Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
But it’s a train and we made it.
Finn stops to look at it, then turns to me. “Obviously this one no longer runs and we’ll have to walk to the next station, but if you can’t walk, Jasina, don’t worry. I’ll carry you.”
And that’s it, I guess.
He wins.
Because if I can’t walk, he’ll carry me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Being inside the spark when the explosion happens is a trip, to say the least. It’s like being inside a translucent blue bubble that repels anything and everything that comes hurling at us.
It’s chaos.
But at the same time, it’s poetry too. Because the overlay is on, and my augments are working, and inside the bubble, Anneeta isn’t dying. She’s just fine.
It doesn’t last, though. None of us understand what we are or how we’re connected. Which means we can’t control this power we have. So naturally, it fades away and leaves a new reality behind.
A reality where I’m on the run from Tau City, I’ve kidnapped its god, and I’ve partnered up with a Spark Maiden straight out of a fairy tale to keep the god alive so we can deliver her to another god in a city that is nearly four thousand miles away.
It’s something out of a fiction.
Whatever that explosion was, it has taken out the train station just north of the tower so we have to walk to the next stop. But there are at least fifteen stops before you even get out of Tau City, so it’s only like half a mile.
I’m still carrying Anneeta, who passed out just a few minutes after we left the safety of the bubble. Clara stumbles along beside me. There is a large crowd up ahead when we approach the next station, so we stop and I help Clara put on her traditional desert robes and veil that Rodge packed for her. It’s a good disguise. Mine as well. Though, of course, I don’t have a veil. Just a head covering.
No one dresses like this in Delta City, but they do in other places so no one pays us much attention when we come up on the crowd. They ask us if we’re OK, and we say a few words, then keep going. The trains aren’t running here either, so we have to walk to the next station along the crowded pedestrian walkway that lines the tunnel.
By the time we get there, hand over our tickets, get settled in our compartment—first class, that was nice of Rodge—Clara can barely walk.
I’ve been carrying Anneeta this whole time, but Clara has been feeding her spark. Holding her hand as we walked. She’s exhausted when she sits down on the leather bench in our compartment, too tired to even open her eyes.
I set Anneeta down next to her, then take off the pack with the jumps and pull one out. I’ve never done a jump, but the guys I got them from showed me how to use it. I know we brought these for Anneeta, but I give the first one to Clara instead. There’s a sensor that fits under the tongue and when you activate the jump, it shocks you.
I empty the entire thing into her and the color starts to return to her face. It takes a few more minutes before her eyes open, but eventually they do open and she forces a smile. “We made it.”
“We made it.”
Of course, we haven’t made it. The train hasn’t even left the station yet. It’s actually very late. The whole plan—fourteen hours—it’s all bullshit because of that explosion. At first, I thought it was related to the VersiStrike because it used an acoustic weapon the last time it fired. But that explosion was huge. It wasn’t my weapon. It was something else.
It was Finn. A little voice whispers that inside my head. It was Finn.
And it was. I saw him in the overlay. He was carrying a woman with red hair through a tunnel. And I think the explosion happened in that world, not ours.
Which is a troubling thought, to say the least. Is the veil that thin in Tau City?
Must be.
I feed Anneeta a jump too, just to see if she’ll wake up like Clara did, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t even stir. But she doesn’t look dead, either. Not that I know what a dead god looks like. I’ve got no clue.
So Clara just keeps feeding her spark, and I keep feeding Clara jumps, and the train finally gets on its way, and an hour later, we’re speeding through the tunnel at top speed.
But I can count. I know how long it takes to get to Delta.
I know how many jumps I’ve fed them.
I know how many we’ve got left.
And it’s not enough.
Eight hours in, I have to make a decision because Clara, even when I feed her jumps, is no longer conscious. She’s gonna die if I let Anneeta take any more spark. And we only have one jump left.