Page 116 of An Academy for Liars

The gate she opened ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. It was a great and terrible gash, a gate opened in grief and panic and fear. A maw that had consumed the campus whole and swallowed it down through time itself. And as it did, Lennon felt something terrible open within herself. She could hear her own bones breaking, but she felt no pain.

Dante sank to the floor beside Lennon, screaming, his mouth open so wide she feared he’d broken his jaw. He was weeping blood, and she could see it pooling in his ears too, slicking down both sides of his straining neck, painting over his tattoos with red. He was giving all of himself, and even still, Lennon demanded and took more of him.

When the gate fully encompassed the school, she could feel it. Lennon could account for every brick and cobblestone. The grasping roots of the live oaks, the rats that scuttled through the underbrush, the students and the faculty cowering out on the lawn, she could see through their eyes as if through a pair of lenses. She was a part of them all.

And she knew then that her work was done.

With a brutal jolt that broke every window in every building on the campus, the gates firmed, and the free fall stopped. They had done it. The gate had been raised.

“You did it,” said Blaine, she was on the floor beside her. “You stopped it. You raised the gate.”

Lennon smiled, stunned that she’d actually done it. She turned to Dante, laughing in total disbelief, and saw him lying on the floor, curled fetal. There was blood, so much blood leaking from his mouth, forming a dark puddle on the ground beneath his head. Both of his hands were broken and his legs skewed at sickening angles.

She dropped to her knees at the sight of him and had to crawl across the floor to his side.

The house was already threatening to give, cracks racing up its walls, plates of plaster shattering on impact with the floor. It wouldn’t remain standing for long. If they didn’t get out soon, they would die there under the rubble.

“We have to go,” she said, attempting to lift him up. But with his broken legs, it was a near-impossible feat and she didn’t have the strength to drag him. In fact, she could barely walk herself. After several false tries, her own legs gave out. They both crumpled to the floor. “Blaine, don’t just stand there. Help me lift him. Please—”

“Lennon, stop,” said Dante, his voice so weak it scared her. “Look at me.”

“Don’t you do this.”

“Look at me, Lennon.”

She looked at him. Really looked. She took in his broken body. The fear in his eyes, the bloody tears collecting in the corners of them.

“I’ve got to go now, and you’ve got to let me.”

Lennon shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Hey,” said Dante, pressing his knuckles against her cheek despite the pain. “Come on, now—”

“You can’t. I won’t leave you.”

“You have no choice.” His voice weakened, his words garbled by blood. There was so much of it, slicking his neck and staining his shirt. “Let me go. I’m ready.”

“No. You can’t just leave.”

His pupils swelled to subsume his irises, then shrank down to pinpoints. He gazed just past Lennon’s shoulder, and she realized, in horror, that his vision was going.

“Dante, stay here—”

His eyes came back into focus, homing in on Lennon’s. He looked so terribly afraid. “You have…to save the school. Keep the gates up. Make yourself…indispensable—” His voice broke on a cry of pain. When he spoke again it was through gritted teeth. “The school is your leverage now. Use it to buy your freedom. Your mind. Take the chancellorship if you have to.” His eyes fell shut.

Lennon seized him by the shoulder, as if to shake him awake. “Dante!”

Dante opened his eyes, gazed at Blaine. “It’s time. The house won’t hold.”

Blaine looked between Dante and Lennon, then nodded and reached for the latter.

“No,” said Lennon, shaking her head. “Blaine, help him, please—”

A rafter on the other side of the room groaned overhead. Blaine caught Lennon by the arm and pulled her back just as a support beam fell between her and Dante. The chancellor’s house—this cursed pocket of the universe that William had kept alive—was collapsing.

“Let me go,” she shrieked, striking Blaine’s chest and shoulders, even lashing out with her will, a series of sad attacks that Blaine easilydeflected. She kept dragging her away, one-handed even as Lennon kicked and struggled, begged to be set free.

Plates of plaster flaked off the ceiling and a rain of bricks came down as Blaine dragged Lennon—thrashing and pleading—down the hall of memories and away from the bedroom. Through the clouds of dust, the falling detritus, Lennon caught a final glimpse of Dante. Somehow—despite his broken legs, despite the pain—he was on his knees, his head tipped back, palms up, a smile on his face.

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