Let the Storm Break (Sky Fall #2)(94)

I want to shout, You hear that, Westerlies?

But I honestly get why they’re angry. Just holding the spike, I feel the broken Northerly’s pain, and dang, is it intense.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wishing the draft could understand me. “If there’s a way to fix this, I will.”

I didn’t expect the wind to actually listen. But three Westerlies wrap around us out of nowhere, boosting our speed just in time to launch us the hell out of the valley and leave the creepy Storms in the dust.

I hope the rest of the Gales will be able to handle them.

And I hope this means the Westerlies have forgiven me—but no matter what, it’s time for a change.

No more slacking in my training.

No more fighting to have a normal life.

The only thing that matters is stopping Raiden.

And Audra.

I clutch my chest, realizing our bond is gone.

Not faded.

Gone.

I try to tell myself it’s because she’s inside the Maelstrom. But everything inside me feels very, very cold.

We pass crumbling dead palms in Desert Center, and the winds carrying us start to panic. I know they’re freaked out by the pull of the Maelstrom, but I beg them to keep flying. They hold out as long as they can, but one by one they pull away until all we have left are the Westerlies.

I guess it’s a good thing they forgave me.

The desert is hauntingly empty. Just a few vultures and some footprints in the sand. And when we touch down in front of the rock piles, all my nerves tangle into knots.

Audra’s trace is everywhere—but somehow it’s nowhere, too. It’s like it’s her but it’s not her, and it can’t tell me where she went or what she did. Only that she was here. And that she was in a lot of pain.

Gus’s trace makes even less sense, so weak it’s like he wasn’t even alive. And there are other traces in the air too. . . .

A lone Easterly swishes around me, and I focus on its song, searching for some clue to what happened.

It’s only singing one word, but it knocks me to my knees.

Sacrifice.

“No!” I scream, stumbling to my feet and tearing into the Maelstrom.

She wouldn’t do that.

She wouldn’t give up her life that way.

I won’t believe it.

There has to be another explanation.

“Hey!” Solana shouts over the screeching, grabbing my good hand as we stumble into the spinning tunnel. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here if you need me.”

I know she is. And it’s nice to have something to hold on to.

But it’s the wrong girl.

The wrong girl.

Please tell me I didn’t save the wrong girl.

Especially since I’m the one who sent Audra here. If I’d listened to her . . .

I stop myself from finishing the thought.

Right now I need to focus on finding her.

A dim glow finally appears ahead, and I take off running, racing straight for Arella’s cell.

She doesn’t respond to my call, and when I peer through the mesh curtain, I can see her collapsed on the floor. Her skin is a freaky gray-blue and her arms and face are all twisted with pain and when I try to shove the curtain aside it won’t move, no matter how hard I try.

“Stop!” Solana tells me as I pound and kick and scream all kinds of things my mom would kill me for saying. “Os told me a word when we were up in the mountains and the Storms were closing in. He didn’t tell me what it meant or was for but . . .”

She whispers something I can’t understand, and the curtain of metal slides to the side.

I scan the small space, desperately searching for Audra or Gus. But no one’s here. Not in the other cell either.

“I think I feel a pulse,” Solana tells me, her legs shaking as she crouches beside Arella. “But it’s really weak. . . .”

“We have to get her back to the winds.”

Arella weighs almost nothing, so I could probably carry her even with my bum arm. But I let Solana help me, grabbing Arella’s feet while Solana grabs her shoulders and we haul her outside and stretch her out on the sand.

I didn’t expect her eyes to pop open with her first breath of air— though that would’ve been nice. But even when I wrap her up in Westerlies, she’s still not getting any better.

“Come on,” I whisper, crouching down beside her. “You have to wake up. You have to tell me what happened.”

I stare at her cracked gray-blue lips, trying to work up the courage to do CPR. But as I’m leaning down to try it, the Easterly from earlier tangles itself around Arella and starts to spin so quickly that it lifts Arella’s limp body off the ground.

Solana and I both back away as the wind spins even faster, turning Arella’s form to a blur

“I think it’s helping,” Solana says.

I’m trying to figure out what she’s seeing when the wind unravels, streaking into the Sky as Arella drops back to the sand, coughing and hacking.

“Liam,” she screams, flailing her pale arms as she pulls herself up. “Liam, I . . .”

Her voice trails off.

The wind is gone.

“Where are Gus and Audra?” I ask, grabbing her shoulder so she’ll look at me.

“It’s so much worse than I remember,” she groans, hugging herself and rocking back and forth.