She felt a hand grip her left wrist and spun around, expecting to see Penn. It was Todd. The whites of his own eyes were huge, and he was coughing, too.
"We have to get out of here," he said, breathing fast. "I think there's an exit toward the back."
"What about Penn, and Miss Sophia?" Luce asked. She was feeling weak and dizzy. She rubbed her eyes. "They were over there." When she pointed up the aisle toward the entrance, she could see how much thicker the smoke was in that direction.
Todd looked doubtful for a second, but then he nodded. "Okay," he said, keeping hold of her wrist as they crouched down and sprinted toward the front doors of the library. They took a right when one aisle looked particularly thick with smoke, then found themselves facing a wall of books without a clue which way to run. Both of them stopped to gasp. The smoke that only a moment earlier had hovered just above their heads now pressed low against their shoulders.
Even ducking below it, they were choking. And they couldn't see as much as a few feet in front of them. Making sure to keep a hold on Todd, Luce spun around in a circle, suddenly unsure which direction they'd come from. She reached out and felt the hot metal shelf of one of the stacks. She couldn't even make out the letters on the spines. Were they in the D section or the O's?
There were no clues to guide them toward Penn and Miss Sophia, and no clues to guide them to the exit, either. Luce felt a surge of panic course through her, making it even more difficult to breathe.
"They must have already gone out the front doors!" Todd shouted, sounding only half convinced. "We have to turn back!"
Luce bit her lip. If anything happened to Penn…
She could barely see Todd, who was standing right in front of her. He was right, but which way was back? Luce nodded mutely, and felt his hand tugging hers.
For a long time, she moved without knowing where they were going, but as they ran, the smoke lifted, little by little, until, eventually, she saw the red glow of an emergency exit sign. Luce breathed a sigh of relief as Todd fumbled for the door handle and finally pushed it open.
They were in a hallway Luce had never seen before. Todd slammed the door shut behind them. They gasped and filled their lungs with clean air. It tasted so good. Luce wanted to sink her teeth into it, to drink a gallon of it, bathe herself in it. She and Todd both coughed the smoke out of their lungs until they started laughing, an uneasy, only half-relieved laugh. They laughed until she was crying. But even when Luce finished crying and coughing, her eyes continued to tear.
How could she breathe in this air when she didn't even know what had happened to Penn? If Penn hadn't made it out—if she was collapsed somewhere inside—then Luce had failed someone she cared about again. Only this time it would be so much worse.
She wiped her eyes and watched a puff of smoke curl out from underneath the crack at the base of the door. They weren't safe yet. There was another door at the end of the hallway. Through the glass panel in the door, Luce could see the wobble of a tree branch in the night. She exhaled. In a few moments, they'd be outside, away from these choking fumes.
If they were fast enough, they could go around to the front entrance and make sure Penn and Miss Sophia had made it out okay.
"Come on," Luce told Todd, who was folded over himself, wheezing. "We have to keep going."
He straightened up, but Lice could see he was really overcome. His face was red, his eyes were wild and wet. She practically had to drag him toward the door.
She was so focused on getting out that it took her too long to process the heavy, swishing noise that had fallen over them, drowning out the alarms.
She looked up into a maelstoem of shadows. A spectrum of shades of gray and deepest black. She should only be able to see as far as the ceiling overhead, but the shadows seemed somehow to extend beyond its limits. Into a strange and hidden sky. They were all tangled up in each other, and yet they were distinct.
Amid them was the lighter, grayish one she'd seen earlier. It was no longer shaped like a needle, but now looked almost like the flame of a match. It bobbed over them in the hallway. Had she really fended off that amorphous darkness when it threatened to graze Penn's head? The memory made her palms itch and her toes curl.
Todd started banging on the walls, as if the hallway were closing in on them. Luce knew they were nowhere near the door. She grabbed for his hand, but their sweaty palms slid off each other. She wrapped her fingers tight around his wrist. He was white as a ghost, crouched down near the floor, almost cowering. A terrified moan escaped his lips.
Because the smoke was now filling up the hallway?
Or because he could sense the shadows, too?
Impossible.
And yet his face was pinched and horrified. Much more so now that the shadows were overhead.
"Luce?" His voice shook.
Another horde of shadows rose up directly in their path. A deep black blanket of dark spread out across the walls and made it impossible for Luce to see the door. She looked at Todd—could he see it?
"Run!" she yelled.
Could he even run? His face was ashy and his eyelids drooped shut. He was on the verge of passing out. But then it suddenly seemed like he was carrying her.
Or something was carrying both of them.
"What the hell?" Todd cried out.
Their feet skimmed the floor for just a moment. It felt was like riding a wave in the ocean, a light crest that lifted her higher, filling her body with air. Luce didn't know where she was headed— she couldn't even see the door, just a snart of inky shadows all around. Hovering but not touching her. She chould have been terrified, but she wasn't. Somehow she eas felt protected form the shadows, like something was shielding her — something fluid but impenetrable. Something uncannily familiar. Something strong, but also gentle. Something —
Almost too quickly, she and Todd were at the door. Her feet hit the floor again, and she shoved herself against the door's emergency exit bar.
Then she heaved. Choked. Gasped. Gagged.
Another alarm was clanging. But it sounded far away.
The wind whipped at her neck. They were outside! Standing on a small ledge. A flight of stairs led down to the commons, and even though everything in her head felt cloudy and filled with smoke, Luce thought she could hear voices somewhere nearby.
She turned back to try to figure out what had just happened. How had she and Todd made it through that thickest, blackest, impenetrable shadow? And what was the thing that had saved them? Luce felt its absence.
She almost wanted to go back and search for it.
But the hallway was dark, and her eyes were still watering, and she couldn't make out the twisting shadow shapes anymore. Maybe they were gone.
Then there was a jagged stroke of light, something that looked like a tree trunk with branches—no, like a torso with long, broad limbs. A pulsing, almost violet column of light hovering over them. It made Luce think, absurdly, of Daniel. She was seeing things. She took a deep breath and tried to blink the smoky tears from her eyes. But the light was still there. She sensed more than heard it call to her, calming her, a lullaby in the middle of a war zone.
So she didn't see the shadow coming.
It body-slammed into her and Todd, breaking their grip on each other and tossing Luce into the air.
She landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs. An agonized grunt escaped her lips.
CHAPTER 11. RUDE AWAKENING
"Are you scared?" Daniel asked. His head was tilted sideways, his blond hair disheveled by a soft breeze. He was holding her, and while his grip was firm around her waist, it was as smooth and light as a silk sash. Her own fingers were laced behind his shirtless neck.
Was she scared? Of course not. She was with Daniel. Finally. In his arms. The truer question pulling at the back of her mind was: Should she be scared? She couldn't be sure. She didn't even know where she was.