The rain drenched us in less than thirty seconds. It came down hard, relentless, and a few times I lost sight of the boys in front of me, grabbing hold of Mason's hood to guide me. Suddenly, the water that had cleansed my skin of ash and demon entrails had become a hazardous inconvenience, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd hated the sky with such passion.

Mud painted my legs. Rain blinded me. Thunder and lightning shook the world, making my heart splinter at each bellow and my muscles clench at each flash of violet electricity.

It was the sound of revenge, accompanied by a foreboding, anxious silence.

Now, sitting on the floor of an abandoned mine, I wrapped my arms around my damp legs, shivering as the temperature dropped another ten degrees. Forced to stop and reflect on my actions.

I'd killed people today.

They may have lost their souls, and they may have been nothing but empty vessels of evil, but they still resembled and spoke like people. There was life there—a breathing creature capable of complex thoughts and emotions. And yet, when it came down to my life or theirs, there'd been no hesitation. I'd chosen manslaughter.

I'd even...enjoyed it. Because in the moment, it had felt like winning a competition. Like I was proving something.

But now...now I felt like I'd lost the game.

Of course, this feeling was what I'd signed up for, wasn't it? Killing other humans was the fabric of war, the staircase to victory. The aftermath of those choices was just a facet our leaders hid from trainees and new recruits.

And now I knew why.

Thunder rattled my thoughts, making me jump a few inches off the ground. In my panic and embarrassment, I lost my grasp on guilt and shame and a deeper, darker feeling.

Mason peered at me with blatant judgement. "Seriously? You'll charge a group of demons, but you're scared of thunder?"

"I'm not scared," I grumbled.

Will pressed his lips together, and in the briefest flash of lightning, it almost looked like he was smiling.

Almost.

We'd found an old mine shaft inside one of the rocky alcoves of the mountain, and upon a unanimous vote, we'd shuffled inside to escape the downpour. We had no idea if the mine was safe or toxic or unoccupied, but we were so sick of the mud and rain, we decided to take our chances.

A gradual peal of thunder hit this time. It started off as a distant roar and then shook the entire mountain in a horrific tremor. Dust floated to the floor, and pebbles danced on the ground.

My hand flew to Will's knee in search of an anchor.

It was just rain. Just a natural phenomenon. I was safe here, and I had no reason to be scared. In fact, I recognized how irrational the fear was, and it still didn't matter. Every time I encountered a thunderstorm, my insides shrank and coiled like conductive wire, and I could hardly breathe.

It was just...at any second, a bolt of lightning could zap me out of existence. In an instant, it could fry my nervous system with 300 million volts of electricity. I couldn't fight it, I couldn't outrun it, and if I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I was very unlikely to survive it. No amount of training would change that.

Those kinds of odds were scary.

It was same underlying fear as the water snakes. When I couldn't see my enemy, I couldn't prepare myself. I had no control over the situation; I had to guess.

And I hated guessing.

I supposed my fear of thunderstorms could be traced back to the well incident. After that, Tom used to make the phobia chase its own tail. He told me every clap of thunder was a god in Olympus trying to prove he was more powerful than man. So Tom would gather all the pots and pans in the house, and we'd start banging on them as loudly as possible. Eventually the thunder would go away, and he had me convinced that we'd outdone the sky. That we'd won in some kind of heavenly battle with the gods.

To be louder than fear, that was the goal, and the strategy never failed, even after Tom had perished. He'd left me with that gift—a way to fight back.

Only right now, I was short a few skillets.

As soon as I realized I was still holding on to Mr. Untouchable, I yanked my hand away, avoiding his gaze and any collateral humiliation that followed.

"This mine goes forever," Fudge marveled, shining the flashlight down the tunnel and exposing way too many cobwebs for my comfort level.

Mason swore behind us as he attempted to light another wet match. When it failed to ignite, he threw it to the ground with the others and glared over his shoulder. "Don't wander. You don't know what's lurking down there."

Fudge crossed his arms. "Mason, wouldn't it be better to know what's down there before we let our guard down and go to sleep?"

"Whatever. When you contract rabies after some demonic rodent eats your foot off, don't come crying."

Fudge just laughed.

Will offered to take first watch again, albeit unenthusiastically, but Styx volunteered instead. She insisted she could take the shifts—all the shifts. At least, that was how we interpreted her sign language. And because she'd fought beside us consistently today, I agreed, though I blamed my leniency on my complete and utter fatigue.

Fudge and Mason wandered to their respective sleeping areas, leaving Will and me at the mouth of the mine.

