Let the Storm Break (Sky Fall #2)(86)

“I’m not going to hide in a cave while you guys fight,” Vane argues, trying to balance on his own. I move behind him as he wobbles, letting him lean against me.

“Just give me five minutes,” he begs. “All I need is some air.”

“Five minutes,” Gus repeats. “We need to come up with a plan, anyway.”

We all turn toward the valley, and my chest tightens when I see the Storms spreading even wider. It’s impossible to tell if the Gales are still fighting them, but the massive trails of destruction don’t look promising.

Vane reaches for my hands, locking our fingers together.

“I don’t see any Stormers, do you?” Gus asks, shielding his eyes and squinting at the mountains.

I shake my head as I concentrate on the winds. “I don’t feel any trace of them either.”Though I’m relieved to feel some of the Gales’.

There’s still a chance, even if it’s a weak one.

“Would Raiden really not bring them?” Gus asks.

“Maybe he didn’t want to risk losing any of them,” I suggest.

“Or maybe this is only round one,” Vane says quietly. “I’m not picking up any trace of Raiden, either, but there’s no way he’s not here. He’s up to something, I can feel it. I just can’t tell what it is.”

Gus sighs and runs his hands through his hair, pulling it loose from his guardian braid. “So what are we going to do?”

“There’s really only one thing we can do,” Vane says, staring up at the bird slowly circling above us.

The vulture should’ve lost track of us when we launched through the pipeline. But my mother has a way of always getting what she wants.

I guess that’s why I’m not surprised when Vane squeezes my hand tighter and tells me, “We have to go get your mom, Audra. She’s the only chance we’ve got left.”





CHAPTER 39


VANE

Y

ou really think we can trust my mother?” Audra asks, pulling away from me so quickly I lose my balance and have to sink to my knees.

“She told us she could help us, right?”

“That doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Audra calls the creepy vulture and it swoops down and lands on a rock a few feet away, letting out an evil hiss that sounds like a possessed child. Even Gus backs away as it bows its gross red, bumpy head and holds out its massive black wing so Audra can count the notches in the feathers.

“How does she even know we’re in trouble?” she asks when she’s read the message again. “She’s trapped in a Maelstrom. The wind shouldn’t be able to reach her.”

“I don’t know—maybe the birds told her. Or maybe she can feel it. Her gift is pretty powerful, right? Seems like she might be able to pick up on something this huge. I mean, look at that.”

I point to the desert, where fires are starting to break out in the rubble. Smoke is mixing with the dust and thunderheads, making it harder to see what’s going on—which is probably better. My brain doesn’t know how to process that kind of destruction.

Everything I know has just changed.

And the Storms are still raging.

“You don’t find it convenient that she’s reaching out to us now, offering us vague promises when we’re at our weakest?” Audra asks me.

“Of course I do—and it reminds me way too much of the time she used Gavin to give away our location and nearly got us killed. But what other option do we have? Our wind spikes aren’t working and the Westerlies told me they can’t help us. The Gales look like they’re failing pretty epically down there—so what else are we supposed to do?”

I can hear the panic in my voice but I can’t choke down the fear this time—not when people are dying because of me.

“I don’t know how to stop this,” I whisper. “Do you?”

She hesitates before she mumbles, “No.”

Gus looks just as defeated.

“I think we have to let her help us then,” I tell them. “It’s the only play we’ve got left.”

Audra looks like she’s going to agree with me—but at the last second she turns away.

“I can’t trust her, Vane. I won’t. I made that mistake my entire life. I’m not going to do it again.”

Her voice is hard, and I can tell that’s her final decision.

But she’s wrong.

Unless I’m crazy—but I don’t think I am.

“Your mom was different when I saw her,” I tell Audra quietly. “Calm, and sometimes almost . . . nice. She didn’t tell the Gales about us bonding—and she backed up the lie I’d told to cover for you being gone. She even offered to help me sleep.”

Audra laughs, though it’s much more high-pitched and squeaky than her normal laugh. “Of course she did—because she wants you to set her free. That’s how she works.”

“That’s what I figured too. But she seemed like she really regretted what she’d done. And she told me she realized that her gift had driven her crazy—like, literally crazy. The pain clouded her mind, affected how she thought.”

“And that excuses her for murdering two people in cold blood and causing my father’s death?”