Page 68 of Road To Runes

"Did you still need this?"Hecate trotted out of the kitchen with a large knife clasped in her jaws.

So that was where she had gone. A few minutes earlier might have stopped me setting the house on fire. Even if her timing was off, she had the right idea.

"No, you sociopath. We're evacuating." Asher grabbed her in one hand and seized my hand with the other.

My stomach clenched as we hurried toward the front door. As I stepped through it, magic rippled around me and I was jerkedaway from the door, my hand ripping out of Asher's. I cried out as the magic hurled me to the floor of the hallway.

Asher dropped Hecate, who yowled at him, and he darted back through the door to help me back up.

"What happened?" he asked, raising his voice over the crackling of burning wood beyond the living room door.

I stared at the doorway, my heart sinking into my stomach. "Asher, she gave me a potion. Something to stop me from being able to leave the house."

The blood drained from Asher's face and he coughed into his sleeve as the air thickened with smoke. He couldn't stay here, even if I had no choice.

"You have to go," I said, pushing him toward the door.

"No." He planted his feet and fought back, standing as still as he could against my shoves. "I'm not leaving you."

"You don't have a choice." I shoved him harder, my years of rock climbing giving me just enough body strength to move him from his position. I would go down with this ship if I had to, but no way he was.

Asher grabbed my arms and whirled me around, pressing my back against the wall. The heat intensified, the air filling with smoke, and sweat beaded on my forehead. Asher bowed his head, pressing his clammy forehead to mine.

"I'm not leaving you here," he said.

Chapter 35

Somehow, I forgot the house was burning down.

Despite every conclusion I had drawn since we broke up, he still loved me, and it was going to get him killed.

I stared up at him, my vision a little blurry as I soaked in the sensation of his touch. It might be the last time I would get to enjoy it. Regardless, I couldn't let him stay here, because although I had tried to convince myself otherwise for months now, I loved him too.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Priya appeared in the doorway, instantly covering her face with her sleeve as the smoke hit her. "This place is going down. We've got to go!"

I was too stunned to explain to her what was going on. I was going to die in this place, and so was Asher, if he didn't leave.

Asher looked at Priya over his shoulder. "The house won't let her leave, Pri."

Priya's face dropped, expressionless. The air thickened with another layer of smoke and I coughed into my sleeve.

"Priya, you need to take him right now," I said. "There's no point in the both of us..." I couldn't bring myself to say thewords 'to die'. I had barely realised how much I took each day for granted, expecting to go to bed and wake up again the next day to do it all again. But all of a sudden, my future was a vast expanse of black water that I was going to sink into and never surface from.

Only it wouldn't feel that seamless. Not if I was going to burn alive.

My next breath hitched in my throat, coated with soot as Asher wrapped his arm around my waist and hoisted me up over his shoulder.

"Get everyone out of here. We'll find another way out," Asher told Priya, making his way down the corridor.

"Asher, no!" I bellowed, and beat my fists onto his back. I couldn't take it. For all the hate and fury I had toward him in the past six months, the idea that he would die with me was worse than the thought of dying alone.

Priya's horrified face got smaller and smaller as Asher hurried down the corridor with me, but then Hecate darted between Priya's legs and dashed toward us.

"Hec!" I screamed her name. No way was this happening. "Don't you dare!"

But she didn't even slow down.

Asher kicked open the basement door and we descended the stairs, with Hecate hot on our heels. I held my sleeve to my mouth again as the air continued to thicken with smoke. When he reached the bottom, he put me back on my feet, allowing me to grab him by his shirt and shake him. Dragging his face to mine, our noses touched but I was too angry to even indulge the idea of kissing him.

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