sensation sliding down my back. I blink slowly. My gaze flashes back to Aydan, his bare feet, his torn chest, his dark, inexpressive eyes.
“Aydan.” His name becomes nothing but a wisp of air brushing past my lips. The cold sensation seeps into my bones and makes itself comfortable.
He begins to scream.
His hoarse voice is weak at first but quickly rises to an angry, desperate cry. “He-here! Somebody! Q-quick!”
Luke’s blue eyes open wide as he stares at Aydan in bewilderment. “What the . . . ?”
I growl in anger, impotence, pain.
Not Aydan. Not him!
“Luke, run!” I shout, then turn away from this nightmare and run myself.
Tears spill down my face, blurring my vision. Luke is suddenly at my side, running, throwing confused glances over his shoulder.
“What the hell just happened?” he asks.
My throat is closing. My lungs screaming for oxygen.
“Somebody! They’re getting a-away!” Aydan screams behind us.
It’s not Aydan. It’s not him, I tell myself, because the betrayal feels too real, though it’s no betrayal at all. It isn’t him trying to give us away. It’s the thief, the creature that’s been living inside him, waiting for just this opportunity.
Our boots thump against the floor as we run toward a metal door marked with an exit sign. The door seems to stretch away as the sound of other steps and voices fill the hall.
I cast a backward glance and see a swarm of black-uniformed Eklyptors headed in our direction. The buzzing in my head picks up and rages out of control. I try to turn it off, but I can’t seem to remember how. I’m breaking from the inside, splitting in two, and the fractures that have started in my core are spreading outward like an earthquake from its epicenter. Soon, my skin will crack open and all the hope I didn’t know I’d been harboring will spill out.
Aydan. Aydan. Aydan, his name is a beating force inside my head, two syllables full of denial. He can’t be gone. He can’t.
A barrage of shots sprays over my head. I crouch and keep running. The bullets strike the wall in front of us. Plaster and wooden splinters rain on us. I fire two shots backward, without looking.
Luke wraps his arms around his head and stops. He shrinks, making himself as small as possible. I keep on moving, Aydan’s face flashing before my eyes: his black eyes, his red lips tipped into a rare smile.
He isn’t gone!
Bullets ping at my feet. They ricochet and hit the walls at my sides.
He’s still there. Still there.
“Marci, stop! There’s no point.” Luke pleads.
Something hot hits my ear, hissing, stinging. My hand flies to the side of my head. Warm, wet blood stains my fingers, Dad’s t-shirt. I stop and fall to my knees, dropping my guns. If I die, I won’t be able to help Aydan. He would be lost forever, and I can’t let that happen. I am not losing him, too. I’ve lost enough already. I won’t allow Eklyptors to take anything else from me.