Page 110 of Last of Her Name

“There’s no time!” I stumble upright and pull her to her feet. “We have to get out of here.”

She groans, hands going to her head. I have no idea what she’s aware of or what she remembers, but I can’t leave her here like this. I can only hope the brainjacking is permanently shut down, and that it won’t reactivate and turn her against me.

I pull her along. She resists at first, but when she sees vityazes trying to break through the door behind us, she lurches into motion. Her bewilderment is clear, but at least she recognizes trouble when she sees it.

“Who are those men?” she asks. “Why are they chasing us? Oh stars, my head aches …”

“Are you okay?” I ask as we sprint for the lift tubes. My gait is uneven, my bones still aching from her attack.

“I— It’s all foggy. I think …” Her eyes widen and she skids to a halt, jerking her hand away. “I saw Riyan. Oh stars, oh skies, I attacked mybrother—”

“Natalya!” I pull her onward. “We can deal with that later!”

We reach the lifts, but without power in this sector, they’re not operating, stuck several floors above. No one has caught up to us yet—it seems the only vityazes on this floor were guarding the lab—but I know we don’t have much time.

“Honestly!” I shout, kicking the door. “Why are the liftsneverworking when I need them?”

Yanking off my multicuff again, I use a wrench to wedge open the door, then shove it the rest of the way, cursing all the while. A dark chute opens at my feet, stretching the height of the Rezidencia.

“Can you lower us down?” I ask Natalya.

She blinks, eyes dazed, and sways on her feet.

Hearing voices, I glance back to see incoming vityazes. They must have finally broken through the door, probably by knocking out the window. Volkov will be right behind them with his metal bullets. “Natalya, hurry! I need you to focus!”

She nods, then says, “Go. I’ll be above you.”

There is no time for second thoughts.

I jump.

I can’t help the scream that bursts from my throat as I drop down the tube. It must be several hundred feet to the bottom, and if Natalya doesn’t come through, I’ve just leaped to my death.

Deeper and deeper I fall, until I’m sure the bottom must be inches away, that any second now I’ll be smashed. At least it’ll be a quick death. I scream the entire way down. My voice echoes off the close walls, amplified until it stings my ears.

Then, without warning, I jerk to a halt and nearly choke on my own scream. The stop is so sudden it gives me whiplash, and for a moment, I dangle in midair, a few inches from the floor.

Then I drop, landing hard on my stomach and feeling the wind rush from my lungs.

Natalya descends lightly beside me. “Sorry,” she says. “My timing’s a little off. This headache—”

“We made it,” I growl, shoving open the door. We stumble out into one of the tubes that branch away from the Rezidencia, leading us to the docks. There are metal tracks running the length of the floor, where the lift would usually run. We race over them. On either side, glass walls open to the palace’s enclosed atmosphere. The white length of the Rezidencia stretches above. I can only imagine the frantic activity going on inside there, as Volkov and the vityazes scramble to find out where Natalya and I went. It won’t take them long. We probably have less than a minute to get out of here.

Instead of an open hangar, the ships are anchored to a long, narrow chamber like leaves attached to a stem. Dozens of dock portals line the walls. I can hear voices—mechanics trying to get the power back on. The outage stretched farther than I’d thought, but I can’t hope it will last much longer. On the other hand, without power, we can’t even access a getaway ship. It’ll take more than my multicuff to open one of those hermetically sealed dock doors. I need just enough power to activate their controls.

“Keep an eye on those mechanics,” I tell Natalya, as I pick up a drill from a tool bench by the wall. I have no idea if this will work, but if it doesn’t, we’re screwed. The mechanics haven’t noticed us; they’re totally absorbed in their own tasks.

I pop open a panel on the drill and remove the battery inside. A light gauge on the top indicates it’s half charged, thank the stars. Drawing a deep breath, I cradle the battery in my hand and thenpullon it, activating that new sixth sense that lets me tap into Prismic energy.

At once, power flows out of the battery and into me; I feel its sizzles in my veins. The hairs on my arms rise as it passes through me and flows out my other hand, which I have pressed onto a control panel in the wall.

At once the screen and buttons on the panel light up, startling me; I can’t get used to how the energy simply reacts to my thoughts. I put down the drained battery and crack my knuckles. A shiver of static electricity ripples over my hands. I can feel my roots prickling all over my scalp, and when I run my hand through it, golden sparks dance in my hair.

“Whoa,” says Natalya, staring at me. “Who the hell are you, anyway? And …whatare you?”

“A friend of your brother’s.” Frantically, I search the log of docked ships, pausing at the last one with a grin. I press a button, opening a dock door farther down the chamber. “This way.”

We race down the chamber to the last portal. The mechanics finally notice us and begin shouting, but they aren’t soldiers, and they don’t try to get in our way. The door I unlocked waits for us, opening to the familiar air lock of theValentina.