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“Proceed,” a male voice said. It had the hint of a French accent. I glimpsed Headmaster Fournier, his elegant features distorted in the brightness of his torch. He carried our original weapons.
I could see much more clearly now that there was torchlight. A network of tunnels extended all around us, reaching into blackness.
Metal rings were attached to the walls, and the vampires nestled a torch in each one. I shivered to think what this place might’ve been used for in the past.
Fournier put Lilac’s shinai down by the water’s edge. Next to it, my switchblade. Orange light glimmered along the blade, and I wondered if an attempt to retrieve it was worth the risk.
I wasted too much time thinking. Lilac acted first, diving past me, grabbing her long bamboo sword.
I snapped to attention and went for her as she was rolling to her feet. My plan was to tackle her as I had Mia. Her weapon would do no good at close range.
She turned and ran from me. I knew a moment of triumph. Then a moment of confusion, when she raced to the torches. And finally shock, when she held her bamboo sword in the flames.
The shinai blazed to life. I gasped, hopping back. “What the—?”
She cackled. “Looks like I’ll get to burn you after all. ”
The fire roared. It was the sound of hunger, of fury, and it pervaded the cavern, echoing along the close walls. It consumed the air around us. The chemical stench and soaring height of the flames told me she’d soaked her weapon in lighter fluid.
“You’re insane. ” I stepped back to let the initial hit of fluid burn off. I bent my arm, tucking my nose into my elbow.
“No, I’m smart. ” Lilac walked toward me, a look of angelic calm on her face. “Everyone’s always going on about what a genius you are. But all your books won’t mean jack when you’re dead. ”
How true that’d been for Sunny. The thought was chilling. I backed away from her, my mind racing for a plan. “Easy, now. Wouldn’t want to burn yourself. ”
I backed up some more, but she kept coming. I bumped into the cave wall. It was cool and damp. “Self-immolation is really a very messy way to go. ”
Lilac loomed in front of me. Using both hands, she held her sword aloft. “Let’s see how brightly you glow in firelight. ”
Edging along the wall, I hopped away from her. “I think you hit your head too hard. ”
“I didn’t get to watch Sunny burn. ” Flame sputtered as she gave a few experimental swings. She laughed. “But I heard her. ”
“Do you want me to yield?” I asked, even though I had no intention of giving up. I sidestepped some more, until I butted into a corner.
From my peripheral vision, I saw people streaming from the depths of the cavern, spilling from its tunnels, torches in hand. I wondered if Emma and Yas were there. Or Ronan. Would they watch me burn to death? I’d stagger around, bathed in flames, like something from a movie. My throat clenched.
Think, think. But I saw no way out. I stalled. “I give up. You won the I’m Insane contest—okay, Lilac?”
“It’s too late. ” Lilac smiled. She swung her sword.
I ducked. She’d aimed too high, and I felt the blazing whoosh of her shinai as it whirred overhead.
“I hate you,” she snarled. Fresh rage distorted her face. “I hate your hair. I hate your clothes. I hate your stupid face. ”
“My stupid face, huh?” My heart galloped in my chest. There were only so many times I could duck. I tried to summon the feel of the blood, but my mind was racing too fast. “Now, there’s a new one. ”
Think.
But I didn’t have time to.
She trapped me, grabbing me with her left hand, holding her weapon in her right. She reached back with her flaming sword and I ducked, anticipating a strike.
It was the wrong move.
She let go with her left hand, swinging in an uppercut, punching me on the chin as I squatted. My teeth clacked together, and the impact rang through my brain.
I didn’t have a second to gather myself.
Lilac grabbed a fistful of my shirt and slammed me back against the cave wall. “I smelled my skin burn once. And now I’ll smell yours. ”
It took only a second to realize she’d pinned me against her fiery sword.
I didn’t catch fire. Not at first.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I shrieked. Hysterical thoughts cascaded through my mind, rapid-fire wishes for some fantastical miracle to occur. Maybe my wet hair won’t catch. Maybe my uniform is fireproof.
I writhed, but Lilac was bigger than me. She’d used an elbow to restrain my arm, but I still had one hand free. I wriggled, clawing at her face. “Get off!”
She bore down on me, using all her weight to hold me against the damp stone. “I always wondered what Sunny looked like when she burned. How soon did she fall? Were her eyes open or shut?”
I felt heat growing at my back. It rocketed straight from a simmering warmth to excruciating intensity.
Think, Drew, think. I grasped at Priti’s mantra. I am Watcher. I am Watcher. But the words were meaningless. I was too frantic, too panicked.
