The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

could barely see Cora. He wanted to do something for her, but offering friendship would seem like an empty, desperate gesture.

“The key to your cuffs,” she said, seemingly unperturbed by the downpour, although she too had removed her mask. “It’s under a small, flat rock, two feet from the bolt.”

He flinched in surprise, both at her revelation and her sudden magnanimity.

She leaped over the hole and dashed across the roof. In front of the stairwell, she dug through her shoulder bag, removed a key from her ring, and shoved it into the lock but didn’t turn it.

Then she lifted one end of a wooden beam from flush against the eastern wall. Working her hands down the wet wood, she raised the end skyward.

A catwalk. To avoid Rollie and Kristian on the ground, she clearly planned to cross over their heads to the physical plant’s roof. From there she’d be able to reach the tree canopy, where she would disappear.

“Thank you,” he said.

Preoccupied, she didn’t respond.

Before the rain could sweep away the debris, he had to find that rock and the key beneath it. He raked his fingers through the standing water.

A splash sounded from below.

Finn shot upward and lunged forward to catch a glimpse of Lily.

On the ground, she was convulsing, her hands slapping the mud, her mouth dangerously close to a swelling puddle.

He swung along the arc allowed by his chain.

His dad and brother weren’t within his limited view of the street. “Dad! Kristian! Lily needs you!” he shouted.

Finn strained to hear their response.

None came.

“Where are they?” he called to Cora, who’d frozen with her hands above her head, supporting the beam.

She let the wood fall, and it hit the roof with a sharp bang.

Gripping the wall, she leaned over its edge and peered at the street. “They must be inside the morgue.” Her back straightened, and she grabbed the plank again. “They’re planning to ambush me.”

He swept his fingers along the flooded asphalt. The water had shifted the rubble. “I’m on my way,” he called to Lily, even though she’d likely blacked out.

An echoing boom signaled that the far end of Cora’s beam had landed on the neighboring building.

“Wait,” Finn said, scrambling to his feet.

Standing atop the wall, one foot already on the catwalk, she turned toward him, her hand shielding her eyes from the rain.

“The key. I can’t find—Lily—she’ll die.”

Cora looked from him to the physical plant. “I don’t have another.”

“But they can save her.” He peered into the dark, gaping hole and called to them but the wind swallowed his voice.

He clasped his hands. “Please.”

She gazed longingly at the forest.

“Lily’s innocent.”

“I know that.” She raised her face toward the thunderheads, and the rain lashed her cheeks. Her lips were moving.

If she were consulting God, Lily might have a chance, Finn concluded. “We’re running out of time.”

Her eyes snapped open, and she hopped off the wall and unlocked the stairwell door.

“What are you doing?”

“Letting myself get ambushed. Obviously.”

Her hand fluttered to the pouch on her hip. “No, too risky,” she murmured and hung her sack of scalpels and messenger bag on a makeshift hook within the stairwell. “It’s the fastest way to get their attention,” she said and began her descent. “I’ll tell them . . .” Her voice faded.

Finn stared at the dark doorway. He couldn’t believe she’d martyr herself for a woman she didn’t know after all his family had done to her.

Moments later, a high-pitched scream reverberated from deep within the morgue.

A sharp thud echoed upward, and Finn pictured his brother slamming Cora’s body against a wall.

Either they’d knocked her out before she’d had a chance to speak or she was too big a prize. No, they would never intentionally leave Lily to die.

His fingers connected with jagged metal, and he whooped with relief.

While the wind roared with hurricane force, he unlocked the cuff and scrambled to his feet.

Lily’s face might already be submerged, he knew.

Through the water, he sprinted to the stairwell. A gale banged the door shut, and he fought to open it.

Swiping at his eyes, he looked toward the heart of the storm south of the harbor. His mouth fell open.

Beyond the farthest bridge, a funnel was tearing its way across the horizon.

A tornado. In New York City.

Moments Later

he twister swirled over Brooklyn. Despite the distance, the air racing past Finn howled. Shielding his eyes from the deluge, he watched the funnel long enough to confirm it wasn’t headed their way. Not yet at least. If Cora had conjured the freak phenomenon, it would be no less astonishing than her other superhuman abilities.

He darted inside and almost slipped on the slick stairs. Reaching for the wall to steady himself, his hand brushed against her messenger bag, hanging from a piece of rebar. The satchel had gaped open, revealing the dart case, which he jammed into a pocket of his cargo pants.

Avoiding the handrail, he stepped forward into the darkness and tested the traction on the steps. Guided by memory, he worked his way down.

“Dad, Kristian!” he shouted.

Only his echo responded.

If Cora had failed, Lily might be dead already.

Picturing water, thick with sediment, pouring past her clacking teeth, he made a beeline for the patch of weak daylight that marked his exit, and burst outside.

Rain flew at him sideways. Shielding his eyes, he reoriented himself and charged through the mud.

“Let me go!” Cora shrieked from behind him.

Unwilling to waste even a second, Finn didn’t look back.

He rounded the corner.

Partially submerged in a puddle, Lily’s body lay motionless, her limbs splayed.

Shouting her name, he ran to her.

Driven by the wind, small waves were breaking against her mouth and nose. He hooked his arms under her armpits and dragged her from the water.

Crouching over her, he shielded her face from the rain and checked for breathing.

No, God, please no.

Desperately, Finn began chest compressions. Rollie or Kristian should be doing this, he thought. Without disrupting his rhythm, he yelled for help.

The windstorm drowned his plea.

If he stopped to find them, Lily