Page 77 of Siege of Shadows

I barely twitched in response.

“He gave you a signal.” Rhys inched closer to us, his feet making no noise against the dewy grass.

“You didn’t think Vasily of all people would stay locked up for long, did you?”

“Who helped him?” Rhys crushed a posy underfoot.

“Who didn’t?” Jessie laughed. “There’s more of us than you realize. You really suck at picking sides.”

The two stared each other down in the night, and something inside me was screaming for me to get ahold of myself, but my knees stayed helplessly pinned to the grass.

“Life really isn’t fair, isn’t it?” Jessie said. “All those years ago... we all went through it in that fucked-up facility—those insane training sessions, those ‘psych evals’ that felt more like torture. You were the one who said we could be free.Youmade me think we’d all escapetogether. Escape the Sect.” Her voice, for the first time, swelled with a kind of childish hope, immature and fragile. It didn’t last. “But everything went wrong.Wefollowedyou, but onlyyougot to live. And what did you do but go right back to the Sect?” Her long red hair swept the air like a pendulum as she shook her head violently. “Unlike me and Vasily, you had Mommy and Daddy to go back to. People to protect you. You escaped one cage and dragged yourownsorry ass right back into another. Ever the dutiful son.” She smirked. “You’ll never be free.”

“And are you free, Jessie?”

Jessie rubbed the back of her neck with a trembling hand. I couldn’t tell if she’d even meant to or not. “Maia,” she said suddenly, and it was like my body shook awake. “Remember what the little voice in the phone told you. We gotta go.”

Yes. At all costs.

I stood.

“Maia?” Rhys lowered his gun, his eyes narrowing as a hint of fear crawled into his features.

At all costs.

Balls of flame exploded at Rhys’s feet like little bombs. Rhys jumped and dove to avoid them, rushing toward me every opportunity he got, but I didn’t stop hurling fire at him. Jessie’s unhinged laughter screeched over the chaos as she dragged herself up and balanced herself on her good leg.

“Kill him!” She goaded me, too excited at the mayhem of flames to bother shooting at him herself. “Kill himnow!”

I was trying. The dull pain throbbed at the back of my neck, the steel band rubbing against my skin as if aching to crush my windpipe.Listen to Jessie. Escape with her at all costs.I wastrying.

“Maia, wake up! Fight it!” Rhys cried before I sent a wall of flame crackling up at his feet. He jumped, but too late—he cried out in pain as the fire licked his leg.

A hard twinge in my chest, a sudden chill rushing through me. All these curious sensations my mind couldn’t grasp as Rhys hit the ground hard, rolling on the grass to put the flame out.

Maia...

Maia...

Are you listening...?

She was humming a melody I’d heard too many times before on those terrifying nights.

Her voice... Natalya’s voice.

I told you.... You let them cage you.... You trust too easily....

“What are you doing? Kill him!Hurry,” Jessie ordered because my hands had frozen in the air.

My arms wavered, caught between falling limp and staying firm. My attacks stopped. What was I doing?

Its hold on you is getting weaker... If we work together... if we share this battle, we can overcome it completely.... For just today, for just a second... Maia, let me take you....

There were too many voices in my head: one telling me to kill Rhys and the other telling me to kill myself.

I can’t do it alone. Let me out.... Let us... help each other....

“Maia.” Rhys tried to struggle back to his feet, but his unwieldy legs collapsed beneath him and he fell back. He gripped the soil, dirt collecting in his fingernails as he let out a haggard sigh and looked up at me. “Please come back. Come back to me.”

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