Thrall (39 page)

“The sword,” Dad coughed, pointing. I saw it gleaming where he had dropped it, steps away. I forced my body to run, willing movement from limbs heavy and sluggish with fatigue. I grabbed the pommel. Hale saw the movement and threw out his hand. I tossed the sword to him. It flipped end over end and Hale plucked it out of the air like a juggler, his hand closing on the pommel with confidence. He turned, gripping the sword with both hands like a baseball bat.

Gretchen stood behind the line of soldiers, calling directions out of reach of Deliyan’s claws. Deliyan glared at her, furious. “You want me?” Gretchen taunted.

Deliyan didn’t see Hale joining the circle surrounding her. I felt my breath catch as he walked up behind Deliyan. She must have sensed something behind her. She started to turn, claws ready for an attack, just as Hale raised the sword.

“Now!” Gretchen and I screamed the word together. Hale swung out. Deliyan didn’t see the blow coming. It struck her head clean off. Her body, instantly uncloaked, collapsed into the grass. The battle was finally over.

I fell to my knees, nausea swelling in my throat. I gripped the grass and drew in long, deep breaths. Someone knelt beside me. It was Dad. I put a hand lightly on his chest, where I’d seen the Lilitu strike him. He winced and caught my palm.

“Just tender,” he said, smiling reassuringly. “I’ll live.”

In moments, Hale and Marx were organizing the soldiers. They dragged the Lilitu back behind the house. Three of the soldiers who’d been downed in the fight were not moving. I saw Gretchen bending over one. She looked up and met Matt’s eyes, then shook her head.

Dad stood slowly. “Give me a moment, honey.” He walked toward the house.

I turned away, drained. The sudden silence was shocking after the noise of the fight. It struck me then that I hadn’t seen Karayan in the fight. I glanced around, wondering if she was still lurking somewhere close by. I noticed a light click on in a neighbor’s window. As I watched the window, someone moved the drapes aside to peer out. Half of the soldiers had already disappeared behind the house with the Lilitu’s bodies. Several more were kneeling beside the wounded, tucked against bushes or under the shelter of the porch. I doubted the neighbor would be able to see much of anything from his window. In a few moments, I saw the drapes swing shut and the light click off. Like Lucas said,
people see what they want to see.

Lucas. I felt a roiling anguish spread to fill that part of my mind that had been blissfully numb only moments ago. Lucas was gone.

At that moment, Gretchen made a sound, half-growl, half-moan. I turned. Dad was standing next to her on the porch, one hand resting on her shoulder, his face drawn with anguish. Gretchen doubled over, the news crashing into her like a physical blow. She stood there for a long time, bent over, body wracked with unbearable grief. When she looked up, her eyes landed on me. The intensity of her gaze shot lightening strikes of pain through my heart. She walked toward me, clawing past the hands that tried to stop her.

“You,” she said. “You can find him. You can use the dream and find him.” She was crying, the words bubbling out of her, unfiltered, unfocused. “You’re the only one who can do it in time.” She grabbed the front of my robe and hauled me to my feet.

I realized I was shaking my head.

“Damn it, Braedyn, you can do this! Do it! Save him!” Dad and Hale reached us and pulled Gretchen off of me. As soon as she let go, I stumbled back, falling into the frozen grass like a rag doll. Gretchen was wild, fighting them like an animal. “She can do it, I know she can! She can find him! She can save him!”

A desperate desire raged inside of me. I took hold of Gretchen’s wild hope and made it my own. I closed my eyes, willing myself into the dream. I was ready for instinct to take hold of me, to sweep me away from the nightmare of my reality. I wouldn’t fight it this time; I would embrace it. I summoned Lucas’ face in my mind’s eye. Denial thrashed inside of me like a wild thing. I couldn’t accept his loss. I wouldn’t. Grief overwhelmed me - worse than the night of Derek’s death. But nothing happened.

I opened my eyes and saw the assembled Guard staring at me, waiting with bated breath.

“I can’t.” The truth had slowly dawned on me. The one time I truly needed my full Lilitu powers, they had abandoned me. I had no energy left to dream.

“I can’t.” The words came through dimly, as though someone else had spoken them. Silence crushed over the assembled Guard. Only Gretchen fought it.

“You can,” Gretchen said, advancing on me. “You can!”

I tried to stand, but my knees buckled and I fell.

“Braedyn.” Dad was by my side in an instant, helping me to my feet. “Easy.”

Hale joined us. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She stepped through the dream,” Dad said. The watching Guard reacted. Half a dozen hushed conversations broke out, adding another layer to the static in my head. I felt hollow – a body taking up space with eyes to see, and ears to hear, but nothing substantial at my core. “She’s burned through all the energy she had. And more, by the look of it. She needs to sleep.”

“No.” Gretchen grabbed for me, pulled me close. “Find Lucas, and then you can rest.”

Dad untangled Gretchen’s fingers from my robe. “She’s got nothing left, Gretchen. Look at her.” Gretchen turned her eyes on me. They looked haunted, empty.

Thane put a hand on Gretchen’s shoulder. “If Ais has him, it’s already too late.”

