13. 

Wind ripples past me as I tumble down the hill. The smoke on the other side of the island spirals into the air as the fire grows bigger, ravishing the huts. Malik's faster than me, moving with the grace of a wolf. I'm only a quarter of the way down by the time he reaches the shack, glancing up at me before stepping into the shadow cast by the light of the fire. My breath is harsh and ragged as I stumble to the bottom, searching for Malik. I notice the glow of his eyes in the shadows.

Using his hand, he gestures me forward to scale the wall, heart pounding as I reach the corner and peer around. The wood juts out into a makeshift door that faces the rest of the huts. I dart my eyes from the door to the fire. I can see three people actively trying to put it out, another watching as it threatens to burn another hut. Apart from that, the coast seems clear.

I turn to Malik and nod. He glides past me, sliding through the gap in the wood. I wait a few seconds before following him, gazing around. There's a long hallway lit by a sole lantern in the middle that leads to a door at the end. There are three doors on the way down. All closed. Unease swirls in my stomach because if Elias truly is here, it almost feels easy. Too easy.

Malik grabs my wrist and we creep forward, the wood creaking beneath our weight. Malik keeps us in the shadows as we pass the first door. He holds a hand up and presses his ear to the door before opening it. The room is pitched black, the only light filtering through the small window and casting an orange glow over the tools on a wooden desk.

A needle. A syringe. Wires.

I turn. "Do you—"

He slaps a hand over my mouth, grabs my wrist, and pulls me into the room, pressing his body against mine until we're molded into the wall. A door slams. My heart pounds as I stare up at him, his arms wrapping around me in the shadows. Footsteps hurry down the hall.

"Go!" My blood runs cold as the sound of her voice. Cynthia. "We're on a bloody island, use the water to put it out!" 

"We're trying but it's too big!"

A fist bangs against the wall I'm pressed to. I dig my nails into Malik's wrist. His blue eyes hold mine, steady and comforting. I have to remind myself to breathe. Because the woman who took Elias is standing through a thin wall and it takes everything in me not to scream. There's a thud, and then footsteps until the door we came through slams, and silence settles around us. I take a shaky breath as Malik moves his hand from my mouth and I release his wrist, my nails leaving half-moon indents.

"We have to hurry," I say. "Before she comes back."

He nods, stepping back into the hall. We're less careful, more rushed as we check the other rooms before reaching the one at the end of the hall. With each step, a coil tightens in my chest. Malik puts his hand on the doorknob, turning to look at me.

"Ready?"

I nod, and he opens the door. Iron—it's the first thing I notice. The room smells of wet metal—blood. There's a single window, but it doesn't provide much light. A shelf on the wall, a cabinet beneath. A bed in the center. White sheets covering a body shaped lump.

My heart halts. I freeze in the doorway. Malik steps forward, pushing aside the pole holding a bag of red liquid by the bedside. I hold my breath as he gently pulls the sheet back, then looks at me. "It's him."

I'm almost afraid to look. When I do, it feels like a punch to the stomach. I've dreamt of this moment for months, of seeing Elias again—his warm eyes, dimpled smile, golden skin. But the man lying on the table looks so different he's almost unrecognizable. His eyes are shut, lips pressed together. His skin is a sickly grey colour, pale, like a corpse. Tears choke in my throat as Malik pulls the sheet to his waist, revealing the waistband of a pair of ragged shorts. He's shirtless, the expanse of his chest dotted with needle marks.

I look up at Malik, horrified. "Is-is he—"

He grabs my hand and presses it to Elias' chest. It's icy to touch, a stark contrast to what it used to be. That's when I feel it. A heartbeat.

"He's just asleep," Malik says softly. "He's okay."

The relief hits like a wave. "Should we take him like this?"

"We won't be able to move fast enough if he's unconscious." His eyes dart around the room, seemingly unconcerned about Elias.

"What're you doing?" I ask.

"The shadow," he murmurs, "it's here. I know where to find it but—" he stops and looks at me. "Try to wake him up. I'll be back. And if I'm not, leave as soon as he wakes."

I'd completely forgotten about the shadow—the true reason Malik came. Part of me wants to stop him from leaving, terrified that something will happen to Elias in his absence, but I nod and watch him slide out the door. I put my hand to Elias' forehead, brushing his hair back. It's gotten longer, nearly in his eyes.

"Elias?" I whisper. Nothing. I shake his shoulders, putting one hand to his cheek. He flinches. I shake him again, grabbing a hand when his eyebrows furrow. "Elias? Elias, it's me. Milena."