My hair had been soaked through, but it began to smolder and hiss. Steam rose in a cloud from my wet uniform. The steam became smoke. I got a whiff of it. It singed my lungs, and I turned my head from it, coughing.
Smoke curled up from Lilac’s uniform sleeve. The smell of burned flesh mingled with the acrid smoke. She was catching fire. But she didn’t feel it.
She really didn’t feel pain. “Oh, God. ” My voice was hoarse. Speaking wracked me with coughs.
“I get to watch this time. ” Lilac laughed, but then she coughed, too.
The smoke hung thickly around my neck. It grew denser as my fat braid began to dry, began to burn. It stank.
Tears stung my eyes. From the smoke. From the stench of my burning hair.
Think, think, think. I refused to die here. I didn’t survive my childhood, survive the island, for it to end like this.
I coughed again, and she was coughing, too. The cave felt airless. The smells noxious.
Then it hit me. I stood still, frozen in her grasp.
I knew why the steam reeked. It wasn’t fresh water that’d soaked my hair. It was water from a hot spring. Springs contained sulfur. This one was rich with it. The walls dripped with it. I could still taste it on my lips.
Burning sulfur created sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide was a toxic gas.
Craning my head away from the thickest smoke, I sucked in a last breath. My chest spasmed, protesting the poisonous air in my lungs. But still, I held my breath.
And then I held her.
I slid my legs behind Lilac. Snaking my free arm around her neck, I hugged her head to me, trapping her face at my shoulder.
She began to cough and didn’t stop.
My lungs felt like they were going to explode, but still I didn’t breathe.
Her body seized, hacking and hacking. She lost control.
I shoved her away, and her body thrashed backward. She fell to her knees.
I thought I might cough up a lung, but my body felt on fire. Hunched over, I ran to the water and dove in. I heard a splitsecond sizzle and it sickened me. The pool was black and impossibly deep. I kicked to the surface, fighting my instinctive alarm.
Pushing away panic, I focused on the warmth of the water. It soothed my charred back. I was burned badly, but the thick fabric of my uniform had offered some initial protection.
I swam to the edge. My stroke was more confident now. Pain sheared through me with every reach of my arms.
I am water that flows. I am Watcher.
Calm clarity settled over me. This was all a mind game. Strength, power, memory, fear—all can be controlled with the mind.
I pulled myself out. The smoke was clearing and I coughed shallowly, tucking my nose against my ar
m. “Time to finish this. ”
When I shook off the water, I realized that my braid had burned off. My hair hung unevenly at my shoulders, and my head was lighter. Large holes had burned through my top, and the cool cave air kissed my scorched back.
Lilac rose, wobbling on her feet. Her torch had gone out. The rage in her eyes told me she wasn’t done yet. She ran for my switchblade and plucked it from the ground.
Hands out, I assumed a defensive posture. “You’re like the creature in the horror movie who won’t die. ”
“You’re the one to die. ” Despite the chest-wracking cough that shook her, Lilac braced in a wide stance. Arms outspread, she held the knife in a loose attack position.
“You know, as much as I’m enjoying our little chat, it’s clear I’m not getting through to you. ” I squatted, pulling the four shuriken from my boots.
Imagining steadiness, I centered myself. Cool composure. I am roots in the earth. I am grounded.
I threw.
I’d aimed for an artery, but my star hit her shoulder. She glanced down, brushing it away like it was nothing. She strolled toward me, coughing only occasionally now. “They made me leave home, but I’ve got a new place now, and I’m not going anywhere. ”
I rejected the unsettling notion that Lilac might’ve wanted to find a new family as much as I did.
Edging away, I threw again, hitting her thigh. She didn’t notice. Just kept coming at me.
“This no-pain thing is really quite disturbing. ” I threw again and it missed her neck, pinging off the cave wall. I had one star left.
Her face twitched. “You’re so cute with your little stars. But I told you they’d do no good. You’re no good. ”
I backed away, but she tracked me, slowly circling through the cavern. She was bizarrely calm, her arms down at her sides, my switchblade gripped in her hand.
I threw my last star and it hit her knife arm. She didn’t seem to notice—it just stuck there, and she hadn’t even flinched.
Swiping a hand across my eyes, I glanced around for another weapon, though I knew I’d find none.
“Having trouble seeing?” Lilac stalked toward me. As her arms swung, the blood gushed from her wound, pooling in the cracks of her fingers. “Because I’m not. I’m used to the dark. My parents would shut me in the closet, you know. Because of Sunny’s lies. I had to use Daddy’s lighter to see. I heard her with them. I’d sit in the dark, listening to her lies, flicking that lighter until my thumb was numb. Until it burned. ”