Crimson Lace

Chapter 49

WARNING: This chapter contains subjects that may be triggering for some individuals.

ELLE
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I am like a living bomb. Emitting waves of pressure from my frozen body to keep the oxygen and blood pumping in Gore's veins as well as my own. It's hard when everything about Cane's power is trying to snuff us out.

But I keep thinking that any second I will lose my hold on this power, like a bomb that has been set off and the world around me will fall apart.

Alas, I am trapped in this body that isn't moving. My eyes and lungs are stinging and I am fighting to do too many things at once.

Fighting to keep our systems functioning under the weight of a Hush's ability, fighting to weave my thoughts through Alec as well as fighting to control the Mute in his blood.

My eyes are trained on the clouded sky above us and the way the sun has hidden itself from the world. Though, I've tried to break free of Cane's control. I've tried to turn my head to look at Alec. I want to show him that I am okay after seeing that look on his face as he held me. Those tears, and the desperation in his voice is a hell that will burn in my memory forever.

But all I could do was twitch my finger. Thank the ancestors it was enough, because the amount of power it took to make that happen has drained me. It was like trying to poke a hole through wood, using only the tip of my pinkie.

Hurry, I urge him, sending out another pulse of pressure into the network of his brain.

Communicating through thoughts in this way is totally foreign to me. It shouldn't be possible and yet while he was crying over my body, asking me to stay with him, I managed to say the words that I was screaming inside. He heard me. They transferred into his mind and now we have a chance at salvation.

I keep a thread of pressure in his brain, feeling the different pulses as thoughts of his own. It's buried deep, he says. It's harder to access it. Can you control the Mute more?

No, is all I manage to send back. Cane is pushing harder now, doing all he can to keep me from using my power. It's how he took Gore and I down. They knew Mute would do nothing against me, but Cane on the other hand, I haven't learned to fight him out of me yet.

My pressure recoils from Alec's thoughts, unable to reach out. I try again to access his mind, but am too weak to stretch my power that far and it snaps back. Without using my limbs as a conductor of my ability, it's more difficult to control and direct it.

This can't be happening. If my power weakens now, my brother and I may die for real. I narrow my focus entirely on the body next to me and my own. I feel deeply for that liquid and the particles within. Visualizing the pressure as a hand, I use it to stroke the blood and oxygen into flowing.

Gore has no heartbeat and neither do I. It's an empty sensation, but we are still alive. I have to remind myself of that, because I have never felt so dead. Every limb is heavy and numb, my own mind is so foggy I can scarcely hear myself think, let alone Alec. But as long as I continue the job that the heart and lungs can not, we will be okay. We have to be. Just until Alec kills Cane to free our bodies of his control.

The sky above me darkens. If I could, I'd smile.

A crack forms across the sky, purple and silver light flashing overhead. Hearing the thunder gives me a spark of hope, enough to send another thought into Alec's mind. Welcome back, lightning prince.

The shouting is quick to follow and so is the trampling of boots on muddy grass. The rain splatters my face and stings my eyes. I fight against the silence pressing down on me as it weakens its hold for a moment. Cane is distracted. Enough so, that I am able to break free for a brief second, closing my eyes to shield against the rain.