Page 202 of Sparktopia
I do. I grab onto Anneeta’s hand as Tyse begins to run down the passageway.
Anneeta, who was screaming just a moment before, settles and the screams turn into sobs. I can feel her taking the spark from me. It’s a little bit repulsive and I have to control the urge to pull away.
We haven’t even made it onto the train yet. There are fourteen more hours of this.
But I can’t think about it. All I can do is give her what I have and run.
The ground is no longer rumbling now, it’s sliding back and forth. Shaking everything. We crash into the walls as they begin to crumble.
The overlay begins to react again, and that’s when I see him.
Finn. Running up ahead of us. Carrying the redhead girl, Jasina Bell, in his arms.
“Keep going!” Tyse sees him too. I know he does.
But they’re not here. They’rethere.
And we don’t have time to worry about them or there.
Because something above us explodes, forcing the bubble of spark to form around us again, and all that’s left is us and here.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
It’s just noise.
Then pain.
Then dust.
I can’t hear. My ears are ringing.
I can’t move. Something is on top of me.
I can’t breathe. The air is nothing but sand.
And then I’m just tired.
So I sleep.
It’s a nice sleep. I am a Little Sister living in the dorm. Making pretty dresses, and gathering up new friends, and giggling as we go to gala, after gala, after gala.
I am Chosen again. Top fifty.
Then again. Top twenty-five.
Then again. Top ten.
Number ten, like Gemna. So I will never have to go into that tower.
Even though I know it’s not a tower now, it’s just a door. Like any other door, really. On one side it is this and on the other it is that. They all work that way.
Ineverwalk through that door.
I fall in love with Finn Scott, who is not the Extraction Master, because his father never died. He’s just an apprentice. And we wait, in love, while I serve the god in the tower as a Spark Maiden. I get rich, and marry him, and we have a family.
The Matrons never start a Rebellion to usurp the gods that live on the other side of the Looking Glass.
The Council never rounds up all the Little Sisters so Donal Oslin can eat their spark and open the door to another world.
