Eternal [HS]

Chapter Forty-Seven

"You can get up there," she says. Her hands force each of his to grab onto a rung of the ladder, and her body positions itself directly behind him to guide him onto it. "And you will."

With that, she uses herself as the boost he needs to go on. His back presses into the front of her, and she lets out a soft groan with the effort of hefting him up onto the ladder and supporting the entirety of his weight. It doesn't take as much out of her as it would've before. After all, she has the benefit of her newfound strength on her side, but he is still bigger than her, and with hardly any help from him other than when he lifts his hands and feet up to the next rungs, it's difficult.

Still, they go on—she goes on.

She forces him up the ladder step after step, holding onto the sides of it with a deadly grip. Each time she moves her foot onto a new step, she must lift him another step too, and it takes everything she has to not break down at the sound of approaching footsteps behind them that seems to only get closer and closer. Either it's Mitch and he's coming to help them escape, or it's Adeline, and they can't take the risk of waiting to find out.

By the time they finally reach the end of the ladder, those footsteps sound alarmingly near to them.

She reaches up and frantically pushes the covering away with one arm, the other staying and holding onto the ladder to keep them both in place. So used to being human, she misjudged her strength, and the manhole is sent flying away from the opening to the tunnel.

His hands scrape at the tarmac of the empty road they're crawling up onto, searching for any purchase in the ground he can find to pull himself up. Only with her help does he manage to do it, and he crawls on his hands and knees without looking back at her to get the manhole covering back before whoever it is that follows them can climb up. It makes a loud screeching sound against the road as he drags it back that neither of them cares to notice. It could draw the attention of the rare late-night walker or people up to no good in the dead of night, but they're too concerned with saving their lives.

She climbs the rest of the way out of the hole in the ground with only enough time to rush toward him and help drag the covering back before Adeline—not Mitch, she realizes with a sick feeling in her gut—can make it to the top of the ladder. To keep it locked in place, her body rests atop it, hands flat against the cold iron as pouring rain beats down on her back.

Adeline screams, "You deserve every second you'll spend rotting in hell for what you did to Issac!"

The circular plate jolts up against her chest from beneath her with what she can only assume are the repeated punches thrown at it in feral bloodlust.

There is no plan anymore. With Niall dead, Mitch likely gone too, and Harry indisposed, there is nothing she can do if she stays here and stops Adeline from opening the manhole. If she stays, he won't be able to get very far without her help. If she leaves to help him, the very person she's trying to stop from reaching them will climb up and attack. They're dammed if they do, damned if they don't, so the wheels in her head begin spinning.

What is she supposed to do other than lay here with Harry and keep the entrance to the tunnel sealed off? At some point, the sun will rise and people will come out of the woodwork to see two maniacs laying in the middle of the road while they walk to work in the early morning. It's already past the middle of the night, so they can't stay for too long before someone passes by.

In the span of seconds, she makes the decision to fight. Her friends are dead and her boyfriend is too weak to defend himself...what other option is there? She can't delay the inevitable. At one point or another, they'll have to kill her to end this for good, and with all of the sentries she brought through the gateway to this world dead in that warehouse, it would be two on one—though Harry won't really be able to fight.

Headlights shining far ahead on the empty street make her head pop up.

She turns to look at Harry.

"You need to hide"—her head jerks in the direction of the dark alleyway on the side of the street between buildings as she whispers to him—"Over there before that truck comes."

The streetlights are all dead, so they are not to be seen where they lay in the center of the road. They camouflage well, which will only help the new plan forming in her head, but it will only work if he hides and stays put. If he's here, all she will think about is how much danger he's in, and she can't be distracted by his presence. Suddenly, the conversation they had about him not being able to think straight when she's there beside him in danger has become very real for her.

His face sets with concern, shock, and anger all melded into one. How dare she suggest he leaves her when she acted as though he was crazy for suggesting the opposite?

"And leave you alone to get hit by a car? For her to kill you? M'not leaving you," he whispers back.

But then a familiar look crosses her face, and it's eerily similar to the night they tortured Devin in the garage together. It's calm, composed, and it could melt away his worry in any situation except the one they're in now because of how sure she seems of herself. He knows the difference between how she acts when she thinks all hope is gone versus when she has something spinning in that head of hers, and it's evident that the latter of the two is happening.

She shakes her head, murmuring, "Please."

Her features are soft but somehow firm at the same time, so contradictory in the way she often is. This expression leaves no room for protest. It says, 'Trust me,' and he has no other choice but to do so.

The car isn't close enough to worry them yet as he pushes himself off the ground with trembling muscles. He's always been exceptional, even for those of his kind, so being weakened by the poison to such an extreme degree isn't something he's used to. If only he were at full strength, then they'd easily be able to take on Adeline together and win, but they're both equally strong women. And, unfortunately for her, Jo has had less time in her new body with her new powers to master it. Meanwhile, Adeline is practically ancient by comparison.

She watches and makes sure he hides before daring to look up at the approaching car that cannot see her in the street. It's only when he disappears into the alleyway, hiding behind a recycling bin with his head peering around it to watch her—probably in case she gets herself in danger so he can run out as fast as the poison permits him to help her.

Knowing how protective he is of her, she knows how much trust it takes for him to hide while she does this. He may be emotional when it comes to her, but he is logical too, he knows that he's more of a hindrance and distraction in a fight right now than he is helpful.

The car keeps coming, seemingly getting faster and faster the closer it gets in proximity to them, and she can feel Harry's feeling of tension from the blood bond. She knows that if she doesn't time this perfectly, if he has any reason to suspect she'll get hurt, he'll damn the consequences and come out from hiding, so she needs it to go as planned.

The threat of a car does not frighten her anymore. It makes her think back to a time when Harry explained why he loved doing dangerous things like climbing with no gear because it made him feel as breakable and temporary as a human again. Though the situation is dire, it almost restarts her heart again with a similar shock to that of defibrillation.

It's only when the car is just far enough for her to move out of the way in time that she finally takes her hands off of the manhole and dives out of the way as quickly as she can, moving through the air fast enough that the human behind the wheel can't see her through the darkness and pounding rain. The sound of the iron covering screeching against the pavement rings in her ears behind her, and Adeline is climbing out when she turns to see—

The truck slams into her body hard enough to send her flying back before it runs over her as if she were nothing more than a speed bump in the road, and she knows that she only has a small window of opportunity to pounce.