Just Breathe (41 page)

Good. Byrn should be able to take care of the Fyre in no time.

Dreamsense kicked wide open, Gavin looked down at himself. No more red. Was Scarlet dead? Was he finally free? Sure felt like it, but he dared not assume.

Gavin reached the cube. Using his tattoos for light, he fumbled with a padlock. Seriously? Was this the best security the Fyres could afford? He glanced around the metal sides and down at the floor. No key. Jet appeared next to him. She grabbed the lock, crushed it, then tossed it.

Relief welled within him. Not only had he cut Scarlet loose, but he’d found the door to the Dreaming. Fuck. Yes. About time his luck changed.

Gavin slid his fingers over the cold metal. This was high-tech shit. Some kind of super-strong alloy. He located a handhold and lifted the top. Hinges creaked amid the pops and hisses volleying between the raging Fyres.

His Dreamsense went aurora australis, and his tattoos shot rainbows of light everywhere. What the—

A splash echoed from within the cube. He shined his arm over the opening.

Christ in a crack house. Someone was in there. Three guesses who it was.

He turned to Jet. Her eyes widened, and she reached down to pull the person up. Chains rattled, and the helmeted woman—he could see her feminine curves now—jerked.

Her body spasmed, and she succumbed to a seizure. Jet let go and backed up.

What the hell? Dread sinking in his gut, he faced Vexx.

“It’s the Dreamweaver. You were right.
She’s
the door.” Vexx glanced at the Fyres and wrung her hands.

Holy fucking shit. No
wonder
the Dreaming had fallen into chaos.

“You must get her out. She’s in terrible pain.” Whetu’s brows wrenched together.

Crawling halfway into the box, Jet struggled with the chains. They didn’t budge. Must have been made of the same metal as the cube. The muscles in her back and arms flexed as she yanked and grunted. The temperature in the room rose even higher. Finally, a clang rang out, and a splash followed. Jet scrambled to the Dreamweaver’s other arm and tore at the chain.

Pop!

The woman continued to seize while Jet gently pulled her free of the chamber. The two fell to the concrete in a twitching jumble of arms and legs. Still in semi-shock, Gavin dropped beside them.

A strange contraption with flashing red lights sat atop the Dreamweaver’s head, covering her eyes. A long plastic tube sprouted from her mouth—some kind of breathing apparatus. She choked. Arms flailed against Jet’s body.

Gavin pulled out the tube as gently as he could. The Dreamweaver coughed up clear fluid. The oppressive, humid air in the warehouse trembled. The heat from the merged Fyres seared his corneas. He quickly pumped Water north to cool them and prayed Xanthos had covered Vexx and Whetu behind him.

Jet started to lift the helmet, but the speechless Dreamweaver clawed desperately at the Elemental’s hands. Lines of red streaked from her temples down her cheeks.

The sick fucks had screwed the device into the woman’s skin, maybe all the way to the bone. “It’s bolted on.” Gavin swallowed his disgust.

Jet inspected the metal, tracing the bumps. With deft fingers, she pinched the first screw and twisted.

Byrn and the other Fyre sputtered again. Another wave of heat. Windows high above rattled. Fuck, the place was going to blow.

“Hurry, Jet.” Gavin glanced to Vexx and Whetu. Two pairs of frightened yellow eyes stared back. Both their auras shook with red-brown fear. He had to get them out.

An inhuman scream from the Fyre ball shattered his concentration. Another eerily familiar one followed.

Byrn.

Gavin’s Dreamsense went berserk, his entire field of vision bled red.

“Byrn!” Vexx shrieked and reached forward, her face a desperate tangle of horrified lines. “No!”

Flames from the dancing inferno reached the ceiling. For a split second, Byrn shrugged out of the fire, brows wrenched and hands clawing for Vexx. A silent scream rounded his mouth, then he blurred into red as the Fyre yanked him backward.

The two ghostly forms struggled viciously. The violence was palpable as they punched and tore at each other. Gavin took three steps toward them. He had to get Byrn out of there. The two twisting Elemental forms rose as one, licked a hole through the metal rafters. The heat exploded in another flare, knocking Gavin back. The unified Fire snaked up to the sky in a spinning vortex and coughed two souls into the heavens. A breeze swept the wisps away, dissipating them into nothing.

“Byrn!” Vexx’s raw, desperate voice stabbed a hole clean through Gavin’s heart. Her wracking sobs filled the air.

