fast enough. The harsh reality was obvious—they couldn’t beat them all.
Noa stepped back, feeling Diel’s looming presence still behind her. They had to get out. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t all make it. Someone would get wounded … someone would die.
“Get back!” Dinah said again, but just as Noa went to move, she heard a clanging of metal against metal like thunder cracking through the room. Time moved into slow motion. She lifted her head toward the collared boy on the plinth, the boy she imagined Finn Nolan looked just like as a boy. Dark hair, skin and bone, and pure wildness in his blue eyes. And she watched, heart in her mouth, as the boy managed to get free of the rope binding his wrists to the plinth’s stake, only for his feet to slip off the small ledge he balanced his feet on. His body dropped toward the ground, and his collar and chain acted as a noose.
“No!” Noa shouted. The haunting scene from her past pushed her to break from the group and surge toward the boy. He began to thrash, the collar around his neck quickly robbing him of life. Noa’s feet led her forward, plowing through the priests that attempted to get in her way, her knives veritable swords as she sliced them down. The boy’s eyes bulged, and she was snatched back to the past …
“I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to him,” Noa hissed to the priest beneath her. Her rage spilled over, and she stabbed the priest, over and over, in the chest, the face. He’d had a boy put in a collar. A fucking collar, like a dog. She heard the boy fighting to be free from his chains behind her. But this priest deserved to die slowly. He had to pay. He deserved to perish for what he’d done to the boy. So Noa kept on stabbing, slicing into his flesh.
The priest’s eyes glazed over with death. Victory surged through her. Then she sat back, blood dripping down her cheeks. And then she turned, went to go to the boy, to take him somewhere safe … and her heart shattered apart …
“NOA!”
Noa frantically sliced and stabbed though the Brethren wall before her. Diel’s deathly voice was at her back. But she couldn’t stop. She had to get to the boy, whose face had reddened as he became starved of oxygen. His skinny legs kicked and his bony fingers clawed at the collar, desperately trying to get free. But Noa saw his small limbs tiring; she saw his body begin to jerk with the throes of death.
“No,” she panted as she picked up her pace. “No!” He couldn’t die. Not again. Not this fucking time! Noa fought and fought until she reached the plinth. She grabbed the boy’s legs, lifting him so the pressure would move from his throat. The boy gasped, tried to breathe as a morsel of air sneaked through. But Noa needed to get him down. She was going to have to release his legs so she could free him. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to struggle again, not even for a moment. The last time she had stalled …
“Noa!” Noa turned to see Diel’s bright blue eyes looking right back at her. He had broken from the ranks too. He had come after her. “Release him,” she said, hearing the cracking of her urgent, rasped voice.
Diel didn’t even hesitate. He reached up and yanked the chain to the boy’s collar off the plinth. The boy collapsed into Noa’s arms. She wrapped her arms around him, just as a line of priests came toward them. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boy. He was fighting to breathe, the red scar around his neck a milder version of Diel’s.
“He’s alive.” Diel crouched before her in a fighting stance, bracing for the priests that were about to attack. And they came. One after the other they came. Noa knew she should fight too, but she couldn’t let go of the boy. She pushed his dark hair from his face, choking on a sob when she saw color returning to his cheeks, his eyes fluttering open and closed.
But then she heard screams, screams from voices she knew. Noa straightened, still holding the boy close to her chest. Diel was surrounded. He fought off priest after priest, but they were a swarm of unrelenting evil. Noa looked for her sisters and saw that the phalanx had dissolved.