In one moment, we stood as statues in the frozen night. In the next, Gretchen seemed to lose her mind. It took four of them to wrestle her away from me. Her words gave way to horrible, wracking sobs. I watched it all, numb. Some part of me was screaming, too. But it was buried, deep, wrapped in thick blankets of exhaustion.

“Gretchen.” Matt tried to reach Gretchen, tried to wrap his arms around her.

She fought him off, inconsolable. “Don’t touch me! Why don’t you do something?! Why doesn’t
anyone do something?!
”

Matt met my eyes. It was as if he were asking permission. I took a step toward him.

Dad reached out to steady me, oblivious of the look that had passed Matt and me, unaware of the bargain we were already forming. “Braedyn?”

Matt crossed the distance between us and took my hands. “You can do this?” he asked. His voice was steady, but his nostrils flared, betraying a shaky fear.

“I don’t know,” I said. It was the honest truth.

Matt looked back at Gretchen, lost in her wild grief. His shoulders set as he came to a decision. “Try.” He caught me in his arms and kissed me. I heard several of the soldiers around us exclaim, but when someone moved toward us, Dad and Hale blocked them. If they spoke, I heard nothing. I was already lost in sensation.

Kissing Matt was entirely different from kissing Lucas. My heart didn’t skip a beat. No warmth spread inside my stomach, no shivers travelled down my spine. Instead, all I felt was the stirring of the Lilitu storm. I let it rage, and it connected with that part of Matt that no eye could see. His spirit, his soul, whatever it was, I felt the storm seize on it and pull. This had been the moment I’d broken contact with Lucas when we’d shared our kiss in the theater. But I needed more from Matt. I held onto him, letting the storm ravage through him. I didn’t know how much was too much, how much would leave him vulnerable; leave him one strike away from becoming a Thrall. I didn’t want to permanently damage him. But for Lucas, I risked it. We dropped to our knees in the grass together. I didn’t release Matt until he pitched back onto the ground. He blinked, stunned. His eyes struggled to focus. His pupils were wide and dilated.

The Guard watched us, hands on their weapons. Dina was clinging to another soldier, her mouth frozen in open-mouthed horror. Gretchen’s face was a mask of anguish. I met her eyes and saw the conflict that raged within her. She managed a faint nod.

I turned away from them all, feeling a vibrant new energy coursing through my body. I sat on the grass and closed my eyes. I willed myself into the dream, and was there.

I found myself standing in my rose garden. The petals I’d scattered the night I attacked Parker still carpeted the ground, as fresh as if they’d just been plucked, only now the red stain stretched almost halfway across each petal. Dread clenched at my heart, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I was here to find Lucas. Everything else could wait.

I touched the ground and felt the world beyond the illusion of this dream. I called up a pool of stars, holding Lucas in my mind to the exclusion of all else. A million stars scattered, and one tiny seed of light flickered and rose out of the pool. But it looked different. It was dimmer than it had been before, sputtering with a fitful light. I closed my hand around it, terrified. In that moment, I was certain Lucas was dying.

The dream shifted. I found myself slumped in a chair in a long, cramped room. My shoulder throbbed, and my eyes were fastened on Ais as she paced in tight circles of agitation. I glanced at the door beyond her and saw the logo for the Raven club. A desk beside the door was piled with barstools, and boxes of liquor were stacked on the ground to its right.

Relief flooded through me as I realized what was happening. Lucas was awake. And so his dreaming mind was half-engaged with reality. Unwittingly, he had told me where he was.

Lucas,
I thought to him, willing my thoughts to reach his conscious mind.
I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can... I am so sorry I deceived you. I should have told you the truth, but I was afraid of losing you. I’m still afraid of losing you. You told me once in a dream that you loved me. Now I’m telling you. I love you, Lucas. We’re coming for you. We’re coming. Just hold on a little while longer.

If he sensed me at all, he gave no indication.

I opened my eyes.

I stood on the lawn in front of Hale’s house.

Gretchen’s face crumpled in devastation. “It didn’t work,” she whispered.

“Yes, it did.” I met her eyes, steady and confident. “I know where Lucas is.”

We were armed and heading to the Raven inside of ten minutes. I rode with Dad, Gretchen, and half of Marx’s team, crammed in the back of their van. Several soldiers were tending wounds they had sustained in the fight. Most were superficial; a few were more serious. But every fighter capable of walking had joined us. All in all, we were only down four soldiers. Two seriously wounded men were laid up in Hale’s living room. Matt, still recovering from our kiss, was resting on Gretchen’s bed. The last man, who had not survived his injuries, had been wrapped in a sheet, and placed gently on the back porch. The soldier crowded next to me glanced at his watch. I read the face. It was four thirty-seven a.m.

Gretchen was still watching me. A tight urgency had replaced the bitter hatred I’d always found in her gaze before. She hadn’t said anything to me after I’d shared the news of Lucas’ location. Dad and I had run home to change into something more suited to fighting. He’d told me Matt was weak but I hadn’t taken enough to harm him permanently. When we’d loaded into the vehicles, Gretchen had followed me into the van. The ride had been a silent one, each of us sitting alone with our thoughts of the fight behind us, and the battle to come. Abruptly, the van shuddered to a stop.