Fuck. Byrn was dead.

Scarlet’s Fire burst to life inside Gavin’s soul with a bone-chilling cackle. He clutched his chest and looked down.

Red. Everywhere.

Gods, no.

The remnants of the bonfire folded inward, reshaped into human form. Scarlet shook herself from the smoke, bigger and hotter than any Fyre he’d ever seen.

The lump in Gavin’s throat plummeted like a cannon ball into his gut. Scarlet’s Fire lit its fuse.

Jesus Christ.

Jet glanced up to Scarlet. Her lids spread wide. She returned to the Dreamweaver’s helmet and pawed at it with a vengeance.

“Byrn’s not here right now. If you’d like to leave him a message, contact Incendius at your earliest convenience.” Scarlet stepped out of Byrn’s ashes. Her shit-eating grin assured Gavin there was nothing left of his friend or the other Fyre. Scarlet had Firewalked into the inferno and torched them both.

Laughter assaulted his ears with a hundred decibels of ‘oh shit,’ and Scarlet came at him, demonic eyes casting flames from their surfaces.

A final squeal of resistance cried out from the metal screw Jet wrestled. The Dreamweaver’s headgear popped free. Her eyelids fluttered. The unmistakable sound of tearing fabric emanated from her mouth, grabbed hold of the air, and ripped a hole in the Veil between Realis and the Dreaming.

So, this was the end.

Resigned to his fate, Gavin fixed an image of Zoe in his mind and caught a final breath.

And the world literally exploded.

Chapter Forty-two

“Did you hear that?” Zoe cupped her hands against the Dreaming’s transparent marble door and peered through.

On the other side in Realis, an earth-jarring rumble from Platypus Bay bowled into the sandy dunes of Fraser Island. The crowd of Wæter Elementals—Zoe’s army—waiting for entry into the Dreaming collectively jerked up their heads.

Jack followed her gaze and frowned. “That didn’t sound good.”

Another rumble. This one closer. A line of jagged, white light forked through Realis toward the door.

“Shit.” Jack threw an arm in front of her and guided her away from the stone portal.

‘Shit’ was right. She stumbled backward as the white streak increased its speed, a shot of lightning with endless energy. The accompanying continuous crackle of thunder tagged along behind, growing louder by the second.

The screams she’d been tracking from the distant dream battlefield increased in volume as if in reply.

A tremor snaked up Zoe’s spine. “What the hell is that?”

“A disturbance in the Force,” Jack joked, but his eyes weren’t laughing. Muscles tense, he corralled her away from the dream ocean. “Come on.”

The line shot like a bullet aimed at the door. A deep rumble chased behind, shattering the sound barrier. Zoe covered her ears. Aftershock tremors shook the ground and hacked open the air.

She stole a look back, and her jaw dropped.

Oh God.

Whatever this thing was, it laid waste to everything in its path on its collision course with the door. Jack grabbed her elbow and shouted, “Run!”

Her heart took off at full gallop, and her legs followed. Trying to keep her face pointed forward and holding onto Jack like a lifeline, Zoe told herself to keep her shit together. If this was the kind of crap she’d have to deal with tonight, she certainly didn’t need a side of panic attack to go with it—

But curiosity got the better of her. She skidded to a stop and turned around. What greeted her defied possibility. The magical lightning collided with the marble door she’d stood behind only moments ago.

All hell broke loose.

Bodies from the outside were tossed in. Spinning like tornadoes, flotsam and jetsam from structures on the mainland in Realis were sucked into the vacuum created by the Dreaming’s sudden loss of pressure. A brick crashed at Zoe’s feet; a cloud of ash mushroomed in protest.

For as far as she could see, a great gash ravaged the dream ocean and air, almost like someone had taken a panoramic photograph and ripped it in two. The hewn Veil bore a gaping white wound through which the contents of Realis spilled into the dream world. The place was eviscerated.

And the fault line continued quaking.

Shadowy creatures danced along the edges of the hole where the door had stood. Realis’s sea flooded the Dreaming’s sand. Corpses washed up alongside the assorted detritus of razed human architecture, twin testaments to the infinitesimal impact Wyldlings had in the face of the four all-powerful Elements.

Gavin and the Elementals must’ve found the Dreamweaver and opened the door. Except, this was not a simple matter of pushing open a portal and stepping through. This was total, violent
annihilation
of the barrier between two worlds. No way anyone standing near an explosion of this magnitude could survive.

