Page 85 of Locked

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Zelle

Rifyr and I hadn't left yet. He was still shaky on his feet when we heard and saw the explosion in the tower. And now, we couldn't move. Our feet seemed stuck to the concrete. I couldn't go without knowing if Sorrel was okay.

"There he is!" Rifyr exclaimed, pointing at the blur running toward us.

My heart leapt into my throat as I spied his face. "It's him…" I breathed in relief.

"He's unharmed," Kinden said slowly. "But he's runningawfullyfast."

Sorrelwasrunning awfully fast, now that I was looking. And waving his arms, yelling something. I couldn't quite make it out until he got much closer.

"GO!" He yelled. "GET HER OUT OF HERE! GOOOO!"

It was at that moment that the ground shook.

Kinden jammed the key into the ignition, holding the door open for Sorrel as he leapt into the vehicle. We drove down the length of the parking lot, before another tremor shook the ground and everything around us. We skidded to a halt at the thin strip of grass that bordered the lot.

We all glanced back behind us, just in time to see the building in mid-collapse.

My heart leapt into my throat, pulsing there as I tried to make sense of what was happening. She'd really just… Mother had...

"Oh my gods, she wasn't kidding…" I murmured, watching in horror as the building imploded, strangely enough, without a ton of dust or debris. It seemed to all get sucked inward on itself. Like a vacuum. At the sight of the tower disappearing, I allowed myself to calm down for a moment. Even if she had done what she'd threatened to do for years…

She was still gone, right?

She'd left the apartment and took the entire building with her.

"No, she wasn't…" Sorrel said. If he were any other race than elven, he'd have been out of breath from all that running. As it was, he was merely dusty and slightly pink from exertion. "And we still need to go. Basil was right."

"What?" Kinden and I both said in unison.

"That bitch ain't no witch. She's fae and she's coming for us," Sorrel said, nodding once. "We need to get out of here, we can't take on faefolk. Let alone an ancient one."

I glanced over at Kinden, who looked like he was about to be sick. "Kinden?" I murmured, still not quite grasping what was happening.

Basil was right?

Mother was… wasfae?

How had I not noticed?

"She can't be fae," I replied. "I would have known."

"How?" asked Rifyr. "You've never been around humans."

"I'm a human," I said, jabbing my thumb towards my breastbone, my thumb nicking my locket. "Unless I'm fae too?"

"You definitely aren't fae," said Sorrel. "She is though."

"She isn't," I argued.

"We… we need to leave this area," Kinden said, panic lacing every word as he reached for the keys. "We can't handle a battle with a fae."

"She's not fae," I maintained. None of this made sense. If she was fae, I'd have known. I would have.

"Whatever she is, it's not human," argued Sorrel. "And we don't have the time to argue about this right now, babe."