Page 60 of Unbroken
“You don’t need to. It doesn’t matter.” Quincy grinned like a shark. “Not anymore.”
The vision ended so suddenly he felt hurled back into his physical body. His arm was agony, the wounds bleeding more than the previous ones had, but it was done.
The final Book was Bound.
Strength flowed through Sebastian’s limbs. He felt as though he could run a race, or climb a mountain, or make love all night long.
Lenore sat beside him on the bench; she’d let go of his arm at some point and put her needle away. “It worked,” she said, and the look on her face was that of the cat who’d gotten into the cream.
“Yes.” The skies opened up, lightning cracking, the rain now turning into a downpour. “Ves! We have to help him.”
“Go.” She pressed the Book of Blood into his hands. “Save my son, as I saved your sister.”
Bonnie—he’d been so disoriented from blood loss he hadn’t wondered how Ves had gotten free, or what had happened at the house. “I will.” He paused, looking straight into her eyes. “Thank you, Lenore.”
Then he was off and running, back through the maze toward the clearing.
They hadn’t gone far, and it only took a few turns before the hedge opened up into the clearing at the center. The flames were guttering, thankfully, the poisonous smoke drifting away from where Sebastian entered. The Dark Young tree thrashed, stretching all of its long branches out as if to stop what was happening, but unable to get close enough to do anything.
Ves lay in an unmoving heap, a sheet of blood obscuring his features, puddling around him on the ground. Victoria stood poised above, holding a half-broken marble bench over her head.
She was going to crush his skull.
“Stop,” he said.
He couldn’t compel her, but it was enough to get her attention. She spun toward him, face contorted in hatred. “You—” she began.
But he was done listening.
She’d infused the power of the Book of Blood into her own body, trying desperately to reverse what the sap had done to her. It hadn’t worked, but her human half was still shot through with the Book’s magic.
He could sense the blood pulsing in her veins. More: the breath in her lungs, the bones in her body, the flesh of her muscles and skin.
All of it given over to the Books, except where the sap protected her. And that part, which she’d hated and tried to remove, was too small to save her now.
She came at him, meaning to stave in his head with the bench. But he had only to reach out and undo…everything.
One step, and her skin disintegrated into dust. She opened her mouth to scream at him, but her muscles unraveled to smoke, the bones beneath crumbled to ash, the blood to powder.
Then it was over. What looked like a dead tree in the vague shape of half a woman stretched out its lone, clawed hand toward him, the bench tumbling harmlessly to the ground beside her.
Sebastian lowered his arm, his scars pulsing with pain for a moment, before it faded.
It was over. Victoria was dead, and the final Book in his hand.
Ves lay unmoving in a welter of blood.
“Oh fuck.” He ran to Ves, dropping onto the ground at his side. “Ves? Ves! Talk to me.”
He rolled Ves over onto his back. Half-healed wounds showed where Victoria had clawed open his face, the muscle still visible in places. Worse by far was the terrible hole in his abdomen, the gash on his head that peeled back the skin and exposed skull beneath.
He was breathing…but it was too faint. Too shallow.
“Ves?” Sebastian bent over him, blinking back tears. “Wake up, angel. I know you can heal from this, so wake up.”
Nothing. No movement, except for the breath coming ever more slowly.
“No. No, it can’t end like this.” Sebastian reached for his power—surely the Books could do something, could help him now.