His eyelids flutter. Lips part. I hover over him, trying to generate some warmth in his body when his face contorts and his eyes flash open, darting frantically around the room till they land on me. They're dull and dark. The flecks that once glowed golden are absent of life. 

I hold my breath as his eyes brush across my face, half-lidded. He doesn't react. He barely breathes. He just stares.

"Elias?" I whisper, pressing my hand to his cheek. "Can you hear me?" Nothing. It's like talking to a wall. "Elias, I need to get you out of here. I'm going to try to lift you, okay?"

I grab his arm and sling it over my shoulder, trying to haul him up. He's mostly limp, the weight of his body dragging me back down, but I manage to get him off the bed. And despite his lack of responsiveness, he manages to stand on his feet. The majority of his weight is on me, but he stands. That's something.

I hobble us toward the door, my arm around his waist, when it bursts open. I look up, expecting Malik, but my heart drops. Cynthia. And when she sees me, she smiles, a machete in her right hand.

I freeze. My dagger is in my boot but my hands are wrapped around Elias. She steps into the room, raising her machete and inspecting the blade.

"Hello, Milena. I assumed I'd be seeing you again," she hums. "Though, I didn't expect it to be this soon."

"What'd you do to him?" I demand, gripping Elias tighter and stepping backward. "Why doesn't he know who I am?"

She laughs but says nothing. She barely gives me a second to breathe before the machete is coming down towards me. I drop Elias and slide the dagger from my boot, ducking just in time for the machete to lodge itself in the wooden wall behind me. Alarm bells ring in my head as I note Elias slumped on the floor, but deep down, I know not to be concerned. She won't kill him, she needs him. The problem is getting us both out of here. Elias can't stand, and I can't carry him out and defend myself. 

Cynthia scowls, reaching for the handle of her machete and trying to pull it from the wood. My heart hammers as I stare at her, defenseless. This is my chance, I can't hesitate as I did with Charles. I leap behind her, bringing the dagger down and aiming for her shoulder, and repeat the promise I made myself in my head: injure and disarm. Don't kill. 

But it doesn't matter. I couldn't even kill her if I wanted to; she's immortal.

At the last second, her machete loosens and she stumbles back from the pull, missing my dagger by an inch. She spins around to face me, giving me no time to reassess and leaping across the room. I duck under her arm, spinning around, again, missing the hit, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. In the back of my mind, I think of Elias. This can't keep going on, soon, others will hear and I'll be out-numbered. 

Cynthia's eyes burn with anger as she goes for me again. This time, when I duck under her arm, I swipe her stomach with my knife. She hisses in pain, red dotting her shirt. "Brat!" she shouts, coming for me again. The machete inches so close to my cheek I feel the swoosh of the swing, stumbling back and scrambling beneath the table. Cynthia has years of training on me, but she's older, slower. 

Frustrated, she takes a step towards Elias and grips his head, hooking her arm around his neck and holding him just above the floor. I freeze as she puts her machete to his neck, his limp body resting against the ground. 

Her eyes meet mine. Cold and hard. "Drop the dagger."

I grip it tighter, lowering my stance. "What're you doing?"

A sick smile crosses her face. "I've had him for three months. You can extract a lot of blood in that time."

"You won't kill him, you need him."

"Watch me." Where the machete is pressed, blood prickles at his throat. 

"Stop!" I shout. "What're you doing? Stop!"

"Drop your weapon!" she shouts. I hesitate, eyes flicking between her and Elias. She could be bluffing. But I killed her son. Her desire to kill me could overpower anything. "Now!" I drop the knife, my stomach plummeting. "Now kick it away." 

I do as she says, kicking it beneath the table. Cynthia's eyes are crazed, her hair standing up due to the humidity.  "Let him go," I say, a last resort. "I'm the one you want dead. Let Elias go and take me instead."

"Now why would I do that when I have the both of you right here?" Her eyes glimmer. "Defenseless."

She's right. My only weapon is nothing compared to her machete, even if I could reach it. She has us both. And without warning, she lifts her machete and sends it sailing towards me, dropping Elias. I dodge the first hit, but it's impossible to escape her when I have to think about Elias. I leap under her hit and grab him. If I ran, maybe I'd lose her, but I didn't come all this way to let him slip through my fingers again. She raises the machete again. I grip Elias, wrapping my arms around his body to shield him, and squeeze my eyes shut.

Clank. 