“Oh, my God. Gavin.”

Grief flooded her, and Zoe fell to her knees. “Gavin!”

“Gavin can’t help us now.” Jack clamped a hand on her shoulder and shot his gaze to the ravages before them. “We have to get to the battle. He’ll be okay. He’s a tough little shit.”

“If he had anything to do with this, he’s
not
okay.” And she had no doubt he
had
been involved. Tears distorted her vision. She blinked them away. “Gavin…”

She couldn’t find the will to move.

Jack dropped before her, grasped her upper arms, and focused his intense gray eyes on hers. “Listen to me, Zoe. People are dying. You heard the screams. You see the bodies.” Nostrils flaring, he gestured to the raging ocean waves crashing into the Dreaming. “This shit is real, babe. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can lie down here and let the Water cover you as you pine away for him, or you can stand up, get your army together, and do what you came here to do: save the Dreaming by killing every motherfucking Fyre you can get your hands on.”

Zoe pushed up slowly, wiped the grit from her palms, and surveyed the devastation. Glowing blue bodies bobbed on the ocean not far offshore. The Wæters.

Jack stood beside her. “What’s it gonna be, Zoe?”

She inhaled a full breath and met her father’s pleading eyes. He was right. There was no time to play the panic-attacked damsel in distress while the world flew apart around her. Loss and grief would be dealt with later.

Zoe had been the key to saving humanity from the Fyres before, and she still was.

She lifted her chin and slapped away a tear. “Let’s take these fuckers down, Dad.”

A proud smile eased across Jack’s features, and he nodded. “That’s my girl.”

Facing the ocean, she waved her arms wildly over her head, motioning the Wæters ashore. The sea churned with radiant blue as they stormed the sand. Thirty…thirty-five…forty anxious Elementals looked to her for guidance. Zoe shivered.

There were Westbrook and his friends. Several others she recognized from weeks of pleading for help on the Zodiac and in her dreams. But the three she needed most were nowhere in sight. Without the Tongans, the battle would be over before it began.

But like the time she faced cruel whalers in the Southern Ocean, odds stacked against her, staring failure in the face, she would not back down.

Never.

Jack stood tall beside her, arms crossed over his chest. Her Sentinel protector in Gavin’s stead.

She sniffled away another storm of tears and addressed the Elementals. “The Fyres are over those dunes. They’ve killed a lot of people. The Wyldlings will appreciate all the help you can give. Do what you must to—”

The Wæters collectively turned their heads to the sea. Splashes churned the waves, followed by thuds of heavy feet marching across the packed sand. Gasps rose. The Elemental circle parted and revealed…

The Tongans.

A rush of breath escaped Zoe’s lips, and goose bumps pocked every inch of her skin. Thank God.

The trio of dark-skinned Wæter warriors came to a stop before her and lowered their blue-haloed heads. Zoe bolted forward and hugged each one in turn. She couldn’t help it. None of them returned her embrace, but their expressions revealed muted respect.

Body tingling, Water flowing in full spate, Zoe resumed her post next to Jack and swept her gaze over the crowd. “Looks like all the guests have arrived. Now, let’s get this party started.”

* * * *

When Gavin came to, he tried to sit up. The debilitating throb from a mangled and presumably broken arm warned him to lie back down.

Shit. Where was he?

Sand crunched between his teeth. He spat it out. Hearing came back online with crashing clarity, and shrieks of terror greeted his ears. Rolling his head to the side, he scanned the environs.

Smoke. Running Wyldlings. Fyres.

The Dreaming. How did he get here?

Pushing to a sitting position with his good hand, he begged his memory for answers. He’d been in a warehouse with Jack’s friends. Whetu. Scarlet.

The Dreamweaver. When her helmet came loose, the pin holding the Veil together did, too. The explosion must’ve dumped him here—

Byrn. Shit. Byrn was dead. He didn’t like the Fyre, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be eaten by Scarlet.

Gavin twisted his body around and met more pain. Bumps, bruises, cuts. He winced as a Wyldling stumbled by in a daze. As he reached for the man, his gaze fell upon Jet, dusting herself off.

“Are you hurt?” Sadness laced her voice.

She’d just witnessed her friend’s murder. Gavin wondered how close she’d been to Byrn.