For a while, we just listened to the storm. The thunder and lightning had ceased, and the rain that followed was softer. Not of lesser volume—the sky still bled in buckets. But it came with less intensity. Less anger. It fell like a gentle caress, repairing what damage the storm had inflicted on the earth in one long, apologetic kiss.

I examined my new sword. The rain had cleared the blood and ash from the blade, revealing the dips and chips along its edges, the battle scars and rusty patches. It was an older model, but Stretch had maintained it well. It was heavier than I would have liked. Then again, I'd never practiced with an actual steel blade—my arms weren't used to the weight. Not yet, anyway.

I wondered...if my palm were to graze its surface, would I see how much destruction Stretch had brought to Belgate? Would I see my father's face? Or Nova's?

It was tempting, in a twisted way. To know. To stop agonizing over it. But if I saw what I dreaded to see, how could I ever recover?

Stop it.

He's alive, I told myself, throwing the thought away. Dad said he'd meet me in Holly. He'll be there.

He has to be there.

"The demons we trapped are still out there," Will reflected, his voice breaching the quiet roar of the rainstorm. "And the one you knocked unconscious."

Right. I swallowed thickly, instinctively curling my fists. Unconscious.

"Even if they come after us, I think we can take them now." I sent him a sidelong glance. "We make a pretty good team."

He looked at me, and we made solid eye contact for maybe the first time in our lives. The kind of contact that watches, measures, and learns. His eyes were curious ovals, dark and full, like they harbored a thousand truths and sorrows. The way a dark tunnel scares you, but also draws you in.

Heat crept up my neck at the intensity of his expression, and I tore my gaze away. "You think there are a lot of old mines like this?"

Will nodded absently and leaned over to assess the snake bites on my arm.

"How do they look, doc?" I asked.

"Fine."

"I'm not going to die?"

"Not from them."

I frowned at him. "How do you know?"

I wasn't talking about his medical expertise. This poor kid from the slums of Belgate fought like a well-trained soldier. He could navigate the Range as if he'd lived there his whole life. And he even knew about ruins and snake bites and evil spirits.

Something wasn't adding up.

He sat back slowly. "You ask a lot of questions."

"I only ask so many because you respond with three words or less," I retorted. Minimal information necessitated further probing.

He scanned me critically, and after a pregnant pause, he said, "You should eat."

What. What kind of response was that? Where had that even come from?

This robot couldn't even follow a human conversation!

Then I remembered the look on his face when I'd nearly passed out earlier. The seed of concern I'd planted, then ignored. He must have thought I was malnourished or something.

Jeez.

He dragged my sopping backpack over and excavated a pile of leftover blackberries from the outer pouch, grabbing hold of my wrist and dumping them into my palm.

I glared at the abomination in my hand. I was hungry, but not that hungry. The berries were all smashed and waterlogged and gross.

My face twisted. "Pass. I'd rather eat killer-crickets." Far more appetizing than crushed and swampy grapes.

"You know...you could always say, 'no thanks' like a normal person," he said.

Slowly, my disbelieving eyes rose to his deadpan expression. 

Had he just mocked me with my own sentence? Had William Stone-Face Tooms just...made a joke?

Styx trembled from the edge of the cave, and her glowing heart flared and flickered in intensity. She was laughing.

I felt my open mouth lift at the corners, but when I glanced back at Will, he was already on his feet, walking away. I watched him settle within a depression in the rock at the far end of the tunnel, tucked away against the wall and the wooden beams.

He must have liked to sleep in confined places. Hidden, enclosed, out of reach. Like a cat.

A mean, lazy, fat cat.

I gagged down the mouthful of berries and planted myself between Fudge and the mine entrance.

We'd lost ground today, rounding back for him and Mason. Crossing this terrain, battling nature and its shadows...it was taking longer than we'd anticipated. Longer than we could afford. Hopefully the news of Belgate had already reached Holly. Maybe a messenger had made it by road, or perhaps a merchant had arrived on the scene and turned on his heels to alarm the capital.

Perhaps the fate of humanity didn't rest on the shoulders of four teenagers.

A girl could dream.

Fudge lay slumped against the cave wall, his knees to his chest and a flashlight in his hand. As he breathed out, a strand of his ashen hair trembled against his forehead, and I had the strangest impulse to brush the curl away from his face.

"You came back for us," he said, his eyes still closed.

"You thought I wouldn't?"

"I wasn't sure."

I felt a pang of sadness in my chest. "Fudge, I meant what I said. I'm not gonna let you die."

I'd bargain with Death himself if I had to.

He sighed, opening one blue eye to peer at me. "Based on today's events, I have a feeling that'll be a difficult promise to keep."

I smiled and rested my head against the wall of the mine.  "The best promises always are."