Interlude [h.s]

ninety-eight

"Were you by yourself?" Gray repeats. There's a rush in his breath—Elijah is putting more of his weight than he thought on him.

"I don't—" He stops to think. He blinks, his eyelids feel heavy. Again, that something is squirming in his mind, demanding attention, but his thoughts feel so hazed, so distant. What was he doing? He was running, yes, he was running. He was running, and then... His head hurts. Why was he running?

He tries to focus on the memory, even though the strain of it makes the pounding in his temples stronger and the knife-like pain up his leg sharper. What was he—

He gasps. Getting separated from Jesse, the Shade storming the corridors, his watch breaking, the explosives in the building...

"Tell everyone!"

Panic rises through him. He ran, he remembers he ran, and then, and then, something happened, what happened—

"Lark!"

Elijah's eyes widen. Alouette. "Where is she?!" he gasps. His body turns so suddenly Gray almost loses his grip on him.

His fingers clench over his ribs, hard enough to leave a bruise. "What—"

"Where is she?! Alouette." The name drops off his lips like a plea, and he's trying to turn around now, to go back, to see what's behind him, but Gray's grip on him gets tighter, and he's being pulled up a mangled set of stairs, and he's not letting him go.

The white afternoon light blinds Elijah. A sting rushed through his eyeballs, forcing him to close his eyes. There are more hands on him, but he can't see anyone, and the realisation that Alouette is not with them is the only thing bringing clarity to his heavy, muddled mind. He forces himself to blink his eyes open, ignoring the pain.

"Al!"

He's surrounded by men in dark uniforms that are looking at him confused, not seeming to quite know what to do with him. Gray has passed him off to them, and is now speaking quietly to someone.

"Al!" Elijah tries tugging his arm free, but he's so tired, and his mind is so distant, and the only thing keeping him away from the ground is the hold the guards have on him.

A flash of light explodes in the corner of his vision. What remains of the second floor collapses onto the rest of the building with a thunderous boom. Elijah's heart falls out of his chest.

"Al!" He wrenches free and moves forward, but his leg gives out under him. "Al!"

Suddenly, Gray is in front of him. His hand clenches around his shoulder; the look in his eyes is unreadable. "I'm sorry," he says, before swiping Elijah's only standing leg out from under him and pushing him back. Elijah falls into the guards, that scramble to get a hold of him before the asphalt claims him. "Get him back to the Revolution, he needs help."

"Let me go!"

Someone opens a door and Elijah is shoved into a vehicle, and when he tries to claw his way out, his fingers meet the glass of the window.

Gray stares at him for a while longer as a guard gets on the driver's seat and the engine roars to life, and then turns and walks back towards the folding building.

• • •

Another resounding boom.

Motes of dust fly overhead, tiny ghosts under the ceiling light. Jesse doesn't know how long he's been lying here, under Lark. He must've closed his eyes at some point, he isn't sure, but the men are gone. Did they believe him dead?