Page 7 of The King's Pawn
They hit the ground and the nearby cars parked a few yards away, andme. Tiny stings pepper the backs of my hands and exposed neck, sharp enough to tear the skin and draw blood.
Screams erupt everywhere around me.
They are high-pitched and raw, gut-splitting sounds that are sharp enough to cut through the ringing that fills my ears. Others are low, panicked wails of confusion and terror and pain blending into a horrific symphony that is soon drowned out by my pulse filling my ears.
I try to breathe.
My throat feels squeezed shut, my lungs refusing to cooperate. I’m drowning on dry land, gasping like a fish tossed onto a dock.
I roll onto my back slowly, every muscle trembling from the shock. My vision swims, blurred by tears I didn’t realize I was crying. Above me, the sky—blue just moments ago—is already being swallowed by a widening plume of black smoke.
It curls upward in sickening, thick coils, blotting out the sun.
The economics building, where I was sitting not even five minutes ago, is no longer just a building. It’s a furnace of flames that roar out from the broken second-floor windows, orange tongues licking hungrily at the collapsing frame. The walls groan, sagging inward like the entire structure is taking its last breath before caving inward.
For a second, I swear I see silhouettes of people moving inside, frantic as they run through the fire.
My stomach turns violently.
Students scatter in every direction, some of them sprinting toward the front doors to help, some crawling away with their bloodstains trailing behind them. Others are frozen in shock, stuck staring up at the building while waiting for the inevitable to happen.
Someone grabs my arm, yanking me upright and onto my feet again.
A man’s voice shouts something at me, but I can’t understand him. The ringing in my ears drowns everything out and I can only blink and shake my head. He shoves away from me before turning to a girl close-by, turning her over to assess her for injuries.
Another blast, not as large as the first one, rocks the ground beneath us, sending another wave of screams rolling through the courtyard like a storm surge as more fire plumes out through another set of windows.
My brain feels split open, logic screaming that I should move while instinct screams that I should hide, all while shock freezes me in place.
I can’t tell which side is winning.
I look back at the building again, unable to stop myself. All of it has been swallowed up by the fire.
If I hadn’t left… if I hadn’t checked my phone… if I hadn’t listened…
I would be dead.
A sob rips up my throat uncontrollably. My hand claps over my mouth to trap it but it escapes anyway, shaking my entire body.
A hand clamps around my arm from behind, yanking me back so hard, I nearly skid across the concrete. My breath punches out of me as I whirl around in panic and find myself staring into Alexei’s face, one of Papa’s guards, six foot three, built like a wall, his jaw set with the kind of focus only men like him possess.
His mouth is moving, shouting something at me, his eyes wide with urgency, but I can’t hear a thing. It’s all muffled, buried beneath the high-pitched ringing that’s carved itself into my skull. The world might as well be underwater.
I don’t fight him.
I don’tdoanything.
My legs are barely working, trembling beneath me with every step he forces me to take forward. He practically drags me across the courtyard, cutting through crowds of crying, bleeding students, pushing past a police line that hasn’t even fully formed yet as they’re still jumping out of their vehicles.
When we reach the curb, an SUV is already idling there. Alexei shoves me inside with more force than necessary, but maybe necessary is subjective when the world has just exploded and all I can manage to be is a useless ragdoll.
He slams the door so hard, the frame rattles.
Yuri is behind the wheel. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his expression carved from granite as he glances at me in the rearview mirror. Something flickers in his eyes, but I can’t quite make sense of it. Relief, fear, anger? I don’t know. My head is too scrambled to think.
The tires screech as he pulls away, weaving between abandoned cars, debris, and the still-forming chaos of more police arriving on scene. I twist in my seat, unable to stop myself as I press a shaking hand against the back window for one last look.
The campus, the place that has been my lifeline and my fragile taste of freedom, has transformed into a battlefield. Students stagger through the wreckage like ghosts, faces streaked with blood and dust.
