The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,17

My right arm was caught under a sheet of metal that had fallen over me. I tried to draw it back to my side, but my wrist caught on something jagged. I bit back a low sob of pain.

Think—think—

Mel. Where was Mel?

I twisted as much as I could, feeling the metal edge bite into my skin. Can’t stay down here—Can’t stay—

Someone is here to kill you.

Someone is here to kill you.

Bomb.

“Stop it,” I choked out. “Stop.”

It ran against every instinct, every single voice in my head screaming at me to get out, to move, to breathe, but I forced myself to stop struggling against the metal sheet. I forced myself to take in the burning air, every acrid gasp of it I could manage. Calm down.

It didn’t work. The Defenders, Mel, the boy, the teleprompter, the green, green grass, it all spun together in my mind. I tried to use my broken nails to claw through the sheet that was pinning me in place. I was breathing, I was alive—all those times the darkness had tried to catch me, I’d slipped through it. I’d escaped. This wasn’t it for me. I was alive.

I have to help them.

With a heaving groan, I arched my back, wedging my knees up under whatever had fallen on me to try to shove it off.

It wasn’t until I felt the rough carpeting rub against my cheek that I realized what it was: part of the temporary stage they’d built for my speech.

I shoved at it again, and this time it skidded against the nearby steps, giving me just enough room to slip both of my arms in toward my chest before the metal collapsed back onto me.

Then, all at once, the pressure, the weight, the darkness—it was gone.

The metal sheeting trembled as a silhouetted figure struggled to lift it. But when the sunlight momentarily dimmed, I could make out his face clearly.

It was the dark-haired boy.

The second the weight was off me, I crawled as far away from it as I could. With a look of intense relief, the boy dropped the piece of the stage back onto the steps, sending another cloud of dust into the air.

Blood suddenly rushed through me, pounding in my ears, sending knives through my numbed legs. I swiped a hand over my stinging eyes. The ash swirled in the air like a fierce snowstorm, and, for a second, I wasn’t there at all—I was somewhere else, my skin freezing, my body small.

A scream lodged itself in my throat.

The boy, his eyes bright, wrapped his hands around my upper arms and pulled me onto my feet before they’d even had a chance to feel again. He held firm, even as my ankles buckled and I dipped forward. The boy gave me a faint shake, trying, I thought, to draw my attention back to his face.

But I was looking past him.

Mel.

They looked like doll parts scattered across the ground in the wake of a child’s temper tantrum. One of her heels stood upright on the step below me, as if she’d simply slipped it off the instant before the explosion’s heat overtook her. The Defenders—the woman who had led us along, the man who’d had the gun—were dead, the gray fabric of their uniforms still smoldering.

The blast had scalped the grass, leaving a halo of overturned soil and brick. A few members of the university staff and reporters were gravely injured nearby and were trying to crawl away from the burning ground. Their skin and clothes were charred almost beyond recognition.

I jumped as the first figure tore through the heavy veil of smoke, smashing through the mangled security fencing. A woman stumbled after him, her sundress torn and stained by the blood running down her shins. Her expression was blank, as if the blast had incinerated every thought in her mind. It didn’t waver, not even as she looked down at the severed arm she held in her other hand.

People fled in a thrashing mass of chaos, trampling the shattered cameras, narrowly avoiding the injured and the dead and those who were trying to tend to them. The ones on their knees on the ground screamed silently into the chaos. Kids. Parents. Grandparents. Police. Defenders. Blood, everywhere. Smoke—so much smoke.

It was just one spark.

It was just one jolt of power. It couldn’t have expanded like that, or jumped to the speakers. I had too much control. I turned again, this time toward the place where the tech booth should have been.