I can’t see the demon for more than a few seconds. Tears coat my eyes, not falling, distorting my vision until I have to blink. My lungs burn so much from lack of air. Why doesn’t the berserker just break my neck already and be done with it? But he’s reaching around, fumbling, grabbing. He yanks Sophie to the other side, his one hand choking me, the other Sophie.
Zas just stands there.
I can’t say anything. I can’t do anything. Worst of all, I can’t even breathe.
I’m seconds away from dying.
And then… the berserker’s on his knees.
His grip is gone.
I fall to the ground, coughing, gasping, sputtering for air. As I race the three steps over to Sophie, I somehow fall twice. My arm around her, I help her to walk toward the open window, and I try to shove her through.
She can’t go.
I shove my arm through the window opening. I can’t reach through.
Sophie tries to do the same.
“Something’s blocking me,” she murmurs.
“By the breeze.” I mumble a curse.
The demon lords above the berserker. A puddle of blood comes from the berserker’s hunched over form. I don’t even want to know what the demon did to him.
Zas just shakes his head. “Did you really think it would be that easy?”
“Think? No. Hope? Yes.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Are you that naïve?”
“You think hope is being naïve? Look around us! Hope is all we have because we don’t stand a prayer of a chance of—”
“Don’t talk to me about prayers,” he grumbles, “unless you’re going to consider yourself an answer to my prayers. You owe me.”
“For that lie I didn’t ask for? I don’t think so.”
“For saving your lives.” He shifts his gaze to Sophie. “Both of your lives.”
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t ask—”
“You didn’t ask because you couldn’t. You were being choked to death. Like it or not, Sequoia, you owe me.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that, “Yes, Sequoia does owe you,” but I can’t. I’ve already put the poor guard through so much. I’m not about to lay even more at her feet.
Sequoia doesn’t owe her life to a demon.
I do.
As much as I hate it. As much as I despise him.
Do I, though? He might not truly be here for a crime that he committed.
But surely he’s committed other crimes.
“Does my past matter now?” he asks. “You’re here. You want out. You two are breaking out. Well, it’s now the three of us unless you want to die.”
“You’ll let the others come and kill us,” Sophie says.
“No,” I murmur. “He’ll do it himself, won’t you, Zas?”
His grin is cruel, or is it merely desperate? I can’t tell.
My hand rubs against my throat. The skin there is still raw from the berserker's death grip.
“Either all three of us break out, or none of us will,” he says cheerfully. “Or, if you prefer, one of you can die to serve as motivation to the other so that two of us can escape. How does that sound? Which is it going to be?”
Sophie and I glance at each other. The thought of releasing a demon goes against everything in me that has started to become a true guard of Magical Prison. Yet, it’s Zas. Given that he might’ve been here and be innocent means that maybe I shouldn’t have qualms helping him.
“Time is a-ticking,” he says.
Just then, a gasping, heaving for breath, bleeding Honorox appears at the top of the steps. “What’s going on in here?” he asks. “Zas! You need to—”
The demon reaches out, punches straight through the minotaur’s chest, and yanks out his heart. The minotaur slumps to his knees and then falls downward.
I think Sophie might shriek, but. I can’t be sure. Maybe I’m the one to cry out.
My shock fades away quickly, replaced by fury. I stalk over toward the demon even though the movement causes my broken wrist to flop about, causing sparks of burning pain to race up my arm and down into my fingers.
“You didn’t need to do that!”
“Didn’t I?” Zas kicks to shove Honorox to the side and slams the doors shut. With a few more kicks, he moves the minotaur into place to serve as a kind of door jam.
“No, you didn’t!” I snap. “And if you think I’m going to help you after that—”
“Consider it motivation because she’s next if you don’t,” he snarls in a low, dangerous tone. He looks every bit the part of the demon that he is. “And don’t even try to stop me. You’re both injured. You’re without plants. You’ll never stand a chance.”
I glance at Sophie. She’s hovering, but even her low flight seems to lack its normal luster. She’s in pain, and so am I. He’s right. We probably can’t take him even with the knife and dagger. We just don’t know how to use weapons. Lack of training doesn’t help us, and we aren’t in our element. In a forest, even injured, we would stand a chance, but here? No. We’re stuck.
“Why are you here?” he demands. “What about this place do you think holds the key to breaking out?”
I exhale a breath. “There’s a tunnel—”
"Wouldn't a tunnel be underground?" he comments skeptically. "Do you want me to hold her as insurance for only the truth to come out of your lips?"
“I’m a fairy!” I protest.
“If even one ancestor wasn’t, you might be able to lie.”
I grit my teeth. “Just because you’re a demon and lying comes to you as naturally as breathing doesn’t mean the rest of us are like you.”
“There’s a tunnel here. She’s telling the truth,” Sophie says.
“Well then, where is it?”
“That’s the issue. We have to find it.”
The demon crosses over to the window. “You better hurry and find it. There’s a fire burning on one of the floors.”
“Which one?” I blurt out.
"What does it matter?" he asks, slowly turning his head to eye me. "Get to looking. I'm not going to go out of my way to defend you if others come here."
“I hope Castiel breaks free and—”
"Are you certain he's even alive? You did leave him gift-wrapped and with a bow in that cell of his."
I gape at Zas. “You played me, didn’t you? You really did influence him?”
He scowls. “Believe what you want about me. I don’t care, but I’m getting out of here with or without you two. If you want out as badly as I think you do, you’ll get a move on.”
Sophie and I exchange a glance. She nods, and we examine the desk, pulling out drawers. We head to the shelves and pull out books, turning them on their sides and then dropping them to the ground, thud after thud sounding as we look for a button or latch.
