Page 52 of The Orc Outcast's Mate

Chapter

Nine

MIRANDA

“Has Ms. Smill come in with her deposit yet?” Mr. Barker asked Miranda and she stared at him. He had white hair, and wore a pressed gray suit today. Laugh lines creased his worried eyes.

Blackridge Bank swirled around her. Long teller desks, pillar lights, checkered marble floor.

She couldn’t be here. She wasn’t here.

“Miranda? Are you all right?”

This wasn’t right. The bank looked distorted. The floor was jagged. The wood desk was fuzzy. The work screen was blank.

“Did you skip breakfast again, Miranda? I restocked the break room. Why don’t you take yours early and get something to eat?”

Only the view out the front windows was clear. The busy city street visible with dreary skies—and cars and people.

So many people.

“We-we have to get out of here. We have to?—”

The air raid sirens pierced through her, rolling around in her brain. She covered her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

She was in the vent.

The weight crushed her. The metal snapped and groaned. Searing heat blazed all around her, burning her. She couldn’t get out. She couldn’t escape. She would be cooked alive.

Blinding light pierced her mind and she screamed.

She screamed so loud.

And her babies screamed with her.

Oh god! She couldn’t save them!

“Miranda!”

She gasped, scrambling out of the nightmare, clawing and sputtering.

Govek held her. “I’ve got you. You are with me.”

“They’re dying!” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. “They’re dying. We have to get them out! We have to help them.”

“Miranda, it’s a dream. Just a dream.”

His voice was steady, firm, and it yanked her back to reality.

The reality that her babies weren’t dying anymore. They were beyond help. They were already?—

No. No! It wasn’t true.

They hadn’t suffered like she had. They hadn’t been burned or crushed. Their parents had saved them. They’d made it to the ocean. To Faeda. Just like she had.

They had.

She pressed her head into Govek’s chest, breathing in his rich pine scent, soaking up his warmth. She stroked the mattress under her fingers, moving them up to the mountain carving at the head of the bed. She traced the peak and breathed in the scent of the wood.

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