Chapter 35
ATASHA’S POV
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“Ca- “I started coughing as his hand tightened around my throat.
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His glowing red eyes locked on mine. I clawed at his wrist, choking on the smoke and panic. This wasn’t him. Not the man who told me to play weak to survive. But just as I thought he’d crush the last breath from my lungs, something changed.
His other hand jerked up, grabbing his own wrist.
His fingers trembled. His jaw clenched as though grinding against invisible pressure. It was like he was fighting himself. Straining to pull back. Struggling against some force inside him. His grip loosened slightly, but his eyes remained red, burning and unstable.
Then the smoke swallowed us whole.
He coughed then fully released me. I collapsed hard onto the cave floor, gasping, hacking through the acrid air. My vision blurred, lungs on fire. I blinked fast, trying to clear my sight. A few feet away, Cassian dropped to his knees. Then he looked at me, and that was when Irealized, his eyes were no longer red. I didn’t know what happened, but I wassure, this was not the same Cassian who had tried to kill me seconds ago. “Leave…” he said.
“What–What are you-
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“Leave me… or you will die.”
I frowned. But before I could say a word, he crumpled.
He didn’t move.
“No,” I rasped, crawling toward him. “Cassian-‘
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But he was out cold. His body lay limp, face pale beneath the grime and soot, his chest rising faintly but uneven. Behind me, the flames crackled louder. The air shimmered with heat. And ahead, the poison–filled tunnel waited, just as lethal as the fire.
There was no time to think.
I tore a strip from the hem of my shirt with trembling hands, rolled it tight, and pressed it over his nose and mouth. It wasn’t much, but it might help block the worst of the toxins. Then I looked at him again, really looked.
I could leave him. Leave him here to die. Let the fire or the poison finish what I couldn’t.
11:10 Wed, Sep 10
Chapter 35
But I didn’t.
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I didn’t even blink as I slid his arm over my shoulders. His weight dropped onto me like stone, nearly toppling us both. I staggered, feet slipping on the ash, coated floor. But I planted my heel down and forced myself up.
Every firewood run. Every trip up that cursed hill in Nightfall territory. Every bruise I earned from hauling what no one else wanted to carry, it all led to this moment.
I bent my knees. Shifted his weight. Took one step.
Then another.
And another.
Dragging him wasn’t graceful. My back screamed. My knees shook. My arms ached so badly I couldn’t tell if it was muscle strain or the onset of collapse. But I kept going, teeth clenched, each breath a knife in my chest.
The smoke grew thicker. My healing energy flared around us, but even that was weakening. The more I used it, the more it drained me.
Soon enough, we reached the exit of the cave. I pulled Cassian’s body through the stumbled directly into the forest.
gap,
then
The miasma hit like a wall.
The air was heavy, laced with that same suffocating stench. I wrapped more of my power around us, shielding him, shielding me. But it was weaker now.
Mud sucked at my boots. Branches whipped across my face. The rain beat down, plastering my hair to my skin and turning the forest floor into a treacherous mire. Each step felt like wading through cement.
And still–I did not stop.
I didn’t give myself permission to stop.
Even when my vision dimmed. Even when I fell to my knees and had to crawl for a stretch, dragging him behind me like a dying soldier. Even when my fingers turned numb and my legs stopped responding.
I kept going.
Until, finally–I saw it.
The boulder.
11:11 Wed, Sep 10
Chapter 35
The mark of safety.
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I cried out, but it was hoarse, more breath than sound. My legs gave out fully. I buckled forward.
Then hands caught me.
“Atasha!”
Aries.
He pulled me upright, steadying my shaking frame as my head slumped forward. I felt small hands touch my elbow, the Alpha–blooded boy.
Together, the three of us dragged Cassian’s limp form through the wet underbrush, under the shelter of the great ivy–covered rock. I collapsed the moment we were safe.
My fingers trembled uncontrollably, the sensation of strain and cold finally registering. Every breath I took came in sharp, ragged gasps, each inhale scraping against my lungs like broken glass. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. But we made it. Somehow.
I turned towards Cassian. His breathing was shallow, but he was clearly breathing.
He was alive.
So was I.
I let my eyes close, just for a moment. And let the exhaustion hit me all at once. My muscles, stretched past
their limits, finally relaxed against the cold ground. Every nerve in my body screamed for rest. I let myself feel the rain cooling my burning skin, and hear the muffled sounds of the forest around us. For the first time in what felt like hours, I didn’t move.
Then I heard Aries.
“I already removed our tracks,” he whispered somewhere nearby. “No one will find us.”
His voice was steady, too steady for a child who had just escaped death.
Tracks? My mind struggled to grasp the meaning. What tracks? Why would he need to-
But I couldn’t ask. My body wouldn’t cooperate. My lips wouldn’t part. My eyes were too heavy to open. I wanted to speak, to question him, to stay awake just a little longer.
But the weight pulled me under.
My consciousness slipped like water through my fingers, draining away despite the part of me that screamed to stay alert. A deep unease clawed at my gut, warning me that this wasn’t over.
11:11 Wed, Sep 10
Chapter 35
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That with both Cassian and me unconscious, the children, Aries, the Alpha boy, all of them, would be vulnerable. Exposed.
Still, the darkness took me.
Until…
“Wake up.”
The voice wasn’t loud. It was clear, direct. Like a blade through fog.
My eyes shot open. Air surged into my lungs in a painful, uneven gasp, tearing through my throat like shards of glass as I jolted back to awareness.
The cold, sticky mud beneath me clung to my skin and clothing, soaking through every layer as if determined to anchor me in place.
Cassian’s body lay heavy and unmoving beside mine, his breathing faint but still present. Just a few feet away, the children huddled tightly beneath the shelter of the ivy–covered boulder, their faces pale, their eyes wide with a mixture of exhaustion, dread, and the raw memory of what they had just survived.
I didn’t know who or what had spoken.
But then Aries leaned close to me, his lips near my ear. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
The words pierced through the fog of fatigue clouding my mind. I turned my head slightly to meet his gaze, searching his eyes for confirmation. Then my eyes darted toward Cassian’s still form beside me.
My heart lurched violently in my chest, a surge of panic breaking through the exhaustion. Because I knew… we weren’t ready for another threat.
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