United as One (Lorien Legacies #7)(95)

In his black eyes, for the first time, I see doubt.

“I’m going to kill you,” he snarls, his breath hot and wretched against my face.

I know this is true. I’m going to die down here. Tangled together with my worst enemy. Healing him, even as he tears me apart.

“You . . .” A bubble of blood pops when I try to speak. “You’ll die first.”

A tendril of his ooze, razor sharp and ice-cold, slashes across my abdomen. Opens me up.

I push warm, healing energy into him. Watch as his face turns gray and wrinkled. A centuries-old man.

The ooze coalesces around my legs. Crushes them like a vice, my bones snapping like twigs.

More healing. A little bit for my body—just enough to keep me going—the rest for him.

A chunk of hardened ooze falls away from him and turns to dust on the cavern floor. Setrákus Ra bellows.

He rips into my rib cage. His claws dig through my flesh, saw through bone. He’s trying to dig out my heart.

Hold on, John.

I let him shred me. Focus on the warm glow. I could melt away in that glow. . . .

“Do you . . . do you really think you can outlast me?” he sneers. A black vein bursts on his forehead.

“I’ve done it all these years, what’s a few more minutes?”

“You were always a fool, Pittacus.”

“I’m not Pittacus Lore,” I say through gritted teeth. “I am Number Four. I’m the one who kills you.”

A tremor. The entire cavern complex shakes. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a vivid flash of red light.

The bombardment has begun.

Thank you, Sam.

Just keep him here. Bury him down here, with all his horrible experiments.

The withered, hideous face before me laughs maniacally.

I close my eyes.

Picture Sarah. She holds up a camera, snaps a photo and smiles at me.

I let my Legacies pour out of me. All of them.

Until there’s nothing left.





CHAPTER THIRTY


CONSCIOUSNESS COMES BACK SLOWLY. THE CAVERN floor vibrates under my face, a rumble louder than thunder shaking the entire complex. I come dangerously close to the edge of the chasm that Adam and Phiri fell down. With a groan, I roll away from the gap, onto my back, and try to sit up.

“Ugh . . .”

My mouth tastes of blood. Every breath feels like I’m rolling around on broken glass. The mountain shakes again, and rock-dust falls from the ceiling. I close my eyes to avoid the stinging debris. Maybe, I think, I’ll keep them closed a little longer.

Six! You stay awake! You get up!

Ella, her voice coming through a megaphone directly into my brain, so loud that it makes my head ache.

“I’m up, I’m up,” I reply out loud as I struggle into a sitting position. It hurts to bend like that, and I have to stifle a cry. “What’s happening?”

We’re going to bring down the mountain, Ella replies. Sam’s chipping away at it, but we’re not unleashing the main cannon until you’re out.

“Guess I better get up then,” I grunt, and struggle to my feet.

So Sam’s been forced to play the role Adam was meant for—if everything goes wrong, blow the whole thing up. Adam . . . I just couldn’t get to him in time. I peek over the edge of the chasm but see nothing but jagged rocks and shadows. Something along the edge catches my eye, though. A thick blood trail that wasn’t there before that stretches from the control room to the chasm.

Dust’s body isn’t where it fell. Was the Chim?ra still alive? Did it go down after Adam?

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout into the gulf. “DUST? ADAM?”

No response. The yelling causes a fresh lance of pain in my lungs. I hold both my hands over the hole in my chest and stagger backwards, supporting myself against the nearest wall.

Marina and Nine are on their way up to you, Ella guides me. They’ll meet you in the main entrance.

I can make it that far . . . I think.

Slowly, I begin to navigate the twisting cavern corridors. I have to pause to catch my breath a few times, and each time I have to choke back a little blood. I glance over my shoulder and notice that I’m leaving a blood trail of my own. Looking back makes me feel a little woozy, my eyes getting hooded.

Keep going. Straight ahead now. Almost there.

“Six!”

I stumble into the main entrance at the same time that Marina emerges from the narrow passageway that leads deeper into the complex. Nine is flung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Never knew Marina to be the bodybuilding type—Nine must have transferred his Legacies before he went down. I cringe when I see Nine’s condition—unconscious, face ashen, missing an arm. Marina makes as if to reach out to me with her free arm, but the shoulder is dislocated, so she ends up awkwardly jerking her shoulder in my direction.

“Where’s John and Five?” I ask her.

“Five . . . no one deserved to die like that, Six, not even him.” Marina shakes her head disgustedly as she delivers this news, avoiding my eyes. “John is still down there, holding Setrákus Ra until we can drop this place on top of him.”

As if to punctuate Marina’s words, another tremor passes through the mountain base. That would be Sam, very slowly demolishing the Mogadorian lair.

Marina takes a look at the hole in my chest, and her mouth opens like she’s surprised I’m still standing. “Can you make it a little farther? I’ll heal you once we’re clear.”