Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera (new books to read .TXT) 📕

I pick up one of those tablets, scrolling through the features: temperature adjustments as high as one hundred and fifty degrees and as low as negative fifty, electrification between one hundred and three hundred volts, air decompression, and toxic gasses. I don’t know a single gleamcrafter that could survive all of these.

The prison system has always been flawed, even during my ignorant days of fantasizing with the Senator about how I would punish the celestial who killed my mother. The procedures in the Bounds are so inhumane because the architects and guards simply don’t see celestials and specters as humans. The Senator’s supporters don’t care, especially as Bishop keeps masking this disturbing reality as dominance and security.

If not Sunstar, maybe someone else will end this cruelty.

I’m not counting on it.

The door behind me bangs open, and I quickly morph back into the man with the teardrop face. Two women are too distracted fighting to notice me. I hang around long enough to see one breathe ice onto the other’s swinging fists, freezing and shattering them with one slam into the wall. The woman’s agonized scream follows me out back into the hall, and if I live long enough, her face will haunt my nightmares.

I run up the stairs, straight into more barbaric chaos.

I keep changing, gray light after gray light after gray light.

I round a corner and bump straight into someone with a firm back. I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to start a fight. Then he turns and my heart races.

Stanton.

His dark green veins are popping more than usual through his pale skin. This is the weakest I’ve ever seen him—underfed, bruised, scarred across his face and arms. He shoves me to the floor, staring down at me with his furious yellow eyes. He sees nothing but a red-haired white man with a scar on his neck and I hope it stays that way.

“Watch where you’re going,” Stanton says.

“I’m sorry,” I say. A sign of weakness.

He’s walking off, dismissing a pathetic soul who isn’t worth his time when he sniffs the air. He stares at me menacingly as people fight behind him. “You can change your face, Ness, but you can’t change your scent.”

There’s no point denying the facts. But making some up could help. “The Spell Walkers got me thrown in here,” I lie. “Luna too. We got to find her; she can’t defend herself. I think she’s in solitary confinement.”

“Your heart is racing,” Stanton says.

“I have an entire prison hunting me. Didn’t you hear?”

“Your heart is racing because you’re a liar,” Stanton says.

The ice-breathing celestial from the holding room appears and I point at Stanton and shout, “That’s Eduardo Iron!” Her eyes immediately glow like snowflakes made of stars and her cold breath freezes Stanton’s feet to the floor.

I get up and run, shoving people out of the way, knowing that won’t hold Stanton for long. I keep an eye out for anything that could mask my scent, willing to douse myself in gasoline if it could throw Stanton off. I time my morphs in the seconds between brawls I pass, and even if I’ve caught more attention from other inmates, I trust I can fool them quickly in the way I can’t this basilisk specter. That’s only if I have the will to keep changing. I’m nearly out of breath and my wound is bleeding, and if my life is almost over, then I should die as me.

Fear drives me forward as I turn to find Stanton snapping the neck of someone in his way. He’s pursuing me like a basilisk set free from a cage. I don’t deserve the vicious end that he would give me. I look ahead and dark smoke is coming up from the balcony. I’m nervous running through it, thinking it might be some toxic power, but it gives me some great cover. I cough my way through, seeing a fire on the next level down.

The flames are gold and gray.

My heart races, so wild that I’m sure Stanton could detect me from the other side of the world. I only know one person whose fire are those colors.

Then there he is, alongside a Halo Knight as they drag mattresses out of cells and throw them into the burning pile.

Emil is stronger than he believes.

His beautiful face is the last one I expected to find inside the Bounds.

I make my way for the stairs, taking careful steps when I feel a foot on my back. I tumble down, banging my shoulder, my knees, my elbows, and my face slaps against the bottom step. I spit blood, surprised to be alive and wanting to be more than ever.

I use every last ounce of my strength to shout, “Firefly!”

Seventy-OneWinner

EMIL

That stranger called me firefly.

Before his gray glow finishes, I’m running toward him. The beautiful brown of his skin returns, the once-shaved sides of his head have grown out since I last saw him, and he looks like he’s been through hell with all these bruises and cuts and blood. I cradle his neck, and I suck in the biggest breath at being able to touch him again.

“You’re alive, you’re alive,” I say, which is more important to me than I ever could’ve known.

“Firefly,” Ness says. It’s my favorite word.

Wyatt crouches, lifting Ness from under his arms. “Come on, champ, let’s get you out of here.”

I want to stay here and hold Ness, but Wyatt’s right; we got to get out of here before he’s recognized.

My chest tightens as someone steps out of the smoke—Stanton. I waste no time throwing fire-orbs, hoping to lay him out again just like back at Gleam Care. One catches him in the shoulder and he slams on his back. I grab my whistle, blowing on it over and over, praying to every damn star that my full squad will hear this over this chaos and come help us.

Wyatt lifts Ness onto his shoulder