Immortal Consequences(68)
August raised his brows in bemusement.
“Why would I do that?”
“Well, you have no use for us anymore,” Emilio muttered. “You’ve already finished your part. What’s stopping you from just going back to Blackwood?”
August sighed and turned away, fixing his gaze on Olivier.
“Can you handle this?”
A foreign sense of rage burned inside Emilio, a buildup of frustration that had him stepping forward and blurting out a response.
“I’m not his dog.”
August blinked in surprise. Emilio flinched, anticipating some sort of rebuttal, but none came. Instead, August merely nodded his head and said, “No. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He sighed and stepped closer. “Look, Emilio. I have no hidden agenda here. I think an alliance between us…all of us…would be beneficial. So—no. I’m not going to just leave. I said I would help both of you, and I will.”
Emilio stared back in bewilderment. That wasn’t the response he had expected.
“Oh.”
August smirked. “Now…if we’re done with the interrogation, we should probably move on to the next soul. I don’t know about you two, but I’m ready to—”
His words were cut short when the ground began to shake. The leaves on the trees shivered, a horrible cracking sound erupting from below them. Emilio glanced at Olivier, panic coursing through him.
“Did you…feel that?”
August looked between them. “We need to find the next door. Now.”
But just as the words left his lips, a crack split the ground between them, sending Emilio and Olivier flying in one direction and August in another. The crack widened into a gaping rift, chunks of earth crumbling and falling into the unending abyss. It only grew wider with every passing second, and Emilio found himself scrambling backward as the abyss widened, threatening to pull him under.
A set of hands wrapped around his chest and tugged him to safety just as the crack split beneath his legs.
Olivier’s lips brushed against Emilio’s ear, his ragged breaths echoing behind him.
“Are you—are you all right?”
Emilio shook his head. No. I’m not. But he couldn’t get the words to come out. His mind had shut off, his body running on autopilot. Through the chaos, he could vaguely see August on the other side of the fissure, hoisting himself onto his feet. He seemed fine, though his arms were coated in fresh cuts, blood staining his white shirt.
“Go!” he heard August call out from the other side, his voice muffled by the roar of the earthquake. “Find your door! I’ll locate you!”
Olivier grabbed Emilio by the wrist and began to run. A glowing path led them through the crumbling forest, but all Emilio could focus on was Olivier next to him.
He couldn’t let go.
He couldn’t lose him.
The thought propelled him forward. He clung to it with feverish determination. Even once they located the door and sprinted through it, falling into a different landscape, safely away from the crumbling forest, the thought still echoed in his mind like an incessant warning bell.
He couldn’t lose him. He couldn’t lose him. He couldn’t– “Emilio.” Olivier was staring at him with wild and frantic eyes. “Breathe. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop the panic rising in his throat.
Everything was entropy and chaos, a never-ending stream of noise and color and— “You’re safe,” Olivier repeated, his voice a steady presence. And then he gently lowered his forehead onto Emilio’s, and everything seemed to soften. The cadence of Emilio’s breathing. The sound of the wind against his ears.
Emilio opened his eyes. Olivier stared back at him.
“Better?”
Emilio managed a feeble nod. “Yeah. Better.”
Olivier hesitated, forehead still pressed against Emilio’s, before reluctantly pulling away. A tense silence stretched between them, the weight of the moment lingering in the air.
Olivier cleared his throat. “Well. Probably best if we keep moving.” He hesitated, staring down at Emilio, before turning on his heels and walking away.
The fear no longer shackled Emilio as he walked steadily behind Olivier, matching his pace. But despite the calm that had washed over him, there was still that single thought bouncing around in his head, plaguing him. A thought he was certain would never go away.
He couldn’t lose him.
29
August
Stupid, stupid, stupid. August cursed under his breath as he stumbled through the next door, separating himself from the crumbling forest and crossing into a new landscape—a single paved road flanked by a black, starry darkness. It stretched endlessly on either side of the concrete road, as though the road were floating among the stars, suspended within the universe.
His instincts were telling him to run. To go back to Blackwood and leave Emilio and Olivier behind. But he had promised them that he wouldn’t. And though his promises usually meant nothing, he couldn’t afford to break this one.
August looked inward, scouring his internal map. He could vaguely make out their coordinates, though everything was strangely hazy. As though something, or perhaps someone, was purposefully obstructing his spacial magic. Probably another one of Silas’s tricks—another roadblock meant to throw them off-kilter.