Аполлион

I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I opened my eyes again, the sky was still dark and Seth’s presence was gone. At some point, I’d felt him ease away. I thought he had whispered something before the connection faded, but I had to be hearing things, because it couldn’t be right.

I’d thought I’d heard him say he was sorry.

Obviously I was losing my mind. Seth rarely apologized, and given his needs for power and acceptance that had driven him toward this end game, I doubted he felt remorse.

Taking a deep breath, I almost choked on the bitter remnants of smoke. I knew what I needed to do—pick myself up and get moving. Sitting out here in the open, waiting for more automatons to come along, wasn’t safe.

I stood and turned, brushing the dirt off my tactical pants. The group was still around Lea’s body. Olivia was sitting beside the fallen half-blood, her head in her hands. Deacon and Luke flanked her, the half cradling his injured arm.

Wiping my hands across my cheeks, I stopped beside Aiden.

Olivia looked up, her eyes shiny in the moonlight. “She didn’t feel it, right?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

She nodded, and then picked up Lea’s blade, holding it close as she stood. “What do we… what do we do from here?”

It was Solos who spoke. “We need to move quickly. There’s no telling if more will come along, and we’re sitting ducks out here.”

“Do you still think the University is a safe place?” Marcus asked, rubbing his chin. The palm of his hand came back red. I realized then he was bleeding.

I started toward Marcus, but he waved me off. “I’m okay. It’s just a scratch,” he said gruffly. “How do we know that the University is still standing? The automatons could’ve torched it and…”

And all those people. My head swam as I glanced down at Lea. Someone had closed her eyes. Mine burned.

“We have to find out.” Aiden thrust a hand through his hair. “We’re about a mile from the campus.”

Luke shook his head. “There could be more of them. Hell, there could be a dozen or more over the next damn hill and we’d be walking into that blind.”

“Or there could be nothing but open land and the damn University,” Aiden countered, his jaw set hard. “As far as we know, these automatons may’ve been here to stop anyone from reaching the campus… or to stop people from leaving.”

“Or the campus could be gone.” Deacon backed up, running his hands down his sides.

Solos stepped forward, clapping a hand on Deacon’s shoulder. “I cannot believe the whole campus is gone.”

“With all those automatons, anything is possible.” Luke straightened his injured arm as he stared in the general direction of where I assumed the campus was. “But we have to see. We’ve come this—”

“Wait!” Olivia’s voice rose above the guys’. “I wasn’t asking about going to the University or not. I was talking about what we were going to do with Lea.”

Silence fell again and I turned to Aiden. “We can’t leave her here.”

Pain flickered in those deep gray eyes. He reached out, extending his hand, and I went, pressing myself against his side. My fingers dug into his singed shirt, finding tiny burnt holes in the material. “We can’t,” I whispered.

His arm tightened around me. “I know.”

“We can’t… take her with us,” Solos said. “We have no idea what we’ll be facing.”

Olivia went off like a nuclear bomb, holding that dagger like she was considering impaling it between Solos’ eyes. “We can’t leave her here like this. That’s so wrong I don’t even need to explain.”

Sympathy shone in Solos’ scarred face. “I know, but we—”

“We bury our dead—our warriors.” Olivia’s lower lip trembled. “We don’t just leave them here to rot.”

Laadan placed a pale hand on Olivia’s arm, but Olivia was beyond consoling. “I don’t care what we have to face or what is waiting for us! We can’t just leave her here.” Her gaze swung to me. “We need to bury her.”

“With what?” Solos asked gently. “We don’t have shovels and this ground is rock hard.”

Olivia sucked in a sharp breath and turned. Her slim shoulders shook as Luke wrapped his good arm around her.

“Aiden, we have to do something,” Deacon pleaded. “I don’t know what, but something.”

Pulling away from Aiden, I glanced down at my hands. I wasn’t sure how much juice I had left in me, or even if I could use the earth element to create… to create a grave, but I would try. There was no way we could leave Lea out here.

“I don’t know if this will work.” I tucked my hair back, having no idea what’d happened to my ponytail.

Aiden’s brows slammed down as concern flared. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

I nodded. “Where do you think we should do it, Olivia?”

It took her a couple of seconds to pull away from Luke and process what I was asking. She looked around and seemed to recognize that there really wasn’t a suitable place. She headed off and I followed her. We stopped near two juniper trees that had remained unscathed from the fire and battle, their sweet scent so at odds with the lingering acidic and metallic smells.