Page 20 of The Omega Trials: Part Three

I collapse onto the road as if my legs were cut off at the knees.

“Bishop, help us, help us, please.” Her distressed pleas tear me in two.

“I’m coming. I’m coming!” I shout back, but my legs won’t move. They are dead weight behind me as I drag myself across the pavement with my arms.

“C’mon, baby, you can do it.” I see my mother’s face behind one of the shattered windows, and I claw at the ground as hard as I can. There’s blood and broken glass in her hair and on her cheek.

My nails start to bleed, but I can’t stop. Her eyes are hazel like mine and full of fear. She’s trying to be brave for me, I can tell. She has the same look on her face she gets when my father hits her in front of me. But nothing can hide that kind of heartbroken, hopeless fear.

The closer I pull myself to her, the heavier my legs become. The weight becomes nearly impossible to move. But Ican’tstop.

My arms and hands get torn up as I drag myself through the debris of splintered metal and glass. I don’t care because that only means I’m getting closer to her.

I don’t know how I’m going to get her or the others out. She seems to be the only one left conscious—or alive.

One step at a time,I tell myself and put one hand in front of the other to drag myself ever closer.

That’s when I smell it.Gasoline.

“Oh god.” My mother trembles as she smells it too.

“It’s okay, Mama. It’s gonna be okay. I’m almost there—”

I can’t tell where the fire ignites from, but suddenly it’s blazing.

“I’m almost there!” I yell, despite the fire growing hotter and hotter; I can feel it on my skin. My mother’s sobs are soon covered by the sound of its roaring flames.

“I’m almost there,”I cry, sweat and tears pouring down my face.

Black smoke fills the van, and I lose sight of my mother. The last thing I see before the car explodes into a ball of fire is her hand through the broken window reaching out for me.

“No, no,no!”I scream and sob, pounding my bloody fists on the littered ground. “I was almost there.I was almost there!”

Save them.

That’s all I had to do.

I failed.

Now, the only thing I can do is lie down and wait for the fireball to consume me too.

1. “Unsteady” by X Ambassadors

Chapter 12

Memories

Titus

The surface of the lake ripples with soft gusts of wind. The afternoon sun reflects like tumbling diamonds. Its serenity offers no comfort. Its beauty is wasted on the hollowness where my heart used to be.

My brothers sit in silence with me on the bank, the same look of emptiness in their eyes. We came here right after the Fortitude Trial and haven’t said a word since. Ecker keeps picking up small sticks and breaking them in half, then half again and again until he can’t snap them anymore. Bishop found a flat stone and has been turning it over and over in his hand for the last thirty minutes.

I want to know what they saw, experienced. What memory came back to them as the worst moment of their lives? Was it the same as mine? Our lives have run parallel since birth. No, not parallel. Parallel implies clean lines, running alongside each other but never touching. Our lives have always been intertwined, three strands on the same rope.

Perhaps it’s Sinclair whose life has run parallel to ours. She was the mirror of our exile. We all grew up hiding who we were, living under shadows our ancestors hung. Until now, when our individual ropes are tied together with a permanent knot.

“So, what did you see?” Ecker breaks the silence but doesn’t tear his gaze away from the lake in front of us, just snaps his twigs and stares unseeing—or seeing too much.

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