Page 15 of A Monarch's Fall

The world burning around me.

This was where I would fall.

And then I did.

The impact was quick and abrupt. My right shoulder took most of it, and my head and face bounced off the frozen earth.

Every sense was lost to me. For one brief moment, there was nothing, nothing but the sickening sense of falling.

No sound of gunfire and blazing buildings, no orange glow or stars above. Only a never-ending abyss to fall within.

And then I was ripped from that darkness. My chest burst with air, my sternum and eardrums bruised with pounding.

“Percy!” The roar of Dylan above me was like being swallowed up by a wave.

My eyes focused on him, something splattered across his face, dark and streaked, like it had been painted on.

“Wake up! Please wake up!” he said, his hands and fingers interlocked, holding the weight of him against my chest.

“Get off me,” I spluttered out.

Chest compressions? Did he think I was dead?

“Percy,” he said too loudly. “You’re okay? I thought, I thought,” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, come on, we need to get out of here,” he instructed and began to push his arms under me.

I didn’t stop him; I didn’t even try. I was too weak to fight against him.

As he lifted me, I remembered Fredrick and twisted my neck painfully to find him.

He was a heap on his side on the ground.

“We can’t leave him,” I said as Dylan began to climb again.

“He’s gone,” Dylan replied, not slowing his pace, not so much as glancing back.

I felt numb, and I thought detachedly that my lack of emotion should be worrying. Like the death of Fredrick, a man I had only known a short time, should have had a greater impact on me.

Maybe I was becoming too used to death.

What was one more name or face to my list?

Evie, Desdemona, the driver, Remy, the academy guard, the Ardens' servant, Fredrick. I couldn’t count how many names and faces I now had the duty to carry, to remember, always.

“Shit,” Dylan hissed as he lunged to the side as dirt exploded beside us. “They’re behind us, too,” he said like a curse. “How many of these fucking bastards are there?” he asked.

My head felt like it wanted to flop, like it was twice as heavy as my neck was used to, and I lay my head against his broad shoulder, struggling to look ahead of us.

In the darkness, two shadows appeared.

Silhouettes with guns.

How many times would I escape Hades tonight?

Dylan roared, animalistically, all shifter.

One of the shadow figures raised his gun, and a spark ignited the blue-black of the night, a glimpse of the new monster on the hill: dark hair and bright eyes.

The shooting behind us ceased.