Page 127 of In Between Darkness
“I’m not killing you. So, I guess you’re just going to have to kill me.” I surrender to him, clinging to the hope that he is still in there somewhere.
I feel Oriah’s resistance, but I block her out and think back to the day he helped me find River. ‘For the wielders to gain control again, they had to enter their shadows and tame the beast from within.’
I lower my shadows, inviting him to lie on top of me.
“Ryder, you can beat this. To gain control, you have to tame the beast from within.”
My words shriek out with the hope that he’ll finally hear me, that the real him inside is fighting with me, not against me. But as my shadows drop, his quickly take over, my back still pressed up against the wall. His hands reach out and clasp tightly around my neck. My breath hitches as his hands squeeze tighter. But all I can think about is the familiar warmth of his touch. I gasp for air, but his hand is crushing my windpipe, his eyes lost in a serum-induced madness. My vision blurs slightly at the edges as I begin to lose consciousness. If he is the last thing I ever see, I will die happy.
“I forgive you, Ryder Stormwood.” My words are barely a whisper, clinging to my last breath, hoping that somewhere within him, he will get the message. That he won’t mourn my death. That the real him isn’t trapped behind this monster, watching me die by his hands. Hands that aren’t really his. Enslaved to his own mind.
My lungs cry out for air, for a release, but his grip is relentless. My face is turning blue, and my hands begin to scramble, clutching at the ground as if the marble will claw the life back into me. My fingers begin to tingle, vibrations like bass underneath my skin, one palm burning and the other submerged in its own darkness. There is a pull like a magnet calling them to collide, a force I cannot reason with. My hands grow limp and surrender to the magnetic pull, crashing together, merging the light and dark. A surge of raw power courses through my veins, erupting in a crescendo that threatens to tear me apart. A unification that would make even the Gods shudder. The air around me crackles, bending and twisting as Ryder’s hands are thrown off me with force. In a blinding flash, a shock wave erupts, a silent scream shattering the sound barrier. A sonic boom rips through the room, a wave of pure energy obliterating everything in its path. Shards of glass fly in a frenzy as the window concealing Ryder’s father shatters, slicing everyone in its wake and tearing open fragments of my skin, but I don’t have time to register the pain. I watch every muscle in Ryder’s body react to the sonic boom as he is catapulted through the broken window and onto the control panels in the room. The door that has held me prisoner swings open, releasing me. Cracks emerge in the walls as bits of ceiling crumble above us, my knees weaken as I stand with an empty feeling in my chest, barely able to carry my weight up. It’s as if all the power within me exploded and left nothing behind.
The silence that follows the boom is overwhelming, the ringing in my ears the only noise sharp enough to slice through the quiet. My shoes crunch over the broken glass as I wade through the debris of destruction I have created and through the windowless hole in the wall. The sound of Darryn’s staggered breathing is muffled by the blood spewing out of his mouth, drowning him from the inside out. His eyes are paintings ofsorrow and pain as I get closer to him. A metal pole impales him like a dagger, where I imagine his heart would be if only he had one.
“You don’t know what you’ve done.” Darryn’s voice is breathy and weak, but there is a certain amount of fear in his eyes.
I stand by him, staring him down, not giving him the satisfaction of supplying him with an answer. Through all his despair, I fight the urge to smile at his fear, hoping his death will be slow and painful for what he has done to Ryder.
“There is a war coming, and you have destroyed the only hope we had. You have killed everyone. Their deaths will be on your hands.” He couldn’t be telling the truth. He is trying to mess with me even on his deathbed.
“No. You did this because you are cruel and power hungry.”
“You will burn with the world, Asha Calloway, knowing you could have stopped it.”
His last breaths are hoarse, and I swear his mouth turns into a sickly smile as the colour drains from his eyes.
Miss Worthington seems to have succumbed to the same fate. Dead on impact. Flimsy with the way her neck snapped against the control table and left her body lifeless on the ground, along with some soldiers. But Charlie is nowhere to be seen. The Soldark rests untouched by the destruction, sitting proudly on the floor next to Miss Worthington’s body, like it is waiting to be back in my arms. I pick it up and rest it under my arm.
I have to pause for a moment to take in the rest of the room. Multiple screens hang on the wall, some shattered but some still in one piece. Live surveillance of the dungeons that hold the missing Moons, the doors now cracked open. I see Nala and watch as she tiptoes out of her cell to safety. Thank the Gods she is okay. I breathe a little easier. My eyes fall onto four tapes in an open box with labels on them. ‘Project Star.’ I take the box and squeeze The Soldark into it. Something is telling me I will needthese. The rooms flash red, including my own, as an alarm rings out through the building.
‘Evacuate…. Emergency…. Self-Destruct Protocol in progress’
Ryder groans, and I rush over to him, still keeping my distance. Blood stains his face as he twitches on the control panels. I have to get him out of here. I rest the box on the floor next to me and work at igniting my portal, but the void appears and then fizzles out. My power is not strong enough to get us out of here that way. The surge must have bled me dry.
“Ryder?” I call out to him, and he groans again, but I approach him with caution. “Are you okay? Can you walk?” I grip his face as he scrunches his eyebrows at me, his eyes are the same brown I am used to.
“Asha?” His voice is a low rumble and barely moves the air. It’s him. It’s really him.
“Yes, Ryder… It’s me. You’re back… thank the Gods.”
My aches and pains are numbed by the relief I feel.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” I pull him by his torn-up clothes and try to get him to his feet. His legs waver as he finds his footing, leaning into my body.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, his head drooping in weakness, as he holds onto my shoulder for stability. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
He winces with every step he takes, and my heart pangs. I did this to him.
“I know,” I say. “I never wanted to hurt you either.”
We take another step, but Ryder flinches away from me, making me jump.
He screams and drops to his knees, holding his head in pain. I kneel before him, my knees bloodied from the glass.
“What is it?” I hold his shoulders and try to lock eyes with him. That’s when I see it. A flicker of purple in the midst of the darkness.
“Ryder?” I ask, in denial of the serum taking hold of him again.
