The Ravaged World (Book 2 of the Exiles Series)

Twenty-Two: Talia

We stood in silence for a few seconds, the woman, Avalon, staring at us with hate-filled eyes. Neither one of us dared to make the first move, but both of us thought each other to be worthy adversaries, not wanting to be on the defensive. It was me that finally suggested an action. "Run."

Magnus took off and I followed, struggling to keep pace. Avalon yelled and chased after us, gun drawn, waiting for a clear shot between the towering bookcases.

We weaved through the labyrinth of them, books and bits of wood raining down on us as dozens of unseen battles went on around us. One of them was Nicole and Max, surrounded and outnumbered by a group of soldiers.

I tried not to dwell on that, adrenaline surging through my body as I pumped myself forward, arms flailing, feet barely striking the ground. All of this felt like deja vu somehow, even though I doubted I'd lived through this particular scene before. It took a moment before I recalled why that was: on the island, I'd been chased like this. Only Magnus was the pursuer, and I was the one fleeing.

A bullet zinged a mere foot from my head and struck a blurred bookcase to my left. The whole shelf shook with the impact, teetering even more as all of the books slipped out either side. My hand clawed at Magnus's elbow just as the whole structure shifted and began to fall.

"Run, run!" I shouted, far more urgently, my calves burning. Magnus looked up and veered right, down the next aisle of shelves, as the first bookcase came crashing down, so massive that it hit the next shelf over as well, and that shelf hit the next, and on and on and on until the whole room seemed to shake beneath our feet, the bookcases and their contents, now more like dominoes crashing to the floor. I glanced fearfully over my shoulder every few seconds, seeing both rebels and guards leaping out of the way, and Avalon cursing as she picked over the rubble. Her minions followed, though hesitantly.

Meanwhile, Magnus and I dodged debris on the floor, ranging from moaning wounded to piles and piles of books. I tripped over a girl who had her lower half pinned beneath a fallen bookshelf, momentarily stopping to see who she was, making sure it was no one I knew or had seen before, even if it was only in passing. Seeing someone I knew in that state would only make it worse, only make the disaster of it all seem so much more real and personal.

But I continued on, my vision blurry, knowing that at this point, movement was synonymous with survival.

Shots rang out behind us, pushing my stomach into my throat and then down to my toes. Bullets whizzed past, ricocheting off the white cement walls, sometimes finding homes in another's flesh.

I turned around and fired in retaliation, aiming for Avalon and her soldiers but missing by a mile each time. Avalon cackled and raised her gun again.

Everything around me suddenly ceased to exist, reduced to white noise. I saw Magnus's lips moving, his blue, blue eyes zeroing in on me, stark against the red and brown of the wood and people and blood, wide with fear. My body felt detached, listless, no longer compliant with the instructions my brain was trying to relay, even as I knew that catastrophe was inevitable if I DIDN'T MOVE.

Magnus knew, too, I could tell, in the urgent way that he raised his gun, sidestepping me to get a clear shot, but it didn't matter. The bullet didn't care. All it knew was that Avalon had trained her gun on me just as Magnus trained his on her, and it escaped the chamber, heading straight for me, its designated target, the one fate had planned for it to hit.

I saw the shock register on Avalon's face as her gun was shot from her hand and flew through the air, hitting the floor with a loud thud, trigger side down. And even though Avalon was no longer in control of it, it fired a round in defiance, hitting a few guards and, sadly, a few rebels.