Page 90 of Creatures of Chaos

Reaching up, I grab the pedestal again. They’re secured to the ground, but I pull with all my might, yelling out my anger and frustration, and the top-heavy pedestal teeters. Kiaro must realize what I’m doing because he quickly uncoils.

That’s right. This pedestal comes down and none of us are getting out of this room.

Before he has a chance to stop me, I give it another yank and the whole thing tips over, the mirror shattering on impact. Kiaro makes a furious hissing sound and darts at me before I can reach for a piece of the glass.

Throwing my hands up, I catch his triangle head before he can put his mouth over my face. I try to reach for a piece of broken glass to defend myself, but I can’t let go of Kiaro without leaving myself vulnerable.

Hands suddenly appear out of nowhere and close around Kiaro’s narrow skull.

Talon.

Black shadows seep out of Talon’s palms, sink into Kiaro’s head, and the next moment the giant snake goes limp.

Talon drops Kiaro and falls to his knees.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, his gaze half-lidded as it runs over me. He’s fighting to stay present.

I do a quick assessment. I’m sore, but I don’t think anything’s broken, so I shake my head at him.

“Is he. . . ?”

“Not dead. I just knocked him out the same way I knocked you out in the cage. He’ll be fine in an hour or so,” he says, and then his eyes cloud over.

Before he can fall back into the hallucination, I grab his face, holding it between my hands, and force him to look at me. “It’s in your head, Talon. There’s no one here but you and me.”

His gaze clears again, and he nods then looks at the broken mirror. “How are we going to get out of here?”

I search the mirror shards on the ground. Finding a large one, I grab it and stand. “We still have a chance. We only need to get that door open. Go to the emblem and direct me,” I say, holding up the piece of glass until I find the laser. I’m not sure if this will work with the mirror broken, but it’s worth a try.

It takes us a couple precious minutes to get the angle right, but eventually we get the laser pointed back at the wall. The purple light appears, and the door reopens. “Go,” I tell him, and he stumbles toward the door.

I calculate the distance from the door to where I am, and I think I can make it. No way am I waiting in this room alone with Kiaro. I don’t want to be anywhere near the psycho when he wakes.

Dropping the mirror shard, I sprint toward the door, squeezing through it right before it snaps shut.

I lean up against the hallway wall and close my eyes, giving my heart a moment to recover. When I open them again, Talon is resting against the wall across from me, his gaze glazed, but he’s conscious at least.

There’s a door at the end of the hallway that we both move toward. When I reach it and turn the knob, it swings open easily, revealing the overgrown garden behind the asylum.

We did it.

But the sky has already started to change from a dark blue-black to a deep purple, and even lighter on the horizon line. How much time before sunrise? Minutes? Seconds?

We can make it. We just need to get to the gazebo in the middle of the garden. I can even see the roof from where we’re standing. It can’t be more than a hundred yards away.

“Come on, Talon, we’re almost there. We gotta go.” But when I look back at him he’s sliding to the ground.

Reaching down, I manage to get him on his feet by urging him to loop an arm around my neck. I go to move forward, but no matter how hard I try I can’t make myself step out of the building.

At first I think we’re stuck in a magical trap of some sort, but then I realize what it is—the unbreakable bond Talon put on me when we made our agreement. My body won’t let me move any farther because I agreed to fail out of this trial, and if I keep moving forward I’ll pass and move on to the next trial. But Talon can’t make it to that gazebo on his own. The only way he’s passing this trial and moving on to the next is with me.

I let out a growl of frustration and twist toward Talon. Propping him up against the wall the best I can, I drape his arms over my shoulders to keep him upright. His head lolls forward as he only just holds on to consciousness.

“Talon, you have to free me from the bond so that I can help you finish the trial.”

He mumbles something I can’t quite hear, and so I lean in. “Talon, say you release me from our bond or else we both will be disqualified from Chaos,” I try again.

With effort he shakes his head. “No. You’ll get hurt,” he all but slurs.

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