Page 327

The trigger snapped under Darien’s finger as he pulled it, blasting another guard’s brains out. He wasted no time before shooting the first guard—the one whose mouth he’d smashed open.

The third guard started firing.

Darien ducked as bullets peppered the walls. Stone and dust sprayed. With a battle cry, he ran straight at the guard and pushed him against the wall. His bones barked with the impact. Just as the guard squeezed the trigger, Darien thrust his elbow up, redirecting the bullet?—

BANG.Into the skull of the fourth and final guard, it went.

Dead. All four were dead. Only Gaven and Glen remained.

It was Glen who was attempting to pick up the knife.

Darien lunged. Consumed with blind, lethal rage, he grabbed onto the back of Glen’s neck and smashed his face against the corner of the doorframe.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Four.

He didn’t stop until he was dead, his face hardly more than red goo.

Darien let go. Glen’s body crumpled to the floor.

A hand clamped onto his nape. All at once, his muscles seized up as pain sawed through his body in white-hot bolts. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, but he knew it was Gaven, the lazy fucker finally getting up from the table to join in on the fight. His Aether powers flowed through Darien like a taser. His mind was short-circuiting. His heart jolted, threatening to give out, flatline?—

He flattened his boot against the wall and pushed, shoving Gaven back?—

They crashed into the table, tipping it over. Mortifer’s cage clanged to the floor. The shock of the attack was enough to put a pause in Gaven’s magic.

Darien seized his opportunity and moved. He wrapped the chains of his cuffs around Gavens’ throat and pulled—as hard as he could.

Gaven whipped forward and then threw his head back, smashing the back of his skull against Darien’s nose.

He shouted out and crashed backward onto the floor. Blood gushed from his nose. He twisted onto his stomach, reaching for the brimstone blade that was dripping his blood onto the floor.

“Going somewhere, Cassel?” Gaven panted as he climbed onto his back, his weight pushing the last of the breath out of his lungs. Gaven wrapped an arm around his throat and squeezed, cutting off his airflow. He winced and twitched as lightning crackled and wove between his teeth, frying his fucking nerves.

He kept reaching. Even as the edges of his vision began to go gray.

He did it for Loren. For Travis. For Max. For Ivy.

For Mortifer, who was screaming in that cage, his tiny hands pulling like hell on the bars.

The tip of his finger grazed the knife handle, turning it just enough?—

He grabbed it and punched it over his shoulder.

Right into Gaven’s eye.

A scream. A squirt of blood.

He stabbed again.

Again.

Again.