Page 29 of Fallacies

Lightning dances over my damp skin, sizzling as it meets the fabric of his clothes, but Callan doesn’t relent. He doesn’t back down in the slightest.

Yanking his mask down, Callan screams through the downpour, “LET IT GO!” There’s thunder in his eyes, dark hair clinging to his forehead, the onslaught of the rain making the ends of it curl. “RIGHT. NOW.”

I was wrong.

He isn’t mad. He’s livid.

My trapped fingers buzz, threatening to explode at any moment. I’d love to let it go. It’s quite literally burning me alive. But at this angle, I’d hit him straight in the face. And I like his stupid face.

“LUCINA!”

“LET GO OF MY HANDS, ASSHOLE, AND I WILL!” I hurl back at him, my voice strained as the electricity tightens around my vocal cords.

In one quick movement, Callan grabs my wrists and pins them over my head so my palms face the sky above us.

“LET. IT. GO,” he grits out, digging his knees into the sand on either side of me.

I smile then—as if my insides aren’t melting as we speak. But in my own twisted way, this kind of feels like winning. “All of it?” I ask, sparks splintering through my chest.

“All of it,” Callan growls, and I rip the world apart.

6

Callan

My ears are ringing as I kneel on legs that certainly don’t feel like mine.

The sound of distant shouting rattles in my ears, echoing as if there is too much empty space in my head. Daylight burns into my eyes, and I squint against it, blinking until the Yard comes into view.

Complete destruction. Albatross…is nothing but rubble.

Smoke plumes from piles of charred and fallen stone. Phoenix and Easton lift Pax out of the wreckage, helping him to his feet with one arm slung over each shoulder. Hunter and Devon are moving to my side, ash falling over their dirtied uniforms.

“Boss?” Devon calls, but his voice is distant, the ringing in my ears having yet to fully cease. “Cal!” he shouts again. “You okay?”

I nod vacantly, glancing down at Cin.

My grip on her wrists has held somehow, but she’s still fighting to get out from under me. Very much alive and seemingly unaffected by what she’s just done. Her wild curls are sprawled in the dirt, some still damp and clinging to her forehead. Her skin is soaked and slick from the rain, and her cheeks are pink from overexertion.

At least she isn’t dead and pale.

“Lucina.” My voice comes out as a croak.

She stops squirming long enough to look around, slowly realizing what she’s done.

Then, to my surprise, her busted lip splits into a triumphant grin, flashing teeth no longer covered by lightning. “Let me up, I won.”

“You—” I gape at her. “You what?!” She nearly breaks free of my hold, and I slam her wrists back down to the dirt. “Lucina, you didn’t win. You nearly killed yourself!”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” She’s still thrashing against my hold, but I can feel her strength waning. “Nearly killed myself!? That whole godsdamn place was a death trap, and you sent me into it! Risked my life?!” Lucina lets out a mocking laugh. “You risked it first!”

I stare blankly into her bloodshot eyes, and she glares up at me, chest heaving.

She thinks she’s right. And in her defense, I needed her to think that. I needed her to feel that way for it to be real.

Lucina had to have some sense that her life was at stake, or else she wouldn’t understand Albatross and why we do it. Yes, it’s about trusting your own instincts and breaking through the obstacle of your own mind, but it’s also meant to show the kind of fighting you do when your opponent is death. In the end, that’s the only fight that matters anyway.

For Lucina’s Albatross run to be legitimate, I needed her to believe she was in danger. But there are limits to what I can stand when it comes to her, and letting Lucina do this was just as stressful for her as it was for me.