CHAPTER 22

Chapter 22

*Chris Velis*

I cannot believe what just happened.

Debbie is slung unceremoniously over my shoulder; I know she deserves more than being carried like a sack of potatoes, but there hadn’t been enough time to figure anything else out.

She’s unconscious, with a dark red mark on her left temple. Her breathing is so shallow. Too shallow.

If anything happens to Debbie, it will be my fault. Why didn’t I distract Christy? I was holding the key; I could’ve stopped time. Why didn’t I think of it? Why, why did it have to be Debbie?

Beads of sweat trickle down my brow as I half run, half walk on Rachel’s shadow-bridge, the key dragging me down with every step.

Finally, Sophia and I set foot on dry land, and Rachel’s shadows dissolve behind us. Sophia hurries along beside me, her eyes distant. I know exactly what she’s thinking about.

Today, Debbie attacked Christy to save Sophia. Today, Debbie might die for Sophia.

She was the first person I met in the Cosmo Prison, other than Ruiran and Sara. The first person who knew firsthand what I was going through. And Christy just snuffed out her candle... just flicked her away from the living world in less than a nanosecond. In that split second, Debbie’s life, her future, her very spirit, it had all been taken away. Just like that.

Even worse? I’ll be living forever with the knowledge that I could have saved her, but didn’t. It will always be a what-if, a what-if that can never be resolved.

I’m jerked back to reality when the earth beneath my feet begins to shake. Cracks appear in the dirt and huge sections crumble into the bay.

Shoot.

“What’s going on?” Sophia asks, panicked.

“It’s Sid,” I say, my voice grim. “He’s found us.”

As the words leave my mouth, I hear a rumbling sound to my left. Whirling around, I find myself facing Sid Akalwadi as he rises from the ground, sand and dirt pouring off of him, a murderous rage in his eyes. He raises his arms, and all around us, the ground trembles and shudders violently like a patient with strychnine poisoning. The land starts to sink, down and down and down into the depths of the sea, down until I can’t even see it anymore. Within seconds, all that’s left is a small circle of land just big enough for me and Sophia to stand on.

Sid hovers in the air overhead, holding out his palms. “Give me the key and I’ll kill you quickly.”

My hand tightens on the key. Debbie must not die for nothing. “No. No way.”

Sid crosses his arms. Cracks form in the ground right below me, threatening to drop me into the water. The sky darkens and thunder booms overhead. Christy’s doing, probably. A blade of white-hot lightning smashes into to the ocean, sending millions of volts of electricity rocketing through the bay. Our little patch of land lurches precariously.

“Give. Me. The key,” Sid growls.

When I don’t move, he extends his arms and snarls out, “Then I’ll kill you myself. And it will be a slow, painful death for both of you.”

He shoots straight towards us.

Just when I think I’m a goner, a dark blur shoots out of the water behind us and crashes into Sid, bowling him over and knocking him into the bay.

Rachel.

The shadows at my feet writhe and solidify, forming a pathway to safety for me and Sophia. But I’m petrified, unable to move as I watch the action unfold right before my eyes.

Rachel and Sid are fighting underwater, bubbles erupting from their mouths as the cold waters squeeze air out of their lungs. At first, it seems to be an even match, but as the fight continues, I can see that even Rachel’s strength cannot hold Sid back.

Sid wrestles Rachel into a headlock and her thrashing becomes weaker and weaker. She won’t hold out much longer, and she knows it.

Suddenly, Rachel stops fighting and turns her head towards me.

Our eyes lock, and I’m filled with dread, knowing that another sacrifice is about to be made.

A stream of bubbles escape from her lips as they form the words, Go. Now.

Then, she thrusts her fist into the sea above her. The bay becomes still as ice spreads from her hand.

Rachel raises her vision up towards the sky, and... smiles.

Her mouth forms words again, but they’re not directed to me.

I’m coming, she tells an unseen force. Her face relaxes, becoming the vulnerable, beaten girl I’d glimpsed only once before, when she’d been thinking of Ruiran.

Suddenly I understand. She’s been planning this, her death, all this time. Planning her own sacrifice, just as Ruiran made hers.

Everything is petrified.

The ice consumes the sea.

And Rachel Ma is under it, trapped beneath the frozen waves.