Page 57 of Obsession

Ifyou get out, a voice in the back of my head whispered.

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

Britta

Ifought against Volten's grip as he dragged me away from Kann, my throat raw from screaming. The image of him lying on the ground, blood soaking his uniform pants where the blade was impaled in his leg, burned into my mind. Every step away from him felt wrong, like I was leaving a piece of myself behind.

"Let me go!" I yanked against Volten's iron grip as he pulled me through the academy doors. "We can't leave him!"

Volten spun me against the wall, his expression anguished. "You think I want to leave my best friend?” His voice was hoarse and shaky, which was not only because of the run. "He made me promise to get you out. A promise to Kann—" He broke off, swallowing hard. "I cannot break that. Not even for you.”

"Then break it for him,” I pleaded, grabbing his arm. "We can’t leave him with that injury. You saw the blood. The safety protocols are off. He could die. If we go back, we could fight off the Drexians.”

“Two of us against five times as many of them?" He shook his head, already pulling me along the corridor again. "That's not fighting, that's suicide.”

Urgent footsteps echoed down the corridor ahead of us. Volten yanked me into a shadowed alcove, pressing us both against the cold stone wall. I held my breath as the sound grew closer, and then I couldn’t have breathed if I’d wanted to.

It was Kann.

He was suspended between two Drexian guards who half-carried, half-dragged him. His head hung low, blood dripping steadily from his leg to mark his passage across the stone floor. I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out at the sight of him.

A third Drexian followed, his uniform marking him as a commander. "Take him to the dungeons," he ordered, his voice gravelly. "Let him think about the wisdom of running from us, while sitting in the dark and cold.”

They disappeared around a corner, but the sound of Kann's boots scraping against stone lingered longest of all the sounds. I turned to Volten, my voice urgent but quiet. "We can't leave him down there. The wound could get infected. He could bleed out before you can come back for him.Ifit’s possible to return.”

"Britta—"

"No." I grabbed his shirt, twisting the fabric in my fist. "Listen to me. Either we save him now, or I start screaming, and we all get caught. Your choice."

Volten stared at me for a long moment, then let out a short laugh that held no mirth. "I never knew you were such an emotional pain in the ass. I always pegged you as a rational Iron who never let feelings rule you.”

“I was rational and practical,” I admitted, releasing his shirt. “Until your friend ruined me.”

Volten eyed me. “If anyone could turn an Iron into an emotional mess, it would be Kann.”

Emotional mess seemed like a harsh assessment, but then again, I had made more irrational decisions in the past few hours than I probably had in my entire life. Volten was right that I wasn’t acting like myself or behaving like the practical engineer I’d always been. He wasn’t wrong about me being a pain in the ass, either. But, at the moment, I didn’t care about any of it.

Volten muttered something that sounded like Drexian curses as he ran a hand through his hair. His eyes slid to the corridor that Kann had been dragged down then back to me. Finally, he gritted out a sigh. "Fine. But you will have to explain to Kann why I was unable to do what he asked of me. You will have to tell him that I had no choice.”

“I’ll tell him it was all me.” For the briefest moment, I wondered what I would do if we didn’t get to Kann in time. What would I do if I lost him? What would I do if I lost the first guy who’d provoked such powerful feelings in me, the first one I’d truly loved?

The realization that I loved him made my breath hitch in my throat.

Impossible. I couldn’t love Kann. I’d only slept with him once. I hadn’t even gone on a real date with the Drexian. But even as I rationalized all the reasons it was impossible, I knew that it was true. As much as I shouldn’t love Kann, I did, and I suspected that I’d been falling in love with him for a while.

“If we’re going to do this,” Volten whispered. “we need to hurry. The window for extraction is closing, and if we miss it—"

"Then we'd better go,” I cut him off, not wanting to spend another second thinking about what would happen if we couldn't save Kann and couldn’t get out.

Volten took point, leading us down the corridor in the direction they'd taken Kann. My hands were sweaty, and my heart hammered so loudly that I was sure it would give us away.

Part of me knew this was insane. We'd had a clear shot at escape, and I'd insisted we stay. If we all perished in the program, it would be my fault. The rational part of my mind screamed that Kann had sacrificed himself precisely so we could escape, and I was throwing that sacrifice away.

But the thought of leaving him in the dungeons, bleeding and alone in the dark, made my entire body shudder as if I’d been doused with ice water. I couldn't do it. I'd rather die trying to save him than live knowing I'd abandoned him.

The corners of my mouth twitched. Kann would have said I was acting like a Blade, which would have made him happy. I could imagine the cocky, knowing grin he would have given me.

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