But we find nothing at all.
In frustration, I pick up a book and chuck it across the room. The book flutters open, almost looking like a bird.
It lands near Zas.
With a smirk, I throw a few more books. None hit him, though.
“Are you finished?” he asks, sounding bored.
“No.”
I pick up another book. This time, it would have collided with the demon, only Zas blocks it with his arm, and it smashes into the picture of the previous warden. The frame shifts.
Zas tilts his head, eyeing it. I don’t like the smile curling his lips, and I fly over. There’s something about the wall here. It’s different from the rest.
I lower the picture frame to reveal a handle, but it won’t budge an inch.
“Too weak,” I call over my shoulder, but the demon doesn’t make a move to help.
Sophie comes over, but instead of trying to add her strength to the handle, she removes the other picture frame. There’s another handle there.
“Maybe we have to try at the same time,” I suggest.
“You better hurry,” Zas says dryly. “I feel footsteps.”
“Feel?”
“This room is mostly soundproof,” he says. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Yes, but you said feel.”
“Vibrations. Do you fairies fly so much that you forgot that footsteps can cause vibrations?” he mocks.
I scowl.
“Something big. Probably too much for you two to handle,” he continues in that same infuriating tone.
“Can you sense death?” I ask him softly.
“What?”
"Can you sense death? You're evil. You have an affinity for it. Can you sense death?"
“Death isn’t good or evil. It’s outside of that realm altogether. We all live, and we all die.”
“Can you sense it or not?”
He eyes me. “You’re asking this now when lives are on the line, when her life is, yours even? We could be in that tunnel right this very second, but you’re asking because you want to know if your friends are alive?”
Zas says nothing more. I say nothing. Sophie glances at us both, but she’s silent too.
"I will tell you this much," the demon finally utters. "Other guards have fallen than just the one I slew."
My stomach twists at that. I figured as much, but…
“How many prisoners have been freed?” I murmur, facing the handle rather than the demon.”
“Not many, but I suggest you get to this. The footsteps sound seem to be closer now.”
I nod to Sophie. “On the count of three. One, two, three!”
I try, but it just won’t go.
We try again and again. Nothing works.
I grit my teeth. “Come on, Zas. You try. My wrist… I can’t! I just can’t!”
“Then we aren’t getting out of here.”
“Then neither are you because you need two—”
“You two are expendable, or did you forget that? I can find another. There’s a certain demon who might like to be set free. Brokon.”
I scowl.
“Ah, so you know of him, do you?”
“You don’t know where he is.”
“Ah, but I do. He’s in solitary, and I’ve been there myself, so I know the way back down there. I suggest you try again.”
A thud slams against the door.
There’s no time.
I glance at Sophie. We have no choice. Now, it's truly do or die time.
The door shatters. A swarm of harpies rushes in. Their wings give me an idea, and I shift over to Sophie.
“Call back your birds if you can, but have them bring plants. Living plants.”
She nods, eyes wide.
The harpies flood toward us, ignoring Zas, of course, and I use my dagger to try to get them to back away. Heavy footsteps, huh? Just what is Zas trying to play at? Lying? And how did the harpies manage to open those heavy doors with Honorox against it? He’s as big as a real ox!
But now that the doors are open, I can hear footsteps, screams, death shrills, and clanging blades. There's a real battle going on.
The birds caw, and I can sense the plants before I can even see them. Immediately, I grow a vine, making it long and thick. Sophie’s even faster. Her vine is entangling some of the harpies together and even manages to knock some of their heads together. It would’ve been comical except we’ve truly run out of time.
The hellhounds are coming. I can feel the heat of their fire.
“Ignore them!” I shout. I use my vine to grip the handle.
Sophie grips hers.
Without counting, we turn as if we’re one, and the wall to the left opens.
Zas is there instantly, plunging into the opening.
Just in case the handles have to be turned for the opening to be accessed, I use another vine to keep hers turned.
Holding hands, Sophie and I race over to the opening. We jump down what turns out to be a chute. Up above us, I can hear the hellhounds enter, and I fly back up enough that I cause the vines to collapse.
The opening seals shut. A whine sounds. Aw, did it pinch one of the hellhound’s snouts? So sad.
I fly on down as quickly as I can to rejoin Sophie. The chute goes on forever and ever, but then it curls to the right, the chute now giving way to the tunnel. We have to crawl through, there's not enough room to use our wings, and eventually, I can see a light shining from above us.
Only the light then turns into darkness.
I can hear Zas laugh.
He’s blocked the way.
But it doesn’t matter. I can feel grass beneath the rock blocking the exit, and it’s so very simple to use chlorokinesis against the rock.
Only I can’t.
I’m too weak from fighting. Too spent from the glamor drainage. Too ready to collapsing.
So I release the glamor. It’s a huge weight off my shoulders, but it’s not enough to truly make me one hundred percent.
But I can move the rock now.
And I do.
Hand in hand, Sophie and I climb up out of the tunnel. The rock settles back into place as I hug Sophie and take in the beautiful fresh air and the sight of the trees around us. Nature. Glorious nature.
“We did it,” I murmur.
“You did it,” Sophie corrects.
I grin. “We broke out!”
As I turn, I can see Magical Prison in the near distance. We broke out, yes, but the battle isn’t over. There’s the threat of war we have to deal with yet, but for now, we’re free, and it feels glorious.
The story concludes with Breaking Even!
The Magical Prison series is part of my A Mayhem of Magic World Story universe which starts with my Bedlam in Bethlehem series. It’s so much fun to keep expanding this world!
Please consider leaving a review if you enjoyed Breaking Out! I love to read my reviews. Thank you!
Until next book,
~Nicole