Her machete hits the wall beside me. My body quivers as I turn to stare at her and she stares back, expression undecipherable. I sit right in front of her, basically surrendering. She missed. She raises the machete again, but before I can say anything, she's shoved aside, her weapon clattering to the floor and her body hitting the wall opposite. Malik stands behind her, a grin on his face and a dagger in his hand. 

I grab Elias as Malik charges at Cynthia and presses her against the wall.

"Go!" Malik shouts. "Take Elias and go!"

I run. My shoulder knocks the door frame as we stumble down the hallway, Elias' grunts filling the hall and drowning out the sounds of struggle from behind. He's lost weight, so he's not as heavy as I expected, but the mud coating my skin makes it hard to get a good grip on his body. I kick the door open and drag him outside. Fire blazes still, the smoke swirling in the air choking my lungs. We sink into the shadows of the hill behind the shack.

I have to get him out of here.

Elias is silent against me, nearly limp. His eyes are open but distant; I don't know if he can really see, really feel, really understand. When I pictured reuniting with him, I imagined wrapping him in my arms, feeling his warmth, his breath against my throat. But his body is ice cold, and when he looks through me, it's like he doesn't even know who I am.

Figures dart through the darkness from the water's edge to the fire. I stop trekking up the hill and press Elias into the grass, trying to control my breath. If they notice us amongst the shrub, we're screwed.

"Stop." The word halts me. It's soft and desperate—a plea. But when I look at Elias, his eyes are closed.

"Elias?" I shake him. "Elias, stay awake."

"Just let me die," he murmurs. "Stop this."

My nails dig into his arm, heart hammering. If he loses all consciousness, there's no way I can get him out of here on my own. 

I tune out his desperate groans and focus on the people sailing past, waiting for an opening. I hook my arm tighter around Elias and hobble around the hill face, breath ragged. The earth pounds beneath us as the shouts grow more distant and we're enveloped in the shadows cast by the hill, the burning village no longer in view. The moon glares off the water between us and the mainland, but I shove away the relief because we're not safe. Not yet.

I spy the log pulled onto the shoreline and struggle towards it, placing Elias delicately on the ground. He blinks at the sky, body still on the shore while I drag the log towards him. He's mostly limp by the time I get him to the log, his body flopped over one side. I wipe the mud from my eyes and wade into the water, shivering as it creeps back into my clothes. Part of me wants to wait for Malik or Eric, but our escape is close enough to touch, and what if we get caught waiting?

But I can't swim. Tears of frustration blur my gaze. I don't know what to do—wait for Malik or Eric, or risk drowning and leaving Elias slung over that log to float off into the water. From behind, shouts get closer. I can't wait any longer.

The water reaches my waist, then my chest. Panic pulses through my body but I shove it down. If I can balance us right, we can both rest on the log and float to shore. But when I push off from the earth and reach for the log, it twists and I plunge below the surface. Salt assaults my senses as I splutter for the surface, unable to tell which way is up and what is down in the darkness. My lungs burn and I can't help myself—I gulp. Water chokes my throat and my head pounds. But a hand reaches into the darkness and grabs me, yanking me to the surface.

I gasp for air, choking on the water trapped in my lungs as someone drags me back to shore and lays me on the rocks. "What were you thinking?" Eric. I lean over to cough up water. It tastes filthy coming back up. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Where's Elias?" I demand, trying to sit up. "I had him here. I was trying to get him back but I couldn't—"

"Calm down." Eric puts both hands on my shoulder. He smells of smoke and charred wood. "Elias is right here. It's okay."

In the shallows of the water, Elias lies still slung over the log. And in the presence of Eric, I can't hold it together anymore. "There's something wrong with him, Eric. He doesn't recognise me."

Eric frowns. He moves over to Elias and lifts his head. I wait expectantly, waiting for recognition to flicker in his eyes, but he only stares blankly, just as he did when he looked at me. Eric clicks his fingers in front of his face, pulls his eyelids up. "He's okay, Milena."

"How can you know?"

"He's heavily drugged and has lost a lot of blood. I can feel the silver in him. He will be okay, but we have to get him out of here." He offers me his hand. "Hold my arm and don't let go, okay?"

"Wait!" He pulls us deeper into the water. "Malik's still there."

"What happened to him?"

"Cynthia caught us," I say, "he fought her so I could get away but he—he hasn't come back."

"We have to go now." There's a new urgency in his voice. This time, when he pulls me out, the water is too deep and I have to cling to him.

"We can't just leave him."

"Milena, the plan was—"

"I don't care about the plan. If it were me, would you leave?"

