“This isn’t up for debate,” Clara says curtly. “Your pretty face and pathetic pleas aren’t going to get you out of it this time.”
“Please,” I say, knowing they don’t understand that simple word, but trying anyway.
“The clock is ticking, Everlasting,” Bael says grimly. “Make your choice, or I’ll kill them both.” He taps his imaginary watch on his wrist.
The weight of the world seems to suspend in the air between us. It’s crushing. Suffocating.
And I can’t catch the seconds slipping past me quick enough.
“Faye,” my mother says softly. “Faye, look at me.”
I’m trying to, but these stupid tears won’t stop.
“Ten. Nine. Eight.” It’s Bael, showing me he knows how to count again.
“Faye, I love you. I always will,” my mother says in a rushed, shaky tone.
“Mary,” my father says, fear snaking through his words.
This isn’t happening. It can’t.
“Six. Five. Four.”
“Faye, you’ve always been a Hunter at heart. Be brave. Finish this for me.” Her words are as empty and as deep as a dried-up well. A well I want to throw myself into. Anything to not have to face this. Not have to make this choice. This impossible choice.
But life doesn’t come with a pause button.
“MARY! NO!” my father shouts out as time seems to suspend, allowing every worst nightmare I’ve ever had to crawl out of the closet in my mind.
Bael pulls out the gun that will end all that I’ve worked to save. Points it at my father’s head.
The hair on my arms rises as magic floods the room.
At the same time, my mother turns, chanting a spell strong enough to suspend time, and lunges against my father, knocking him out of the way as the gun goes off.
I can’t hear past my own screams.
Can’t think past my own fears as blood splatters all over me. All over the room.
Darkness clouds my vision as I hurl. Someone lifts me up by the arms. Drags me in some direction, heading somewhere I can’t see, because all I see is the life slipping from my mother’s eyes.
And the blood. So much of it.
“Keep moving,” I hear a voice say. A voice that shouldn’t be here. “Kiddo? You have to snap out of it. We have to move.”
I blink and realize I’m running, being dragged by Jaxen’s iron grip on my arm. My dad is on the other side of me, casting quick glances in my direction every chance he can get.
The moment we connect eyes, a whole swarm of emotions fill my throat, stifling my ability to breathe.
“You have to shut it off, honey. Please. Just for now. Just until we get somewhere safe,” my dad says with a strange distance that doesn’t belong in his gaze.
I nod, running off fumes, and switch the emotions off.
“Where are we going?” I ask, trying to get a head count. Gavin and Cassie are behind us. Weldon and Jezi driving the front.
“Back to base. Mary gave us just enough time to slip into a shadow, but we can’t risk going into the Underground. Not with the injuries,” Weldon says. “If it wasn’t for Mary…”
I nearly choke, trip, stumble over his words.
For Mary.
My mother.
Who is now dead, left on the ground to rot in the Underground.
“We have to go back for her,” I say as my emotions flicker back on. They won’t stay in a neat little box.
“We can’t,” Jaxen says sorrowfully. I can hear in his voice that he wants to too. He wants to hug away the pain. Reverse time so it never happened. But he also wants to finish what we started, and the only way we can do that is if we keep moving forward.
And leave her behind.
I feel him enter my mind. Feel him help me shut my own emotions back off, almost like a light caress over my heart as we slip out of the fiery darkness of the shadow Weldon moved us through.
But what’s on the other side is nothing like we left it.
“Shit,” Weldon says from the front.
The vomit I had been holding back makes its way up my throat and out of my mouth. Jaxen pulls the hair from my face, rubbing my back as I try to purge all the awful left inside me, but no matter how hard I gag, the sinking feeling won’t go away. The heat that keeps rushing over my body like waves won’t disappear. The chills that have settled deep into my bones won’t warm up.
Because I’m empty on the inside, with nothing left to give.
“They were just… just here,” I hear Cassie say through tearstained words.
Bodies lay everywhere. Some burnt. Other plugged with bullet holes. And Jaxen’s home… it’s half-burnt to the ground. Gavin resumes the role of leader and moves through the wreckage, flipping bodies over, taking count of everyone we lost in Bael’s wake. Cassie stands still with Jezi’s arm over her shoulder, both silently weeping.
I don’t move. Barely even breathe.
I feel my dad looking at me. Feel Jaxen looking at me. And I don’t acknowledge either, because all I see is every mistake I ever made that led up to this moment. That led up to this catastrophe. Bael leveled the place. Took away the last place where we all felt safe.
And I actually thought I could take him.
“Jaxen!” Gavin cries from somewhere near the back porch.
Jaxen takes off running, careful not to step on any of the Rebellion members and wolves left behind. Weldon is right on his tail. The rest of us follow suit, and it takes what little strength I have left to keep from looking down. To keep from breaking down.
A hand reaches out toward Gavin. At first, I can’t make out who it is. The skin is burnt away… the face barely recognizable.
“Can you hear me?” Gavin says, squatting down by him. He looks up at Cassie. “Heal him! Now!”
Cassie squats down next to Gavin, holding her hands out as magic pours from her palms. But seconds tick by and nothing happens. “I… I can’t, Gav. He needs blood.”
Sterling.
Gavin doesn’t waste time. He pulls out his last remaining flux and drags it along his palm. Presses it to Sterling’s lips. Life pours into Sterling as he greedily drinks from Gavin’s hand. Inch by inch, the burnt skin disappears, revealing the general we once knew, until he’s completely healed.
