House of Leights (Secret Keepers, #3)(46)

I was probably going to get tetanus from that piece of crap.

Lexen reached out and I didn’t flinch, which was an improvement from the last time he tried to touch me. I’d mostly forgiven him, especially since he had been correct about the dangers. Not that it gave him a right to grab me, but he’d apologized for that.

His hand skimmed across to the neckline of my sweater. He pushed it to the side just enough to see my shoulder.

“Not nails,” he said. “You’ve been cut. It’s deep.”

Swallowing hard, it felt like the pain shot to another new height then. “Why would he cut me? Was he trying to injure me so I couldn’t fight?”

Lexen and Emma exchanged a look. I clicked in a second later. “He took my blood for Laous, didn’t he?” I was such an idiot. I’d basically handed it over to them without a thought. “That’s why he ran off so quickly and didn’t try to help his friend.”

Callie spun. “Should we go after him?”

Lexen shook his head. “No point. They were organized. He’ll be long gone.”

“I thought Laous wanted us?” Emma sounded weary, her anger fading away. “So why has he given up so easily?”

“Getting Maya’s blood would be the priority for him. If they managed to capture her, or any of you as well, it would just be a bonus.”

At least teaming up … bonding … whatever was happening with the secret keepers and four overlords, was making it harder for Laous to just scoop us up. Maybe fate had thought this plan through.

“We need to move again,” Lexen said. “Maya is losing blood. She needs a healer.”

My legs were a little wobbly at this point, but I was blaming it on adrenalin crash. The blood loss, though, probably didn’t help. As we continued along the rose covered path, a light at the end caught my eye. It was hard to see exactly what it was at first, but as my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I … still had no idea what I was looking at.

“That’s a transporter,” Emma answered my unspoken slack-jawed question. “This is the permanent one which connects Earth and Overworld.”

The transporter appeared to be made up of a million strings of light. Or something close to that number. They were intertwined with each other, moving constantly, with ends shooting off at random intervals.

“It’s going to be difficult for me to take the three of you across,” Lexen warned. “But I think it’s worth the risk. Leaving any of you behind is not an option, not with Laous and his resistance members out there.”

“What makes it difficult?” Callie asked. “What could happen?”

Lexen adjusted the guy over his shoulder. “The path between Earth and Overworld is not that easy to navigate. If you lose contact with me, you might be lost forever. I know the transporter looks like a straight line, but that’s only because I’ve connected to Overworld. If I let that go, we’d be adrift in a place with an infinite amount of destinations.”

Emma let out a sound of alarm. “How could you not tell me that? I could have accidentally let go of you, and then I’d be stuck wandering in space forever?”

Lexen shook his head, one side of his lips quirking up. “Not forever. You’d die of hunger long before that.”

She smacked him on the arm, and I was happy to see some color returning to her face. She’d been so pale and quiet since we found the dead guards.

“Are you sure it’s worth the risk?” she asked, more serious.

I didn’t like the fact he hesitated first, before nodding. “I believe this is the better of the two choices, but there’s no guarantee.”

Emma turned to me and Callie. “I trust Lexen. But I think we should put it to a vote. Are you two okay with taking the risk and all three of us holding on to Lexen as we cross?”

Being lost in space until I starved didn’t sound like a fun time, but I also didn’t want to stay here on my own until Lexen came back for me. What if there was something dangerous going on in Overworld? He might never come back for me. What if Chase was somehow already in Overworld?

“I’m in,” I told her. “I should have listened to Lexen before when he warned me it was too dangerous to stay here. This time let’s go with his instincts.”

Callie also agreed, so the three of us stepped closer. Lexen took Emma’s hand with his right, Callie then took Emma’s other hand, and I grabbed Callie’s. We were a chain, and before I could ask what happened next, Lexen reached out with his free hand, latching on to one of the strings of lights.

With a jerk, I was pulled off my feet and the world disappeared. I was hurtling into a long tunnel of darkness and light. At first I freaked out, my mind all like “What the hell is happening here?” – especially since it appeared we were racing along the tunnel without having to walk or move our feet. My stomach was in knots, but after a few moments, I started to enjoy the experience. It was like one of those carnival rides where you pretend you’re spacewalking, using a harness to jump your way along a dark tunnel.

Only this time there was no harness. And it was real spacewalking.

Okay, so nothing really like a carnival ride, but if I kept my thoughts on an experience that was familiar, I didn’t freak out as bad. It was silent in the transporter, although there was the faintest white noise in my ears. I couldn’t see what was at the end, because it was just very bright, but my body felt eager to get there. Like I was being called … pulled.