Chaos (Lanie Bross) - Lanie Bross Page 0,83

he fought to stay on his feet.

Push through the pain, that was what Coach always said. If you want it bad enough, make it happen. Luc had no idea how, but he found the strength to hold the wires, despite the agony in his muscles.

A sudden current rippled out of the wires and pulsed through him. There was no pain, only a sense of weightlessness, of being outside his own body. It wasn’t an electric shock, it was something more powerful. It centered in his chest, where his heart thumped with each heavy beat.

Awareness of the tunnel settled around him. The wires stilled, and he continued to hold one in each hand. He could feel the sparks running across his skin, through his body. It was as if he were somehow a part of the tunnel.

The path to righteousness goes straight through the heart.

Rhys’s cryptic words echoed in Luc’s head. He hadn’t understood what it meant, had thought it was just another one of Rhys’s riddles, but now it felt significant.

Not only significant, but the key. This was how Rhys had manipulated time, by giving up his own body to the force of the universe and letting the current flow through him—through his heart. Rhys had once given his own energy to alter the winds of time.

Luc closed his eyes and let go of the last bits of resistance. If he had to die to save the people he loved, he would gladly do it. In the darkness, the pulse of the tunnel grew louder, and soon his breathing and heartbeat synced to the same rhythm.

He became one with the tunnel. One with time. One with the universe.

Billions of stars shone behind his eyelids, and it was beautiful. It reminded him of Corinthe, of when they’d first met on the boat and gazed up at the stars together. In each world they had found themselves in, the stars had been the constant guiding force.

Luc focused on them now. His awareness expanded and a new force moved through him. In the span between the beats of the universe’s pulse, a whisper emerged. With each pause, it grew louder.

The stars started to swirl in his mind, and a name surfaced in the silence.

The universe was chanting.

The entire pulse of the universe focused on one thought.

Corinthe.

Her name became the rhythm that powered the heartbeat.

Corinthe. Corinthe. Corinthe.

Each time her name beat inside him, the force grew stronger, as if a speeding train raced inside his head. The wires in his hands grew hot and throbbed with life. He struggled to hold on even as he started to break apart from the inside out.

The wind in the tunnels increased, picked away tiny bits of him as it rushed by. He would be torn apart one cell at a time. His grip began to slip and the wind became even stronger, howling Corinthe’s name all around him.

He couldn’t hold on any longer.

The wires slid between his fingers. He couldn’t fight anymore. He wasn’t strong enough. He had failed.

The wind ripped him free from the wires and lifted him off his feet. As he tumbled through the tunnels, he held on to only one thought.

Corinthe.

Corinthe waited in silence just inside the doors of Mission High School. She leaned close to the windowpane and fogged it with her breath. With a finger, she wrote No. Then she wiped the condensation away with a fist.

It didn’t matter that she hated deaths. It didn’t matter that she liked the principal, Sylvia—as much as she liked any human, at least. The marble had shown her what she must do. She didn’t have a choice.

Tick, tick, tick. Corinthe could hear Sylvia’s heels clicking on the linoleum. She didn’t turn around until Sylvia had rounded the corner.

“Oh, Corinthe. You startled me.” Sylvia withdrew her hand from her purse. She seemed jumpy, as if she already knew something was going to happen. Humans were more perceptive than the Unseen Ones gave them credit for.

Corinthe stared at her silently, trying to remember how to smile. She so rarely had a reason to.

She’d been enrolled in school only a couple of days, but already the principal had taken an interest in her. Sylvia had been careful to emphasize the importance of one’s appearance when they’d met for the first time yesterday to fill out her transfer paperwork—probably because Corinthe’s hair was in a wild tangle down her back, and she was wearing ripped jeans she’d stolen from a thrift store. When Miranda disappeared for days at