Page 1 of Ramshackle
Chapter one
Kellan
Lightning slams into mebefore I can reach Raegan, electricity binding my muscles so I’m a prisoner in my body. The sharp, stinging pain that strikes indiscriminately is nothing compared to the sight of my girl’s hand in Gordon’s as they walk toward a portal that leads to fuck-knows-where.
Move, goddammit!
I draw on a desperate attempt to somehow break free of this bastard’s gift long enough to get to her. But it’s like all communication between my brain and body has been severed, and I’m forced to watch the son of a bitch who hurt Raegan smirk gleefully as he takes her from me.
From us.
Get your filthy fucking hand off her!I'm furious that I can’t open my jaw to say anything. If I could at least get something out, I might be able to buy us more time. Or convince Raegan to take down Sparky and then we can all fight Gordon and the portal girl.
The pain isn’t enough to draw my gift out, though I have no fucking idea if it repels electricity or not even if I did have it active. I’m not burning and nothing’s broken skin, which means my scales are useless right now.
Raegan steps in front of the portal, and I scream at her internally.
Don’t go. Don’t leave. Fight, beautiful!
She turns and looks at me.
Hope blooms in my chest until I notice her expression.
No…
Her sad, but determined look is shared with the others as she gazes past me before it softens at the end. She blinks and takes the final step, disappearing before my eyes.
RAEGAN!
Heat scorches through my veins, burning me from the inside. My body quakes, fighting off the lightning’s hold. She’s not gone yet. The portal’s still open, and I can still bring her back to this side.
My boot scratches against the sand.
“Holt, did that guy move?” The girl who conjured the portal points at me.
Sparky frowns. He curls his fingers on his raised hand, and a new rush of electricity swarms through me, sinking in deeper until my heart and lungs stall.
“Make sure you don’t kill him or Gordon will be upset with you,” the girl quips, but this time, it’s more of an echo as my mental alarm bells are ringing that I’m about to be done for and there’s shit-all I can do about it.
It feels like minutes pass, but it must be mere seconds before the lightning ends abruptly and I drop to the hard and rocky beach face-first. Air fills my lungs, and I choke and gasp on it in my rush to breathe again while my heart’s trying to find its rhythm.
My muscles twitch and jump involuntarily, still working through the remnants of electricity until it finally peters out.
I dig my fingers into the sand, fisting a handful of it as I catch my breath.
The portal. It’s gone.
She’sgone.
I shove to my feet, swaying to the side and then staggering forward to where it was.
“Kellan,” Aiden calls out from behind me, but I can’t even consider doing anything else until I’ve checked that spot. Maybe she left a clue behind like Jack had at the firehouse.
The area reveals nothing. No lingeringsomethingin the air, no trace of anything in the sand.
A growing ache in my chest pulsates with every thump of my heart.
Though I don’t know how it’s still beating when it feels like it’s been ripped out, leaving me hollow and incomplete.
