Page 24 of Wings of Ebony
“And one more print here,” she says, moving her hands back quickly, I guess to avoid touching my skin. Humans disgust many of them. Especially the older ones, I’ve noticed.
I press the other thumb on the scanner as the Chancellor’s words sizzle in my memory. He sees my humanity as weakness, a threat to his superior way of life. He’s arrogant, self-important, a coward. But Moms taught me to grind, to find a way when there is none.
I haven’t forgotten who I am. Who Moms raised me to be.
“That’ll do it,” she says in some fake chipper tone, and we scoot farther down the hall. We turn two corners and enter a familiar room. It’s windowless and tiny, like a patient room at the doctor. It’s white, pristine, and cabinets line the back, just as sterile as it was eleven months ago. The door clamps shut and my heart rattles in my chest.
This is it.
When they remove the cuffs, that’s my chance.
A tech with a dusty blond hair enters the room and the door clanks behind him, locked. He sets down his clipboard.
“Officers.” He nods at both of them. “This won’t take long, Rue.” He says my name like he knows me. He don’t know anything about me. I loosen my hoodie around my neck.
Tech Dude hovers over a tray of assorted syringes, a tiny bowl, and instruments that look way too sharp to touch living flesh. “If you’ll assist me, sirs. Help hold her still.”
The taller Patrolman joins the tech over the instruments, their backs turned.
“We’ll knock her out for the most of it,” he says to Patrol, holding a syringe. The rest of his words are a dull buzzing in my ear as his buddy reaches for the cuffs on my wrists.
Seconds. You will have seconds.
He slides the key into the restraints. “Now, hold still. Don’t make this more painful than it needs to be.”
Any second.
There’s aclinkand my hands are free.
Onyx tingles against my wrists and my insides swell with heat. I can feel my magic gathering, pooling, growing, the deeper I dig. My fingertips prickle.
Now.
I knock Patrol’s hand away and whip open my palms, wisps of energy thrashing there. He reaches for me, but I dart sideways, scorching his fingers with my magic. He groans in pain and falls back. The tech yelps, backing away as the other guard hustles toward me.
Focus.
The flames flickering in Tasha’s wide eyes, her tears when I said goodbye, the General’s smug grin, the Chancellor’s condescending stare—all of those moments play on repeat in my head. Heat torches my veins as Ipullall that anger to the balls fused to my wrist.
The sphere of lightning in my hands rips and crackles, doubling in size. I slam the magic together and thrust at the door. The walls shudder and the door pops off its hinges, clanging on the floor. I dodge sideways, missing Patrolman’s garb by inches, and stumble into the hallway.
Four guards are at my back as I book it down the corridor, latching my watch back on my wrist. They’re fast but my feet fly with passion. The watch uses a synthesized signal from something, Bri’d said. However she designed it, it only works outside.
I need to get out of this building and fast.
Streaks of light shoot past me as they throw one curse after another. I run harder, bobbing and weaving before swinging around the corner. A pair of techs huddled over a cart of elixir vials shout as I pass. I ignore them and push through a set of glass doors. The halls all look the same. Which way do I go?
A steady beat of footsteps squeak against the polished floor behind me.
“Hey!” Shouts stab my ears as I dash through the next set of doors, down a hall chock full of people milling about. The courtyard’s on the north end of the building, so surely that’s the way out of here. I charge through, barreling toward the north stairs.
In the stairwell, there are no echoes of footsteps behind me, only nosy folks and confused stares. I slip through the double steel doors,booking it down a few flights of stairs. When I spill out of the stairwell I glance over my shoulder, but they’re gone. I listen.
Silence.
I really lost them! For now.
I turn back. What are the words? How does it go? Uhh… yo, something… ah! “Yo’lum k’dex nae.” My wrists warm and sparks shoot from my palms. The stairs groan, swelling and twisting to twice their size. The metal creaks to a stop and what were just stairs are now a pile of crumpled metal wedged between concrete walls. Let’s see them get past that.