He hesitates, still pushing us further into the water. "That's different."

"No, it isn't. Eric, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for him—we wouldn't have found Elias."

The water ripples around us and bugs buzz overhead, filling the silence. Finally, Eric looks at me. "We'll get Elias to shore. If Malik isn't back, I'll go back for him, okay?"

I nod. Elias groans as Eric swims further from the island, body jolting as if in pain. It hurts to see him like this, so vulnerable. I can see it in Eric, too, in the set of his jaw, and I wonder if he truly believes what he said—that Elias will be okay. Anticipation coils through my veins as we get closer to the shore, the fire behind glowing orange. At the shore, I help Eric drag Elias' body up. He's unconscious now, so we take an arm each and stumble towards the treeline back to where we left Cassia and the hollower. Minutes feel like hours before we reach the trees, and the cover it provides is strangely comforting. Eric's breath is as ragged as mine as we climb the hill and round the corner. Cassia waits, curled in on herself. She sits up when she sees us coming.

"You found him." We place him by her side and she leans over him, brushing the mud-coated hair from his face and looking up at us with watery eyes. "Is he okay?"

"He has a lot of silver in his system," Eric says, moving over to the bags and rifling through them aggressively. "We've used all the infumine. Dammit!"

I think of the last time we were in this position. Elias and I were forced to go back to my village to get medicine from the tunnels for Eric, and look where it landed us. My stomach tightens in panic. "What're we going to do?"

Eric curses and goes through the bags again. It's no use, we used all the infumine we brought on Cassia. "Where's Malik?" Cassia asks.

"We're going back to get him," I say.

"After we get Elias out of here," Eric interjects, and Cassia nods in agreement, staring down at his face. I feel torn. On one hand, I know they're right. It doesn't matter what happened to Cynthia, when the hollowers find out we took Elias, they'll come after us. But leaving Malik doesn't feel right, either. We owe him so much.

"Let's go," Eric says. "We have to get him medicine or... or..."

"What if we split up?" I suggest.

"How?" Eric snaps. "Cassia can't walk, Elias can't walk, and I'm betting the hollower won't help us carry them."

"What if..." I trail off, searching for a solution, but there's nothing. "What if we—"

"Looking for me?"

We all spin around. Malik stands between the trees, sopping wet. His vivid blue eyes meet mine and he smiles tiredly. A slash oozes with blood across his chest, and his sleeves are slashed, revealing more wounds, but he stands steady.

"Malik," I breathe. "You're okay? How'd you get away?"

There's a shout from behind him, and we all tense. Malik snaps into action, moving to help Cassia up. "Long story short, that woman is alive and very angry, and we should go. Now. Because I don't think they'll be far behind."

Eric immediately grabs the bags, throwing both mine and Cassia's towards me. I hold one on the front and the other on the back, squeezing the excess liquid from my clothes.

"Where can we go? Elias needs medicine and our village is too far," Cassia asks.

"The elder village," Eric suggests, looking to Malik. "It's near the coast, isn't it?"

 Malik leans down to pick her up and she wraps her arms around his neck. "It isn't far. They have food and medicine. It will be safe."

Eric huffs as he picks Elias up and slings him over his shoulder. He looks at me, then down at the hollower, who sits silently to the side. "Don't let her go."

I nod once, moving over to Anastasia. She allows me to unwind her from the tree and calmly gets to her feet. Part of me wants to take the gag from her mouth, but I shove the thought away and swallow my guilt. We can't risk her screaming again. The stakes are higher now.

"Which way?" Eric asks.

Malik looks ahead. "East. We head up the coast to the cove."

"Lead the way."

We follow, silently trudging through the forest in sopping wet clothes and stinking like a swamp. But it doesn't matter; a new emotion fuels our movements, making us even faster. Hope.  

~

super long chapter for you guys! hope you enjoyed

just a small note: you may come across any inconsistencies with the first books in terms of events/the things people knew/did. In my head, the most current version of the book is the edited one that's being published, which has minor changes to the order of events and specific characters. For example, in the new version, Ana has a much bigger role which does affect some parts of this sequel. so this sequel is kind of written to follow after the published version, not the wattpad version (which might explain a few confusing points that may pop up in the following chapters). sorry! it's so hard to keep track of what happens in which version. but the main plot remains the same so it shouldn't confuse too much!

DISCUSSION:

1. Are you surprised they rescued Elias?

2. Do you think Elias will be okay?

3. What do you think might happen next?

~C