Awakening - The Last Science #1

Chapter 28 - Ashes - III

  Rachel sat on the stone bench inside one of the side halls, holding a gently flickering candlelight in her palm. The room had once been a sturdy tower, encircled by gargantuan bookshelves with a single entrance set into the lower shelves. The cases were long-since emptied, and the wooden panels were covered in years of dust. A hole in the ceiling—opened by either Alpha or Omega, Rachel had no idea which—was letting a thin coating of ash drift in from the cloud of smoke dissipating into the sky.

  The library always used to unsettle her. Rachel didn't believe in spirits or ghosts, even with what she'd been through, but she'd always felt an air of spite and malevolence hanging throughout the wrecked building. Today, it was gone. Rachel didn't see it as the site of impossible battles or eldritch secrets, but as the lone standing bastion against the horrors they'd all witnessed. She wondered—if it hadn't been destroyed, could it have protected them all from the massacre?

  Ridiculous, she reminded herself. It's an old stone building that was emptied out way before they ever fought. It couldn't have protected a fly.

  "This is where we found it," said Beverly. She faded in next to Rachel, sitting on the bench and staring at the octagonal rug on the floor. It was the only piece of furniture remaining in the entire structure not made of blackened wood or hard stone. "Right there on the floor."

  "The book?"

  "Yeah." She tilted her head down as if she were embarrassed. "Hailey dragged me to some stupid party. I didn't want to go, but that's where I met Jackson. Then Jackie came to break it up. We ran, and we ended up here. They were both scared of it. I wasn't. So I sat down, turned to a random page, and everything went wrong." Rachel looked up at her. Beverly's eyes were red and streaked with tears, but she'd finally calmed down.

  "Would you take it all back?" Rachel asked.

  Beverly took a long time to answer. She kept folding and unfolding her hands in her lap. "I don't like thinking about that. If I decide yes, then what if I spend years trying to find a way to do it? Hindsight's a lot different when there might actually be a way to change things."

  "You really think magic can do that?"

  "It's magic. I don't care what anyone else says. I don't think we can ever completely understand it."

  Rachel nodded. "I think he was right about that."

  "Who?"

  "Jackson. He was right about magic being too dangerous. Even with the safeguards I tried to put in place, it wasn't enough." Rachel let out a deep breath. "It's too late to stop it now."

  "I could stop it," Beverly suggested, though she looked sickened by her own suggestion.

  She shook her head. "We have no idea how many Scraps might be out there that we never found, or copies that Cinza managed to hide away, or anything else. People are going to find them, and they're going to die if you don't help them."

  "So you're telling me to keep awakening them?"

  Rachel sighed. She felt like she was at the end of a marathon and being asked to start running another one. "I'm done giving orders. It's not my place anymore."

  Beverly eyed her with a mixture of contempt and pity. "You're giving up?"

  Rachel nodded. "I thought you'd be happy."

  She frowned. "I think you're awful, but I still think you were the best chance everyone has for this to actually work. Everyone trusts you."

  "They trust you too. Why don't you lead them?"

  "I'm not a leader."

  Rachel coughed out a bitter laugh. "What makes me a leader any more than you?"

  "You're decisive. You get stuff done."

  "And look where that got us."

  Rachel stretched out her limbs, feeling the aches and pains of the whole week slowly filtering through her body. She could hear people approaching through the library, the occasional scuffle and stumble over debris giving them away. She'd have to face the crowd one last time before it was all over. Rachel stood up and braced herself. She'd get it over with quick and painless. She was done.

  Natalie Hendricks walked through the archway.

  The girl was still dressed in her battered and torn black funeral dress, though she'd added pants and her forest-green windbreaker to the getup. She had a few streaks of blood dotting her skin and a blackened and burned spot on her coat. Everything about her appearance was a perfect summary of what they'd all been through.

  It made Rachel sick. She remembered her promise to her, and to everyone else who followed, and she felt even colder.

  She wasn't qualified to lead anyone. Rachel DuValle was just an airhead freak college student from Vancouver, with nothing special about her at all. She couldn't save the world. This crowd of people, who'd relied upon her and believed in her to save them, had put their trust in the wrong person.