Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(55)

“No! Fowler!” I strained to break free of his grip.

“I’ll be right behind you!”

“Let him slow them down.” Chasan tugged on my hand, pulling us ahead into the tunnel. “He’ll be fine.”

I moved, half dragged by Chasan, my heart pounding. The growls and rasping breaths of dwellers swelled behind us. After a while I couldn’t hear the swift thunk and pop of Fowler stabbing them anymore.

“Fowler,” I cried.

Chasan yanked on my hand again. “He can take care of himself. We would have heard him scream if they got him.”

If they got him . . .

I’d just left him. In all our struggles together, we had never abandoned each other.

I would not abandon him now.

With a grunt, I kicked Chasan in the back of his leg. He yelped, his grip loosening. I spun around, my sweating palm flexing around the arrow still clutched in my hand. The hard fall of my boots echoed all around me as I rushed forward. The ripe, bitter odor of dwellers filled my nose. They were close, filling the space with dampness. Toxin dripped off their faces, the copper sweetness sitting like metal on my tongue.

“Fowler,” I hissed, trying to hear or sense him amid the creatures slogging their way toward me. “Fowler,” I tried again, lifting my bow and notching the arrow, ready to let it fly.

A hand knocked the bow to the side. “Why did you come back?” Fowler didn’t wait for an answer. He spun me around and we started running, trying to stay ahead of the mob. Chasan met us.

“You were supposed to get her out of here,” Fowler accused.

“She kicked me,” Chasan snarled.

I turned my face toward Fowler as we continued. “I wasn’t leaving you. Don’t ask me to do that again.”

He said nothing, and we fell into silence as we dashed up the tunnel, all pounding hearts and labored breaths, trying to get as much of a lead as we could.

Finally, we reached the end. Fowler seized my waist and lifted me up. I slipped my hands into the carved handholds and started climbing. I worked fast, hand over hand, legs pushing. The boys were behind me, their charged breaths floating up to me, egging me on faster.

Memory told me I was close to the top. I reached out a hand to feel for the open space above me. I met with the hard metal of the grate instead.

My heart constricted.

I looked down in horror. “Someone shut it!”

For a long moment, neither one of them said anything. There was just the roar of blood in my ears and the sounds of the dwellers below, frothing like stew in a pot.

I turned back to the grate and pounded at it. It was a dead end. Nowhere to go above and dwellers below.

We were trapped.





TWENTY-FIVE


Fowler


I PEERED DOWN into the darkness at the swarm of dwellers, hoping they didn’t suddenly start climbing. Clinging to the handholds, muscles straining, I looked back up at Luna. Her body shook as she fiercely pounded the grate.

“Keep hitting,” Chasan shouted below me.

“I am!” she cried, her voice cracking in a way I had never heard from her.

“Harder!” he added. “Someone has to hear you!”

Luna added her voice, shouting. We all joined in, screaming for help.

Luna’s unseeing gaze dropped down, her dark hair wild about her pale face. Her shoulders heaved with exertion. “How long are we going to be able to hold on like this?”

That’s when I noticed she wasn’t simply shaking from pounding on the grate. “Don’t you dare let go,” I warned, a lump lodging in my throat. “You’ll hang on for as long as we need.”

“Fowler,” she choked out over Chasan’s shouts. He didn’t let up.

“Luna!” I removed one hand from its grip in the handhold and used it to support her, bracing it under her thigh.

“Don’t! You’ll fall!”

“I’m not going to fall,” I ground out from between clenched teeth, “and neither are you!”

Suddenly a grind of metal followed by a loud clank cut over Chasan’s shouts. Feeble lantern light glowed down at us from the jagged opening. A kitchen maid’s wide eyes peered down at us, her flour-dusted face maybe the sweetest sight I ever beheld.

Luna gasped and started up, pulling herself through the hole with the help of the maid. I was fast behind her, dropping down on the storeroom floor with an exhausted sigh. Chasan pulled himself through, slammed the grate shut, and bolted it. He turned on the maid then, one finger lifted. “No one knows you saw us here. Understood?”

The maid nodded and bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Your Highness. Not a word.” With an uncertain look at each of us, she hastened out of the storeroom, grabbing a sack on the way out.

Chasan dropped back on the ground, tossing an arm over his forehead. A ragged sigh spilled from his lips. After a long moment, he said, “No one will know about tonight.”

For several moments, the three of us didn’t move or speak.

I moistened my dry lips. “What do you mean?” I finally asked.

“My father . . . if he were to learn of your escape attempt, he’d see you both as traitors. I want Luna as my wife, not wasting away in a dungeon.”

I thought about that for a moment, rolling my head to look at her, still catching her breath beside me. Bright splotches of color splashed her cheeks. I didn’t want to see her wasting away in a dungeon either. “He’s not going to hear about it from us,” I volunteered.