I probably only have a few seconds before the birds track me down. I try to take her by the shoulders, but Neve screams and jerks away. Her Strength flag is gone, which means she’s drowning in pain the way I am in fear. Only she’s not controlling hers. Maybe because she’s also missing her Mind flag…confusion and pain.
At the sound of a bird rending itself from the metal right by us, she screams. “The birds. The birds.” Then she starts to crawl away through a tunnel in the junk. “Have to hide,” she mutters.
I frown as she crawls out of sight. Do I stay? Or abandon her and run, already having lost time?
“Fuck.” I drop to my knees to follow her.
And that’s when one of the birds rips my Strength flag off my arm.
Pain—like someone took a blowtorch to every nerve in my body—scorches through me, and I cry out. But I still have my wits, and, with every move an excruciating torture, I force myself to crawl after Neve.
Fear is telling me to give up. To just lie here and die from the agony ripping me apart.
Drawing deep, I force my hands and legs to move, and I don’t stop until I find her. She’s huddled inside a metal dumpster turned on its side, back to rocking and babbling about whoever Nora is, tears trailing down her face.
I crawl inside and hold very, very still. If I don’t move, the pain isn’t quite as bad. But as the birds continue to shriek outside, the fear builds, swelling within me as questions start to swarm. What if we’re both stuck here in pain and fear and confusion? What if the birds never let us leave? What if I can’t get myself out, let alone both of us?
I might start rocking and muttering myself in a second. I close my eyes and hum, focusing on a single image.
Hades.
As suddenly as it started, the metallic screeching outside stops, and I crack an eye. Are the apocalypse nightmare birds gone?
Every nerve screaming at me to stop, I manage to flip over and start crawling, grunting with every move, but Neve grabs my ankle. I immediately cry out, and it takes all I have not to vomit. She jerks back with a hiss, shaking her hand. Yup. Touching hurts like a son of a bitch for both of us.
“Not yet,” she whispers.
Is she working her way through that confusion?
I wait. But she stays quiet.
“Ready?” I whisper.
She blinks at me like she forgot I was here and has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Can you follow me?” I ask.
Another blink, and maybe that competitive thing Ares gave her kicks in, because her blue eyes clear just for a second and she nods.
And we crawl.
Once we’re back on the path, I force myself to stand, though my entire body shakes with the effort. “Don’t be seen,” she says in jerking words.
With a deep breath, she shoots her fisted hands out from her sides, and armor—bright bronze, speckled with stars—covers her chest and shoulders down to her hips, along with reinforced silver ankle and forearm protection. She cries out, probably at the touch of it against her skin, but starts moving regardless.
I follow.
Instead of running, which I’m not sure I could do anyway, we walk carefully, staying close to the heaps and piles, using the shadows and crevices as cover. I clamp a hand over my mouth both to stop myself from humming and to keep quiet, because after the second time a whimper of pain escaped me, Neve turned to glare at me. She is one of the Strength champions for a reason, that’s for sure.
Eventually, I can see it.
The end of the path.
It opens into a field with tall, brown grasses that will stand well above my head.
What next?
That terrible metal caw-caw screech of the birds comes from behind us, and my heart tries to explode. No choice now. “Run!”
With a yell that comes from the pit of her, pure determination, Neve propels herself forward. Damn, that woman is fast with her long legs, even in agony. I can’t keep up with her. She bursts into the grasses and disappears.
She left me.
She left me here to die. Like everyone does. Everyone leaves me.
Fear tries to grab at my feet and slow me down, stop me. But the metallic racket from behind me is enough to force that same fear to drive me forward, and I run into the grasses. They hurt. They brush against my skin, and it feels like I’m being scraped with razors over and over.
I have to stop and breathe through the pain, only to watch in what feels like slow-motion horror as a hand reaches out from the field and, before I can even think to get to my axe to defend myself, plucks the Mind flag right off my head.
Immediately, confusion joins the fear and pain—a heavy fog of it.
For a second, I’m lost. Like something dropped me in the middle of a nightmare and I have no idea why, and everything combines to an overwhelming pitch.
I slam my hands over my ears, which only makes the pain worse as I drop into a crouch, and I let out a scream to wake the dead. An immediate answering roar goes up not far away, and I cover my mouth. A second roar makes the grasses bend under the force of a smoky wind.
And panic pummels at me.
The grasses are so high, they should block my view, but I still see the purplish-black wings that rise and fall not far from me. Fear, believe it or not, blasts a hole in my confusion, clearing it like sun burns away fog.
