His body bowed and he crashed down to one knee. Marley jerked her hand free of his clenching grip and kicked him over. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
She scrambled out of his reach, but stopped, looking over her shoulder to where Ian still fought with Pointy Ears. The other man closed in, forcing Ian slowly into a corner between the rock face and a nearby stand of flaming trees.
You don’t wait for me. You run.
She’d promised him, but run where? For how long? How was she supposed to survive out here alone? And even if she could get back to the car, how would she navigate the Mirus world without him? More to the point, how could she walk away from the one person who’d never left her behind?
Gripping the stun gun in one hand and covering her mouth with the other, she raced back toward them. No one was paying attention as she darted in behind Pointy Ears. But Ian sure as hell noticed when she jammed the stun gun against the guy’s shoulder, took him down to the ground.
“I told you t
o run!” said Ian.
“Yell at me later!”
“Move!”
Ian tucked a hand under her arm, dragging her up, propelling her to a run. Gunfire and shouting broke out behind them. Marley saw a bullet thump into his pack, another ping off and splinter a tree trunk a mere foot from her head. Ian kept moving toward the fire, into the gray haze billowing up to cloak the trees.
“Are you crazy?” She meant to shout it, but broke down coughing.
The heat beat down like a fist as they stumbled through the smoke. Did he honestly think they could outrun the fire? The whipping wind made certain it had the lead and would keep it. The air already scalded her throat, making it hard to breathe, and her eyes watered from the acrid smoke. Yet Ian moved through it easily, barely sparing the flames a glance.
Something cracked above them. Marley screamed and dove into Ian to knock him clear of the plummeting branch. They hit the ground, a tangle of limbs. The branch crashed onto her legs, setting her pants on fire. She had no breath to scream. Bucking free of the burning debris, she began to roll, frantically patting at the flames.
“Marley. Marley!” She could barely hear Ian over the roar of the flames.
He gripped her tight by the arms to stop her frenetic movement, then reached out to lay a palm to her cheek. His eyes flared silver. “See.”
His touch was a balm, strangely cool in the heat of the fire. He did…something. Marley felt him push. And suddenly the flames, the fire, even the branch that had crashed to the ground, were gone.
She stared, flabbergasted.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“What the hell?”
“It’s an illusion.”
“But it burned me,” she said, examining the hole in her jeans, the skin angry and red beneath.
“Your mind believed it was real, so your body responded in kind. I’ve extended my shields to encompass you, but the others are still in it.”
“Wow, that’s—you’re bleeding.” Dismissing the fire, her burns, Marley scrambled up to check his shoulder. Now that smoke wasn’t hazing her vision, she could see the blood running freely down his back and arm. “You’ve been shot!”
He brushed off her concern. “I’ve had worse. C’mon. We need to put as much distance between us and them as possible. Maintaining this is taking a hell of a lot of juice and I don’t know how much longer I can hold it. We’ve got to keep moving.”
~*~
Rain fell in heavy sheets, whiting out the view of anything beyond the entrance of the cave. As they ducked inside, Ian let go of the illusion and felt his nerve endings crackle from burnout. Too much, too long. Not the slow starvation of D.C. but an epic expenditure of power that left him hollowed out and raw, mere shades away from ravening animal. Not since he was first turned had it been this bad.
Adrenaline waning, he dropped the pack and fell to his knees. Blood loss from the bullet wound didn’t help. He couldn’t think past the burn in his shoulder, the ache in his leg.
“Ian, stay with me. If you pass out, I can’t move you.”
The rain would buy them a little time, help obliterate the scent.
“Ian.” Marley’s hand tapping none too gently at his cheek. “Tell me what to do.”