Page 88 of Ember Rising

The door beside mine opens and Marcus steps into the room, scowling.

The robe is stretched tight over his wide shoulders, and it hits him at mid-thigh. The back few inches of his feet are on the floor, the flip-flops way too small for them.

“Hello, I’m Nix. Let’s head to your pickup room.”

Marcus doesn’t respond. His gaze flicks to mine as Nix leads us to another of the doors.

The other attendant is taking Annie through another one.

My heart gallops wildly as we’re led down a white hallway with a gleaming black marble floor. We’re helpless, other than our aromium. Plants can’t reach me down here, though. If Marcus reached out to the endoliths in the ground, we’d potentially end up buried in the rubble of an earthquake.

My hand brushes against Marcus’s, and he gives my hand a quick, gentle squeeze. I hope this isn’t a mistake. My instinct was to get to Mae as quickly as possible, and not rely on anyone but Marcus to do it.

He’s right—it probably wouldn’t have worked. But relying on people we don’t know is hard. Our lives—and Mae’s—are in the hands of strangers.

We reach the end of the hallway, and Nix glances back at us before opening it and standing aside so we can enter the room.

Marcus goes first. When I follow, I’m overwhelmed by color.

The room is large, the walls lined with hanging clothing racks. Gowns in every color on the spectrum hang on the racks. Everything from canary yellow to forest green to magenta is there.

Mannequins hold partially finished gowns—people dressed all in black fussing over them. A woman holding pins between her lips pulls one out, placing it into the fabric.

The room has several brown leather chairs and sofas, the floor the same black marble. Large, pristine cream throw rugs are placed around the room. The room is bright, lit with recessed can lights and several crystal chandeliers.

Nix closes the door behind us, not entering the room.

There are nine people other than me and Marcus. Some of them sneak glances at us.

A stately Black woman in a well-cut pale-pink pantsuit stands from one of the chairs. She has flawless skin and her gray hair is cut close to her scalp. When she smiles at us, I’m taken aback by how radiant she is. She looks like an actress or model.

“At long last,” she says, her voice rich and smooth. “Marcus and Briar, I’m Marta Smythe. Come sit. We have a lot to talk about.”

29

“I still don’t know exactly what happened. I heard from a guard that Marlo and her baby were captured while trying to escape. No one knows where they are, or if they’re even alive. We had nothing to do with this.” – message from Mallory network operative Garnet to operative Amethyst

Evander

I turn off the shower, grabbing the towel I hung over the door when I stepped in. My shower was less than five minutes, but I’m not covered in grime anymore.

The plants in that ravine saved Amira. I was in agony watching her fall, unable to reach her. And then the kudzu vines grew before my eyes, flying through the air and weaving a hammock shape for her to fall onto. They wove around her, keeping her from bouncing out.

I think it was a tree trunk she hit her head on. By the time I reached her, the vines wrapped around her had retreated, leaving her lying motionless on the hammock they’d formed.

It was like witnessing magic. I cried when I found her pulse, and then I thanked the plants for saving her.

Did they hear me? I don’t know, but I hope they understood.

When she wakes up, I’m telling her everything—including how I feel about her. I’ve walked through minefields and jumped out of airplanes so many times it’s routine. I thought I was fearless. But I was so fucking wrong. I was afraid of the way Amira makes me feel. I’m not letting that hold me back for another second.

After drying off quickly, I carefully wrap the towel around my waist, avoiding my plastic-covered wound, and walk into the main locker room area.

This ILF hub is a former university campus. I’ve never been more relieved than I was when I got here carrying an unconscious Amira and found out the ILF is still holding this hub.

That was less than an hour ago. I got Amira to the hospital—a repurposed academic building—and my longtime friend Diego evaluated her immediately. He agrees with my assessment that she most likely just has a nasty concussion.

I broke my stitches open climbing down into the ravine to get Amira, so Diego restitched my wound and gave me a waterproof cover for it. I left Amira with him and came to the closest building I could get a shower at. I’m planning to put on clean clothes and get back to her.