He lets go of Gavin’s hand and sits all the way up. Plunges both hands through his hair as he whispers something to himself under his breath.
“Sir?” Gavin says.
“We were ambushed. By Elites and Darkyns. Those that remained with Clara, even after the falling out, showed up.” He looks up, tears in his eyes, and says, “We were nowhere near ready.”
“Are there any survivors?” Cassie asks, barely able to get the words out.
Sterling looks at her. “We retreated to the weapons room underground. I went back for my wife, which is when I was caught in the fire. I don’t know anything after that.”
Jaxen takes off running for the shed, with the rest of us following suit. He’s already inside, punching in the code to open the hidden door in the ground when we enter behind him. Artificial lights overwhelm the tiny shed as Jaxen descends into the underground bunker, taking the steps two at a time. I don’t know how I move from one second to the next, maybe because that’s what we’re trained to do. Keep moving forward, even when every part of you wants to break down, but I realize I’m standing in the middle of what’s left of our Rebellion.
Which isn’t much.
Seamus sits at the table in front of us, across from Mack. Evangeline is next to him, holding Chrissa close to her. My eyes lift, gaining speed with counting. Katie, Chett, Lukah, Damien, Harper, Garret but no Joanna, Toby, Bianca, and a few other faces that have only recently been around.
That’s it.
I feel like I’m missing someone.
I hear Katie’s aching sobs.
Jonathon.
It seems I’m not the only one who lost a parent tonight.
I weave around everyone, not heari
ng the questions and sobs filling the space. All I hear is my best friend. All I want is my best friend.
We both fall into each other’s arms, down on our knees, holding each other as if we only just found each other.
“I can’t—I can’t,”
“I know,” I say, rubbing the back of her hair.
“They came out of nowhere. They burnt everything. The magic… it was so dark. So overwhelming. We couldn’t fight back.”
“I’m so sorry, Kat.”
“And I ran, Faye. My dad said go, and I listened. I shouldn’t have. I should have made him come with me.” I hear the panic clawing up her throat, threatening to take over, and I pull back.
“My mom died. They tried to make me choose, and she chose for me.”
Even as I say it, I almost still can’t believe it. Don’t want to believe it.
Her eyes go wide. Brim with tears overflowing.
I feel my dad behind me without having to look. He kneels down and pulls us both into a hug and, for a moment, I don’t feel like we’re anywhere but back at home. Like none of this every happened. But that moment comes and goes, and it’s my mother’s loving eyes I see when I close mine. It’s her words and her movements and every magical moment that ever happened with her that flashes past me like a movie I never want to stop watching.
And I feel my heart crack in two. Feel the hole inside me widen, waiting for the rest of me to fall into it.
“We should stay here tonight,” Mack says from somewhere behind us. “We all need… time.”
I look up over my dad’s shoulder, really seeing him for the first time since we entered the bunker. He looks like he’s aged thirty years.
Seamus is still at the head of the table, staring off into the distance. His left hand seems to be reaching out for something. Sterling stands behind him.
“We will take the night, and then head out in the morning,” Mack continues blindly.
“Where will we go?” Jezi asks for us all.
“The Veil is down, General,” Gavin says. “The whole world is up for grabs. You know Bael and the rest of the Underground scum won’t waste a second of it.”
“I do. But I also know that our mission isn’t finished, and we’re still Watchmen, changed or not. We will avenge those who lost their lives tonight. And we will put a stop to Clara and Bael, once and for all. The Veil is down, which means the Underground is just as open to us as this world is to them. We know how to demolish the Exanimator now.”
He looks at me.
“I’m ready,” I say, feeling a fire growing in my belly. Thinking of every face that I’ll never see again.
“Good. You’re going to have to be. So… let’s all get some rest, and tomorrow we start fresh with the plans. Do we have cots? Blankets?”
Cassie and Jezi, and the other witches in the room, make quick work of manifesting places for everyone to sleep. My dad loosens his grip on us, and I sit back on my heels, trying to catch my breath.
Jaxen, he’s hugging his brother, mom, and sister. Holding them tighter than I’ve ever seen him hold anyone, and I’m so grateful in this moment that he has them. That they’re okay, because I don’t think I could have survived another loss.
It’s almost like he knows I’m thinking of him, because he lifts his head and locks eyes with me as we both hold on to all that we have left.
Pieces.
Shattered pieces of our childhood. Pieces that only we can avenge. Pieces that I will put back together, no matter what it takes. Even if it means turning myself in. Even if it means ending my life to save them all, because I’ll be damned if this ever happens again.
I’ll be damned if I let Bael and Clara, and any other evil, think for a second that they will win.
DID YOU ENJOY EVERLOST?
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♥ CANDACE KNOEBEL
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Candace Knoebel is the award-winning author of Born in Flames—book one in a young adult fantasy trilogy. She discovered in 2009 through lunch breaks and late nights after putting her kids to bed, a world where she could escape the ever-pressing days of an eight to five Purgatory. And an outlet for all the voices residing in her head.
Published by 48fourteen in 2012, Born in Flames went on to win Turning the Pages Book of the Year award in February of 2013. In January of 2014, the last book in the trilogy, From the Embers, was released, thusly completing the trilogy. She now works on the Night Watchmen Series, while guzzling Red Bulls and pretending to be a ninja on Heelys.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) Page 35