Аполлион

He placed a hand on my arm. “It could’ve been Sentinels trying to infiltrate the University.”

Blinking rapidly, I shook my head. I had a bad, bad feeling about this. Call it a spidey-sense or whatever, but this wasn’t good.

“Can we, like, call ahead?” Deacon said in a hushed voice. “I mean, they’re expecting us, right?”

“They are.” Aiden glanced back at his younger brother. “It’s okay. I promise. Nothing is going to happen.”

“I can’t get a damn signal at all.” Marcus glared at his cell phone like he could wish it into Tartarus. “Nothing at all.” He glanced up, eyes hard as gems. “Any of you?”

Aiden checked his phone. “Nope.”

I wet my lips as my gaze fell back to the scorched vehicles. My heart pounded and my head ached. “There must be a lot of firebug pures in there…”

“No doubt,” Aiden muttered, both brows rising.

Solos appeared on Aiden’s side of the car, running a hand through the dark strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail. In the shadows, his scar was less visible. “You think the Covenant did this?” He gestured at the vehicles. “Their version of torch security?”

“It’s possible,” Aiden replied, but I wasn’t sure he believed it.

“I can’t get hold of them, so I’m assuming you can’t, either, right?” When Aiden nodded, Solos folded his hands behind his head and stretched so that his back bowed. “I guess we can make it through.”

“We can from what I can see.” Aiden sat back, thrumming his fingers off the wheel. “We’ll have to go slow.”

As I watched the two Sentinels, I knew in my core that Aiden and Solos didn’t want to do this. We were blind to what lay ahead. It could be a murderous band of grizzly bears, or a legion of Sentinels waiting to make S’mores out of us. We just didn’t know.

Solos sighed and dropped his arms. “Well, I guess we do this.”

“We really don’t have any other option.” Aiden shifted the gears back into drive. “Let’s do this.”

With a curt nod, Solos loped back to his vehicle. I squirmed in my seat as the Hummer lurched forward. Easing around the torched cars wasn’t an easy feat. It was like driving a boat through a china shop. Thank the gods that Aiden was driving because I would’ve plowed through the wreckage on the first narrow turn.

More burnt-out cars lay by the side of the road every so many feet, and with each one we passed, the scorch marks looked fresher, the acrid smell thicker… as if each time someone had tried to reach the University, they’d made it a little farther than the group before them. And farther up, deep orange flames crawled across the hood of a Hummer, licking at the smoke-filled air.

Oh, this was so not good.

“How will they know we’re friends?” Deacon asked, thinking along the same lines as me. He leaned between the seats, face pale. “Aiden, we should stop—”

Aiden suddenly did stop, but not because of what Deacon was saying. Debris was strewed across the access road, choking the lane. As far as I could see were scattered skeletons of cars. Many of them still smoldered, glowing hellish red in the pre-dawn dark. The apocalyptical landscape was something straight out of nightmares.

“Gods,” Aiden muttered darkly.

My stomach twisted into knots as I undid my seatbelt. “This isn’t good.”

No one said anything for several moments, and then Marcus spoke, “We’re going to have to walk it from here.”

“How many miles?” I asked.

“We’re about three miles out.” Aiden killed the engine, leaving the headlights on.

All of us climbed out of the Hummer, casting anxious looks at all the burnt-out cars surrounding us, feeling like we’d been driving around with a giant bull’s-eye on us.

Quickly, we weaponed-up with daggers, sickle blades, and Glocks. As I strapped a gun on, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the crew with Solos was doing the same thing.

We looked like we were preparing for war as we came together between the two Hummers. In a way, we were—we had been this whole time. We were at war.

A chill suddenly snaked its way under my skin. We stood in a circle, the nine of us, silent with the exception of titanium clips clicking into place, daggers snapping onto our sides. We were nine. But somehow—in a way I couldn’t explain but knew to be the truth—I knew we weren’t going to return as nine. At that cold realization, I looked at the faces of those around me. Some had been virtual strangers, others enemies until recently, and a few I’d considered friends from day one.

And then there was Aiden.

I took a breath, wishing I could forget the fatalistic feeling taking up residence around my heart. But the somber faces of those around me pretty much told me that I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the same thing at that moment.

As a unit, the nine of us turned. Ghastly, flickering flames lit the road ahead The weight of the daggers and guns was sobering and grounding. We had no idea what waited ahead of us, other than the big, fat unknown, and most likely a big, fat kick in the face. The gravity of that was killing me—killing us.

I squared my shoulders. “Release the Kraken!”

Several sets of eyes settled on me.