The SEQUEL to Avenir! The second book in Let Others Rise: The Series
Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Les Amis journey to the future and attempt to reunite with Avenir and save the peaceful city of Paris from the ever-present threat of the society of Mars...
There was no time to think. The walls were crumbling around us..."MOVE! LET'S GO!" I bellowed, placing my hands up as a shield and racing through the first opening I saw. The heavy ceiling would be the next to go. "MOVE IT, I MEAN IT!!!"
I peered over my shoulder and saw some of the older girls carrying the younger ones out on piggyback, as they sprinted out of the ruins. I immediately sprinted back in, and grabbed the first girl I saw, one who had named herself Celia. (For some of the Unnamed chose to name ourselves; others, like myself, had chosen to remain nameless.) I carried Celia out, and she clung to my clothing – which was the Parisian Honor Guard black uniform...
This was real, all right, and all the rest of it had been, too...
Once we were outside the crumbling dormitory, I hollered, "IS EVERYONE OUT?!" The rest of the girls, already outside, murmured their assent. Everyone had made it out safely...
We turned and watched as the rest of the dormitory came crumbling down, and as the sirens from the labor camp infiltrated our every senses, I turned to face the girls, who immediately backed away.
"No, no...please, I –" They were frightened of me, of what I had done. To boot, they hadn't seen me since I had escaped, so I can imagine it must have been like seeing a ghost. I involuntarily felt for my half of the artifact, which I pulled, glowing, out of my pocket. "I'm on your side," I muttered. Oh God, it was glowing...was I going back? And had the artifact really just given me the power to disable the warden and destroy an entire building? I quickly turned to face the girls, who were looking, intrigued, at the glowing artifact. I quickly shoved it back into my pocket.
"Sasha, Trudi, Bet..." I said, hissing the chosen names of the three girls closest to me. "Please, I'm on your side, I swear...we don't have much time. We're busting out of here, or we're getting caught. I don't know how I did what I just did, but I'm guessing I can do it again. Are we up to this?"
An older girl I had never seen before stepped boldly out of the huddle of frightened girls. She had blazing white-blond hair and an aura of great strength about her...however, her sunken eyes and scar across her neck told me the real truth.
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A new recruit, snatched from the streets...and she seemed to have taken my place as Head Outcast Rebel Girl...
"We'll go westward," she stated, surely and calmly. "Let us make haste. Anyone who wants a chance at escaping will join the young ones and ourselves. This is our one shot."
"Wait!" I shouted. "What about The Flash?! If they did it once, they can do it again..."
The girl gazed at me with an unwavering look that reminded me a bit of how Enjolras sometimes gazed upon me when he knew he was right. "I survived it once. I can survive it again," she stated calmly.
I gaped in awe, for this girl had just confirmed for me that I had not traveled backward in time. If The Flash had already occurred, then...this was the future.
