Bladed Wings Read Free Page B

over to see those tentacles. They reminded him of black scorpion tails, each one tipped with a poisoned spearhead. He could try to run, but the same thing would happen. And he didn’t know if he could run, if he had the breath or if his legs could take his weight. For that moment, the tendrils hovered over him, waiting to snap down and tear him apart.
                  A voice asked, “What were you doing?”
                  “Doing?” Timothy coughed. He propped himself up on his elbows and searched for the voice but didn’t see anything. He tried to trace the tentacles back to the mist and wherever they led, but whoever controlled them was safely hidden by mist.
                  “When you shoved me in that water, what did you want? What were your intentions?” It was Cipher, Cipher’s voice, the same voice that asked Timothy for help in the church.
                  “I wanted to help you.”
                  “So you didn’t work with her?”
                  “Who?”
                  “Despada,” Cipher spat the name and made it sound profane.
                  “I don’t even know who that is,” Timothy said, feeling honest and helpless.
                  “I see.”
                  “Who are you?”
                  “I was Cipher. I don’t know who I’ll be when you’re gone,” said the voice. Timothy was going to ask something else, but the tentacles ripped back down. Timothy tried to scramble away, to escape their hold. But in less than two seconds one had his torso, his arms trapped beneath the coils of hot black. His muscles strained against the coiled tendril, but he couldn’t break its hold. He felt like a princess trapped in a dragon’s claws.
                  The second tentacle wrapped around his throat. “Goodbye Timothy,” Cipher said, “And thank you for the amusing anecdote. I’m sure my companions will enjoy it.” The coils tightened. They squeezed into Timothy’s skin until pain flared out, and he thought he’d hear bones break. Air was gone, his lungs trying to move, his throat blocked.
                  The edges of his vision blurred and his concentration faded.
                  Timothy didn’t have the air for fear. He squirmed, kicked, and tried to break Cipher’s hold, but it was all automatic, the struggles of anyone terrified and desperate to survive. He thought he’d die in this purgatory of mist, a nowhere where nothing happened.
                  For some reason, Timothy wished he could have died somewhere else. In class, in a bank, a grocery store, the images flashed until he saw something special. He’d rather die in the laundry room. Because she might be there.
                  He might get to see her one more time.
    The mist rolled back and disappeared like a movie coming into focus. Still dying, Timothy hung in the air over the linoleum floors at The Verge’s laundry room. It was empty, the windows darkened squares. In front of the door stood Cipher, the hairless man who ran through a church, engulfed in fire. Now he leaned against the doorframe with half a smirk, the tendrils running along the ground and up to his shoulders.
                  Squeezing, Timothy managed to squirm one arm free, and he pried his fingers into the leather. He tried to get it away from his windpipe. Seconds of struggle, of pulling and tugging and he broke it away. Dropped to his knees, Timothy grasped his neck as he gulped air back into his body. After a frenzied gasp, he looked up.
                  Tentacles gone, Cipher approached as Timothy leaned on one of the washing machines, panting. “You’re stronger than I would have guessed,” but Timothy couldn’t hear the tinge of fear coloring those words. “But it won’t change anything, Timothy. It can’t change