Page 137 of Creatures that Breathe

“Holy shit,” Luke gasps as white flames jump from tree to tree, rip across wet ground like it’s covered in gasoline.

It stops inches short of Atlas’s boots. “She’s …” His mouth gapes. He turns his eyes to me, face pinched with sorrow and regret. “She’s a Phoenix, and you knew. Why—”

A strangled breath catches in my throat. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“She killed them,” Lev mutters, throat thick, entranced, face alight with the white glow. “For us.”

Zeke shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes. “No. She died for us.”

They’re quiet. Mourning. Observing.

I’m fighting.

I’m not mourning.

I refuse to believe she’s done this to me.

I didn’t think she’d ever risk it. She’d been so terrified of dying, of getting hurt. I should’ve told her I knew. Told her I’d never ask it of her the moment I figured out what she was, lying in that hospital bed with her.

It was too clear in her eyes. Who she was. What she was. Why she yearned for the ocean but never to swim. How she refused to be molded and used.

She had called them scholars, and she was the most cunning creature I had ever encountered.

Gritting my teeth, I gasp for air as white noise fills my ears, drowning out all other sound.

No. She can’t just waltz into my life and then rip herself out of it.

She can’t.

I dig my finger into my thigh, prying out the bullet stuck in the muscle. Searing agony takes over and I cry out, seeing stars behind my closed eyelids.

Ignore it.

Zeke scrambles to my side to saw through my bindings.

As soon as I’m freed, I sprint towards the heart of the raging fire, calling out her name with every breath.

Scorching heat slams into me, blistering my skin as I push deeper into the flames, groaning through the pain. Sure, somehow, that I’m headed in the right direction. “Leni!”

Her name echoes across the inferno, carried by the raging currents of wind and flame.

Twenty-foot trees are dust, decimated, turned to white ash. I trip, tumbling over my feet, crashing into the charred ground, coughing as thick smoke fills my lungs.

Luke’s hand shoots out, his breath ragged as he pulls me up from the ground. “We’ll find her,” he promises.

A wave of gratitude washes over me. I’ve never been so glad to have humanity on my side. With one arm around him, we dive further into the thick haze of smoke and ash, each step heavy and labored.

Amidst the crackling flames and crumbling trees, a faint sound rises above—soft crying.

My heart constricts. Luke tightens his hold on me and we sprint with every last ounce of energy to the sound.

I’d recognize the shape of her anywhere.

Buried deep in my shadows, glittering under the sun, kneeling in a wasteland of ash.

Nestled in her wreckage, tears streaming from her face, she rivals Aphrodite emerging from the foam.

She’s alive. The vise around my lungs slackens, if only by a fraction.

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