The momentum increased until the revolutions were at such a velocity that the center could not hold. As critical acceleration was reached, there was a great clapping, as if lightning struck a tree.
Upon the sound, they broke free of the spinning and floated in a void. The state of transcendence was an impossibility to describe, and yet an undeniable experience as all opposites became one: both static and spinning, one dimension and yet three, time stopping and also racing, the two of them weightless and more dense than the earth.
Life and death, together. Coexisting. The line that separated the two states of mortality no boundary at all, the distinction disappearing.
Such that Rahvyn could merge the incompatible through her will—
Upon the table that existed and was not existent, Nate’s mouth opened wide and he drew in a tremendous breath that was loud as a yell, silent as a feather landing.
With a lurch, his torso bolted up, his eyes peeled wide, and his hands went to his stomach where he had been shot. As he breathed with desperate, hungry draws, his lungs inflated him out of his two dimensional state, the contours of him reemerging and pulling free of the flatness, the color coming back not just to his face and skin, but all that was around him.
Rahvyn watched, right by his side and from a vast distance away, as he struggled with the divide he now straddled.
And could never leave.
Both alive and dead.
Forevermore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As Erika tore off from the garage, she was running away, running as fast as she could, running for her life.
As her heart pounded and her throat burned, her shoes slapped against the pavement. With a set of car keys in one hand and a—
No, wait, she had guns in both her hands and a key fob hanging off her pinkie. Whatever, like it mattered. The only thing she cared about was getting to the silver Honda that she had to get to because if she didn’t get to the silver Honda she was never, ever going to be safe, ever again. Silver Honda was base. Silver Honda was panic room. Silver Honda was savior—
She ran faster, even though she had less than a block to go, her goal so close as her jacket flapped and her hair stripped back from her face in her self-created windstorm. And still she ran. Until it felt like the silver Honda was just getting farther and farther away.
Finally. With heaving breath, she fumbled with the key fob, hitting every button there was on it as she juggled the guns—until the trunk popped at the same time the doors unlocked. She left the back open as she threw herself behind the wheel. Slamming the driver’s door, she was more with the slapping and flapping while trying not to shoot the dashboard or herself—where was the lock button!
When there was a thunck of those latches engaging, she felt a split second of relief. It didn’t last. As she glanced out the driver’s side window, the sight of the grungy building she had come out of filled her with a terror so intense it was as if a dagger was at her throat—
Between one blink and the next, she saw Balthazar putting a sharp blade up to his neck. His mouth was moving, he was yelling, his eyes were vibrant with anger… as he confronted that brunette, the one from down under the bridge the night before, the one who had been the old man in the bookshop before she had been herself.
And then Balthazar was bleeding heavily. He was falling to his knees, and bleeding down the front of his chest…
Erika looked at the guns in her hands. Felt the weight of the clips in her pockets. Remembered the way a man she shouldn’t know had looked into her eyes as if he saw all parts of her soul.
Please let me go.
At her request, he had set her free with her memories, but the liberation was only physical. Mentally, she was trapped by what she had seen tonight, what she knew now, what she could not believe. And meanwhile, he was still in the chaos with the brunette, with those shadows, with those other fighters.
“I gotta go,” she said to the windshield. “I’ve got to leave.”
When she went to punch her foot into the brake, she was too far back to reach the pedal. She put the guns on the passenger seat and reached between her legs to find the pull bar for the seat. Scooching up, she tried again with the footwork and was able to start the engine.
Gripping the wheel, she looked forward over the Honda’s hood… but could not go forward.
Turned out she wasn’t as free as she’d thought. Not as free as Balthazar had promised.
Stuck—
One look back over her shoulder at that garage, which was disguised as just another rundown, nothing-special in the rundown, nothing-special neighborhood, and a wave of terror mobilized her.