Page 95 of Resurrection
“How dare you use his face and voice to try and trick me.” Snarling at the mage pretending to be Andrei, I let my eyes glow,the eerie golden light forming dancing shadows over the man’s carved-out torso.
“April …”
Eshe tries to get my attention, but I hiss at her like a deranged beast, snapping my head back to look over my shoulder. I must be a sight since her eyebrows crawl all the way to her hairline, and she takes a step back, lifting her arms to the sides in surrender.
“I am going to rip you limb from limb,” I tell the man stretched on the wall like a canvas. “You should’ve tried another face. I would’ve believed it sooner.”
I must have really lost my mind because the idiot thinking to trick me by wearing Andrei’s features chuckles under his breath. The low laugh is a wet gurgling sound setting my teeth on edge. Behind me, feet shuffle and scrape over the floor, but I pay it no mind because all my focus is centered on the man.
“If I wasn’t … in so much … pain.” The man tries to shake his head, but it hangs limply toward his chest when he breathes the words with great effort. “I would … love to tell you … how badass you look … right now.”
My upper lip curls until my fangs are exposed, and I snarl again at him.
“You just … need … dramatic … makeup.” Coughs rack him, and blood splatters from his mouth to the dusty floor at his feet. It also bubbles up from the open wounds on his chest, trickling down to the waistband of his pants. “But you … must run, April. Go.”
A bucket of cold water dumped over my head wouldn’t have snapped me out of the crazy I was in like him mentioning the makeup. It was our thing, mine and Andrei’s. Every time Sebastian had an idea for me to play dress up, Andrei would sit with me, paint my face like an artist painting a masterpiece, and talk until I was calm enough to proceed with any plan theyset up. There is no way the mages could’ve known that to use it against me.
“How?” I’m not even embarrassed that I sound hysterical. “How did you survive?”
Without thinking, I reach for the metal chains pinning him to the wall with the intention of wrenching them off and taking him out of here. Frantically repeating, “How did you survive that blast, how?” my fingers wrap around the links, pulling his right arm up, and excruciating pain almost makes me black out. With a scream, I yank myself back, my fingers spasming from the magic coated all over it. Shaking my hand as if that will help, I push down the urgency clawing at me.
“Magic …” Andrei breathes, the word so low I almost don’t hear him. “They spelled … the chains …”
I turn to ask Eshe for help, but I’m left with my mouth hanging open when I realize it’s just us here and there is no sign of her. Hoping that she is nearby keeping an eye out that the mages are not coming back, I bring my focus back to Andrei before my eyes dart from side to side to look at the chains holding him upright on the wall.
“Go …” he attempts to send me away again.
“Shut the fuck up you stubborn ass.” The links are tightly twisted around his wrist and ankles, stretching him out just shy of pulling his limbs out of their sockets. “When have I ever done something when I’m ordered to do it?”
“True …” More gurgling comes from under his bent head, the sound of his voice just like at the beginning soothing me like a balm. Even in pain, he thinks he is funny. “Please …”
“I’m not leaving you here.” The conviction in my tone shuts him up for only a moment.
“You can’t …” He almost hacks out a lung in his refusal to stay quiet. “If not magic … I would’ve … gotten free …”
“There must be a way.” There is no way I’m walking out of these tunnels without him.
If worse comes to worst, I’ll fight the mages that come back and stay here until Sebastian finds me. Because let’s be honest, if I’m not back where he thinks I should be, he will turn this city inside out and drag my ass back. It’s just how our fucked-up relationship works. I do everything to piss him off, and he comes running like a knight in shining armor to save me from whatever shit I’ve gotten myself into that time. With that firmly set at the forefront of my mind, I focus back on Andrei.
“You are not healing,” I point out the obvious, while internally cringing at the wounds covering him.
“I can’t …” He stays quiet for long enough I think he lost consciousness, but with a gasp, he continues painfully slow. “The magic …”
“Fucking magic and fucking mages.” I seethe, reaching for the chains again even though I know it’s useless.
I’m proud to say I don’t scream.
My jaw clamps and my teeth grind audibly, so I’m actually surprised they don’t break. This time, it takes more effort to remove my hand from the metal. Whatever spell they’ve used tries to hold me to it as if glued. My body jerks and spasms along with my insides, but eventually I throw myself away from it, ending sprawled on my back.
That’s when I hear it.
It’s barely a whisper carried in the air, but I know someone is coming. It could be Eshe returning, but I know her too well to know she won’t give herself away like this. It must be the mages returning from wherever they were, which means my time is up. I can’t get Andrei out of the chains, so I’ll have to face them and kill them to buy myself the time I need to free him and take him home. As I roll to push myself up, my eyes land on the wall where the chains are. They aren’t nailed to it, instead theydisappear inside the concrete as if this damn tunnel was built with them hanging from it. There is no way to yank the chains out, but no one said anything about the wall.
In a last-ditch effort before I have to fight those assholes and hope none of them know how to create that green balloon thing that will surely get me killed, I jump up and rush to Andrei, stopping a foot from the wall to his left.
“Keep your head down,” I murmur to him, not taking my eyes off the spot where the metal chain is swallowed by the concrete.
Gingerly, I place my hand next to it, careful not to touch it, and I’m relieved when I don’t get zapped by the magic. A grin pulls my mouth up so wide it stretches the skin on my face painfully. With my next breath, I lean my left hand on the wall for balance and cock my right one behind my shoulder.
