Page 137 of Shattered Stars

Then I remember. Rhianna. Rhianna Blackwaters.

Is someone calling my name? Running my way?

I shake my head and they pull at me, yelling in my face, dragging me from the burning shell of a building out into the night. There’re more people yelling at me, hands reaching for me.

I shake my head. I can’t hear them. All I hear is my own heart, struggling to beat against all this pain. Broken, smashed, shattered into pieces. It hurts so much. And I don’t even know why. What is happening? What has happened to me?

The world swoops and swirls. I’m being tugged further and further underwater, down into the murky depths.

Someone’s missing. Someone important. Someone whose absence is making my body hurt this much, every step away from them agony.

“No,” I call out, “wait.”

I strain to remember, to make sense of it all as the pain ravages through me, licks me like hot hot flames.

There’s someone missing. Someone I need. Someone who means the world to me. Who I can’t live without. Someone I can’t leave behind. I can’t.

Pip!

I throw magic at everyone in my path and then I’m running, so fast no one can catch me, away from the blazing mansion, along the pathways, into the darkness. I swerve the magicalscoming for me, crash through fleeing students, blast away anyone who tries to stop me, sprinting towards the forest and my dorm room.

It’s quiet this side of campus, the battle not penetrating this far, and our dorm building lies in darkness, all the lights gone out. I race through the entrance and to our door. I’m so agitated, so confused, it takes me four attempts to undo the locking spell, my hands shaking more and more with each failed attempt. I can’t seem to concentrate, can’t seem to make the words stop swirling in my head, the pain making everything spiral.

Finally, the spell releases and I crash through the door.

“Pip?!” I yell, “Pip?! Where are you?!”

The room is dark, the curtains drawn against all the light from outside, but as my eyes adjust I make out the silvery outline of our furniture.

I careen to Pip’s bed.

Empty.

“Pip,” I wail, falling to my knees. The pain inside me is so penetrating, I can no longer stand. The world spins even faster. My stomach lurches. Bile rushes up my throat and I sway on my knees.

But then there’s a familiar squeak. A squeak I know so well. And he comes wriggling out from under the bed, squeezing out his behind and popping forward. I lunge for him, scooping him into my arms, burying my face against his.

“It’s okay,” I tell him as he quivers in my arms, jolting when a boom shakes the windows. “It’s okay, little man, I got you.”

I hug him to my chest. I found him. He’s safe. Everything should be better now. We’re okay, the two of us. We have each other, like we always have. The pain should stop, shouldn’t it? And yet it is still there, lodged against the overwhelming sensation that something is wrong. It radiates through my entire body and I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I stumble to my feet and stagger towards the door, clutching Pip as tight as I can. I concentrate hard on placing one foot in front of the other, on keeping myself upright. It takes everything I have and that nausea swoops up my throat.

I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. I can’t think straight, my head all a muddle. Something’s not right and I don’t understand what the hell it is.

I try to focus.

I need to get away. Yes, that’s what I need to do. Get Pip and me to safety.

I reel out of the room and out of the building, but that’s as far as I get. As I step onto the path, a bolt of magic slams right into my shoulder and I’m smacked to the ground, all the air crushed from my lungs. I lie on the hard, cold ground gasping, Pip nudging his snout anxiously against my face.

He’s telling me to get up. To fight. But I can’t. I can’t breathe and my legs and my arms won’t work.

I gasp again, my lungs refusing to work, burning in my chest. I stare up at the sky, burning with magic and fires and beasts that should no longer exist. Am I dreaming?

Then all that light is blocked out by the silhouette of a man. Tall and broad. He peers down at me with no compassion, no emotion, his eyes deadly cold. He’s dressed head to toe in camouflage, only his face exposed. A cruel face. I can tell by the twist of the mouth, the deadness of his eyes. A tattoo runs the length of one side of his face and his dark hair is slicked back. He glares at me as the world explodes and burns around us.

“The unregistered girl from the wastelands,” he says.