Behind the Walls. NOVEL By Claire Darcy.

78. I'm Right Here.

ROWAN.

I was blind. And deaf. And I couldn't move a muscle. All around me was light; a white, shapeless glow. The sun itself inside my head. I tried to piece together my thoughts.

Ace; she was all I could think about.

A spiral of lightning had dropped from the sky, and enveloped her, the Transporter, the Academy wall, and everything before me. There was a wave of energy and a deafening shriek as the electricity jolted through her and into the ship. With a mighty explosion and the force of a sonic blast, I was thrown into the air and sent flying back.
I yelled as I flew clean off the rooftop and connected with the next building over, shattering straight through the glass. I hit a table and finally stopped tumbling, falling to the floor of the highest room.
I tried to get to my feet, but I collapsed again. I couldn't see Ace; just a white glow and a cloud of smoke all around me. I blinked hard, urging my senses to come back. Echoing noises came first, then as that light faded, my vision returned. I was laying on my stomach, staring out through a shattered window at the building I had stood atop before. Behind that, the Transporter had vanished.

Everything was perfectly still, and I stared at that building, daring it to move.

Then it did.

The blue glass trembled, and through it, I saw a terrible, dark, shadow. That shadow surged through the building, towards me, and glass and metal and all the sturdy framework cleaved apart and shattered, a sword of black metal slicing through it like butter.

That was why I hadn't seen the Transporter above the building- it had lost power and dropped to be behind it. And it was now falling, somehow propelled forward, and was coming this way.
I swore and launched to my feet, flinging in the opposite direction and racing away as the nose of that terrible ship burst through the building behind me. Across the room, I grabbed the nearest chair and swung it at the window. It smashed open and I leapt onto the window sill.

I felt a mighty shudder as the broken ship ploughed into this building, and my stomach dropped as the building lent forward with me, ready to fall like a flower in a hurricane.

One thought dashed through my mind.

Ace.

As if hearing me, she crashed through the room behind me. "Grappling hook!" she screamed, "Now!"

The wall behind her exploded into splinters as the ship burst through. I obeyed her commands and shot the device out the window, to the next building over. It connected with the roof and stuck. I turned back for Ace, reaching out a hand. As soon as I did, she took my hand and shoved me forward.

I barely had time to take her around the waist before we were dropping, plummeting through the pouring rain and new-found fiery glow of the night. The Transporter was flaming, alive with explosions sounding moments after each other, charging through buildings as it fell, not suddenly to the ground, but forward, crushing everything in a flaming path.

The grappling hook snagged and we were flung up, up into the sky. Ace shrieked, forgetting how much practise I'd had with this. I shot it again to the next building and we flew, in an almost-perfect arch up onto the rooftop. We skidded to a stop before we reached the end.
I turned around as the Transporter shattered through the building behind us.

"The students," Ace croaked.

"Safely in the Arena," I said. The Transporter continued to surge forward. "Behind that!"

I pulled Ace tight against me and swung again, to the next building, again, to the next, again, trying to outrun it. It was so wide that there was no chance of going around it. The only safety was behind it, and there was no chance we would rush head-on into that flaming metal beast.