Indomitable

t h i r t y - e i g h t

A/N: Wow, we have over 7000 views here!! That's actually incredible, thank you guys so much. Hope you enjoy this new chapter. Please leave comments if you enjoy, or if you don't, I always love reading and replying to them(:

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"Come on," Remi breathed heavily, taking Killure's hand in her own and darting towards the door.

Killure let out a low growl, blocking her with his arm so that she could go no further. He grasped the doorknob, and after he was satisfied that it wasn't hot, pulled the door back.

A heavy cloud of smoke plowed through the door like an avalanche, assaulting Remi's senses. It burned at her eyes, making them water. She tried to blink rapidly, but even that did little to nothing to stop the burning.

The smoke tendrils forced their way down her throat before she could snap her jaw shut, raking her windpipe on the way down and causing her to burst into a fit of coughing.

Still, Remi pressed onwards, ducking beneath the smoke and crawling along the floor.

When she stopped yet again to cough, Killure took the lead, dragging her behind him. "If you don't speed up, we won't make it to ground level before the fire does, and we'll die. Do you feel like burning to death today, master?"

Remi shot him an annoyed glare. "We're not going to die."

As he shuffled along the floor, Killure let out a dark cackle, sending chills down her spine. Hate dripped from his laugh like spoiled honey. "Oh, of course. You'll be brought back to life afterwards, but the same doesn't apply to me."

Remi interlocked her fingers with his, giving his hand a squeeze as they moved towards the stairs. "No. We can't bring something back from ashes. We can't even heal simple burns. It's every Designer's one weakness. If I die from this, I die for good."

Killure froze in place for a brief moment before pushing forward again, dragging her roughly behind him, but now with more urgency. "Well, well," he let out a breathy laugh. "Isn't that ironic."

They'd reached the tall staircase that would take them to the main level.

No one else had been down on this floor aside from the Shimmering Men, because they'd specifically reserved this floor for the purpose of the meeting.

Meeting in such an isolated place would prevent assassinations because of how well it hid them, but in a fire, they had the furthest to go to escape the building.

But no one had thought of that in the past, because no one had ever tried to kill them all before. No one had ever discovered any of the locations of the Shimmering Men's past meetings, either, until they had long since ended.

Killure pulled her up the staircase into the much thicker smoke. Remi quickly shut her eyes and mouth to block out the smoke, plugging her nose with her free hand.

And yet, none of those things blocked out the terrified screams that penetrated her ears.

The fire hadn't quite reached the ground level floor yet, so nothing here was on fire.

But there were clearly some people trapped on the upper floors, separated from the ground by the quickly spreading fire.

Surely someone was already trying to rescue them.