I reigned in the voltage once the man fell to his back and demanded, “Tell me where the Cidris Facility is.”
He panted like a dog out of energy in between his words. “You’re the girl Fletcher was farming.”
I got on my haunches, reached for the two golden shackles on his belt and tossed them into the Onyx River behind me. “I won’t ask again.”
“It was Fletcher who broke you out, huh?” He smiled, blood coating the spaces between his teeth. “How’d he do it?”
I scoffed and sent another wicked zap into his chest.
His extremities curled inward like they were cramping as he took a harsh gulp. “The Dead Woods. It’s underground. There’s an opening on the far west side. About three miles away from Elizy. Please, enough.”
“Thanks.” A surge of my magic exploded from the empty abyss within me, bright and aqua. It was brief, but prevailing before the split swallowed it whole. My lightning malfunctioned and sent wave after wave of electricity into the young man’s chest until there was nothing but a chard slab of flesh that thickened the air.
I shrugged, smiled, and thanked my magic for its slip up. I stepped over what was left of the man, ready to walk straight into the hostile Cidris hive with my split magic by my side.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
I sent my coils of deep sapphire shadows out again, finding the opening of the Cidris Facility and teleported before its entrance. It was a large mound of interlaced tree roots that was pried apart, forming a yawning maw that led deep into a towering cliffside. All around were root knolls, a tangled weave of gnarled and twisting appendages, as if every tree of the Ölden Lands began and ended here.
My ankles rocked to find balance on the particularly uneven roots beneath my feet where I had landed.
With my electricity crackling at my fingertips, I strolled into the cavern with a jovial hum. The air was thick and musty, and the echoing darkness swallowed me whole. My buzzing electricity provided a steady source of illumination amidst the inky shadows.
Soon, the well-traveled tunnel sloped into a decline. I began my short descent until the rest of the path was closed off by glass doors. A pang of frustration rattled through my chest, and with a determined grunt, I unleashed a burst of lighting. It shot forward with force, but the glass absorbed the energy, leaving it pristine and untouched.
Magic proof just like their cages.
I sent my hands outward. Two of my shadow tendrils drilled holes into the walls on either side of me, traveled around the glass. When I saw the tip of my split poking through, dirt spilling to the carpeted floor behind the glass, I broke apart and steered the wind through the tunnel I had just created.
Upon an abrupt right turn, the walls were reinforced with concrete, and a wave of stale air that held a tinge of an irony smell made me cough. I couldhear the sound of the machinery in the distance. The concrete corridor branched out into four, each with flickering fluorescent lights. I followed the drone of electricity, sensing it was my best shot at finding the cages.
A deep shout barreled toward me, so I guided my smoke around a corner until I found who it was. I lassoed the guard, hauling him straight to me.
I smiled and let my electricity play. It dug its way into his skull until his eyes flitted out.
I stepped over the man and rounded the corner to come face to face with another guard. My other hand lifted to let my split take over. I laughed. I felt so good. So alive. Some. This was what I wanted. To take down the Cidris. And I would kill every last one of them.
Coils of shadows retracted from my fingertips and reemerged from my sides like extra limbs. They pitched forward, assessing, and shrank back, burrowing into me one at a time to relay what it had found. More life. I sensed life. I sensed my Elizians.
As I turned the corner into another corridor, two more guards were running toward me, but before I got a clear look at their features, they were charred meat.
When all was quiet again, I rode my split down the hall while my skin ignited in cobalt flames that emitted white-hot embers.
Then, I recognized the acrid smell, the palpable solemness that flowed through the air and the permeating sadness.
The cages.
My eyes fell upon four men who were busy collecting blood from different women. When a domino of prisoners lifted their heads and widened their eyes at me, the four men spun in my direction.
By the time they began grappling with their guns, my flames ignited higher, exhilarated. A rush of electricity dashed from one spark to the next around my hands and arms. With a soft laugh, amused at the absurdity of their belief that they could outmatch me, I sent my lighting hurtling toward the first man.
I had it all planned out. The three men on the right first, and the short, stalky one on the left last.
But, I faltered when my eyes caught sight of a tall man with a gaze akin to lethal venom charging through the hallway. Aqua raced down his arms in harsh lines, shooting out of his fingertips into all three of the men at once and sending them to their knees then their faces.
The dangerous aura of this man made even my split run scared, eliciting some type of instinctual response from the deepest recesses of my being. Up came Fletcher’s lilac magic, powerful and all-consuming. It zipped and thrashed, keeping my split submerged in its oppressive energy that extinguished my flames and retracted my electric shadows. The recoil of using magic raced up the male’s arms in a galaxy of stars. I recognized that magic, that pattern of twinkles. It was mine. This was Fletcher.
