Chapter 146
- Evan -
The echo of his words trembled through the empty street. Even the smoke seemed to recoil from him.
Tomo looked soberly at the dissolving remains."...He's right. We don't have the luxury to spare anything that gets in the way."
Micah readjusted her injured arm. "Just keep moving forward—please."
We ran again, a bit harder this time, to catch up for the delay.
Every second felt like it had claws digging deeper into us.
The broken road sloping toward the cluster of buildings, half-buried under dome debris. Floodlights flickered as emergency crews tried to set up triage zones, but most of the area remained drowned in shadows.
My heart hammered so hard I felt it in my throat.
Becky.Kaysi,
Two names, two lifelines, and two people who should never have been put in this situation.
A gust of wind cut across the street. I noticed Micah's fans were turning faintly warm in her hands—her sealed weapon reacting to danger before she did.
As we entered the courtyard outside the shelter. Demons perched along the wreckage—twisted skeletal and still dripping with embers from the dome's collapse. The dome going down didn't just let the people in it, but also let the demons of this territory back in.
They were positioned right where they had been ordered to.Waiting.Like sentries.
Josh tensed beside me like a bowstring.
Tomo whispered, "They're not moving toward us?"
"No," Baby agreed, stepping forward, "They're blocking the entrance."
My stomach twisted.
Kaysi and Becky are in there.
Duke's voice dropped. "This is a kill zone. Designed to slow us down."
"We don't have time for slow," Josh snapped.
James exhaled sharply, raising both crossbows. "So we don't go slow."
Micah lifted one fan, the moonlight glinting off the metal. "Evan..." Her voice was faint, trembling—not from fear, but from pain she was ignoring far too well. "You lead!"
For a moment, I couldn't breathe as if the air was locked up in my chest.
Me? Lead?
But then I remembered the look in Uncle's eyes.Baby's warning.Tomo's determination.Josh's fire.James readiness.Becky's laugh.And Kaysi smiles.
I stepped forward.
"Alright," I said. "On my mark—"
The demons screech, filling the air, bones rattling, a chorus.
Josh ignited like a bonfire.Tomo cracked his knuckles.Micah snapped her fans open.Duke raised his guns.James put his fingers on the triggers.And Baby burst outward her wings with a flare of light.
I pointed forward.
"CHARGE!"
The demons leapt.
The ground split open under Micah's wind blast. Tomo intercepted two at once. Slamming one into the other's jaws, sending chipped bone shards flying. Josh vaulted off the broken concrete, flames swirling behind him like a comet as he collided with one midair.
James fired both shots—two demons collapsed before they even touched the ground.
Baby soared above us, wings flaring, lighting the battlefield, slicing through shadows before they reached Micah. She was Kaysi's guardian angel before she was ours, and that determination shows.
Duke moved with terrifying precision—each shot a beam of controlled light ripping through a demon, tearing it apart.
And I went through the middle, carving a path.
My blade met the first demon with a crack sharp enough to rattle my bones. Sparks lit the air. I didn't stop. I couldn't. Every time one lunged, I met it. Every time they closed in, I pushed harder.
I didn't feel the pain in my arms anymore—just momentum, just purpose, just the burning need to get through. Bone cracked beneath my blade, shadows split apart, screams turned to ash.
We were so close.
One by one, the demons fell—
Until only silence remained.
Silence...and the shelter doors.
Josh didn't wait. He sprinted.
I grabbed his arm, "Slow down and think first."
"I have been thinking!" He snapped, ripping away. "They need us!"
He shoved the doors open.
The inside hit me like a punch.
Dark even more than before.
The thick, sickly air of the injured and displaced people cramped in there.
Sweat, fear dust—every scent layered over the next.
Only a few emergency lights glowed, half-dead, flickering like dying stars. People huddled in groups—kids, parents, teens—most of them clueless to the outside, just crying and whispering prayers.
A nurse near the wall saw us and lurched to her feet. Uniform torn, face exhausted, hands shaking. She rushed toward us like she recognized a savior.
"What happened?" I asked her.
"I don't know everything was wiped. Nothing is working. Every power bank we had, every machine was silent. And the generators are dead.
Josh froze, holding his breath.
"Where are they?"
The nurse swallowed hard. "The girl with long auburn hair—with the burns—she's in the back. Lying in bed, still asleep. And the other one—red-head...We...We've been manually ventilating her for over 2 hours since the generator died. "Her voice broke. "We can't stop. If we stop—she stops."
Josh's entire body jerked.
Micah whispered, horrified, "Oh my god...!"
"The dome is down, we need to get them to a hospital before the crowd comes in," I announced to the nurse.
The nurse grabbed Josh's torn shirt with shaking fingers. "Her oxygen levels are dropping each time a medic runs out. We are switching off pumping the bag before one of us passes out." But we need ot move her NOW, or she won't make it."
Josh didn't blink, didn't breathe or tremble—he ran.
I followed—My heart hammering so hard I thought my blood would pour out.
The deeper we went down the hall, the darker it became. Shadows swallowed the hallways. People cleared the path for us, whispers rising.
"They're here—"
The nurse saw Josh's hands flickering weakly from exhaustion, casting just enough light for us to see.
"Is it safe?" She asked the other nurse? "He's glowing?"
We reached the back room, and the sight pinned me where I stood.
Becky lay on a cot, her skin paler than before, lips tinged blue, Bandages wrapped around all her wounds; there were many. Her chest barely moved—not on its own—but with each squeeze of the manual resuscitation bag under a medic's trembling hand.
The medic was slumped over the cot, legs shaking, sweat dripping off his jaw as he struggled to keep the rhythm.
He wasn't going to last.
Josh made a sound—raw, strangled, breaking.
"Becky..."
He fell to his knees beside her, his hands hovering, terrified to touch.
"Switch with him," Duke said. "Gently but quickly."
Josh nodded, but his hands shook so violently I caught his wrist.
"I'll take over," I said quietly.
I didn't wait for approval.Didn't need any.
I knelt, took the bag from the medic's exhausted hands, and began squeezing.
Slow.Steady.Precise.The way Kaysi taught me the night she made fun of me for not knowing CPR.
Josh stared at Becky like she might turn to dust if he blinked. Tears streaked down his face even as he tried to wipe them away.
"We're here," He whispered, brushing her hair from her face. "Babe, I'm right here..."
Another nurse came in and spoke behind us, voice tight with dread.
"The other girl—the one with the feather charm bracelet..." She hesitated. "I went to do my hourly meds and vitals, and she's not waking up. But she is still alive."
My breath left me.
"Kaysi," I whispered.
"I am going to go out and get a vehicle, the closest location outside the effects of the dome. Duke announced. It's about 5 miles from here. It will take me about an hour to get there and back. Even with using my animal Doberman form."
"I am coming with you." Baby was already in her large pomeranian form—the size of a large wolf.
The nurse didn't notice her change.