“John!” Marina shouts. Her one arm hanging limp at her side, blood streaming down her face, she races forwards to help.
Spikes of hardened ooze thrust forth from Setrákus Ra’s body. One goes through my leg, another my side, another my shoulder. I’m not even sure if he’s controlling this or if it’s a reaction brought on by my healing, like the ooze is trying to escape. Either way, now we’re pinned together. Another spike nearly makes it to Marina’s eye before she skids to a stop a few feet away.
I redirect some of my healing to my own wounds. Try to close them as fast as Setrákus Ra can make them while still beating back the vileness that’s spread throughout him.
As my healing Legacy drives it from Setrákus Ra’s body, the ooze coalesces around us in battering tendrils. Marina can’t even get close anymore.
“Go!” I yell at her. “Take Nine and get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Six is in the caverns up there; she needs healing,” I tell her, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Please—gah—please, Marina—GO!”
Marina looks at me, tears in her eyes. I can barely see her anymore through the mess of ooze thrashing around me. I see her look up doubtfully at the spiraling pathway that leads back to the surface, then down at Nine.
With a groan, Nine touches Marina’s leg. He shudders.
“Just . . . just like we practiced,” he says deliriously, transferring his Legacies to her.
I remember that. Capture the Flag in Chicago. Nine’s team won because he gifted Marina his antigravity Legacy.
Marina scoops Nine up with her working arm. She’s got his strength too. With one last look at me, she runs straight up the wall, leaping over the ledges as she sprints for the surface.
Via my telepathy, Sam has witnessed this whole thing. He feels what I’m feeling. The ebb and flow of pain, the tearing throughout my body.
Sam. The others are coming out. Will you do it now, Sam?
John . . . His sadness flows into me, worse than all the pain.
He’ll do it. I know he will.
I turn off my telepathy. Focus only on healing. I let all the Loric energy stored inside of me cascade forth.
I pray it’s enough.
I am face-to-face with Setrákus Ra. The two of us locked together. My healing continues to pour into him, and, with every second, his young face melts away, the oil driven back. His pale skin returns, his bulbous bald head, the sunken cheeks, the vivid purple scar. He snarls at me. He spits in my face. Headbutts me.
In his black eyes, for the first time, I see doubt.
“I’m going to kill you,” he snarls, his breath hot and wretched against my face.
I know this is true. I’m going to die down here. Tangled together with my worst enemy. Healing him, even as he tears me apart.
“You . . .” A bubble of blood pops when I try to speak. “You’ll die first.”
A tendril of his ooze, razor sharp and ice-cold, slashes across my abdomen. Opens me up.
I push warm, healing energy into him. Watch as his face turns gray and wrinkled. A centuries-old man.
The ooze coalesces around my legs. Crushes them like a vice, my bones snapping like twigs.
More healing. A little bit for my body—just enough to keep me going—the rest for him.
A chunk of hardened ooze falls away from him and turns to dust on the cavern floor. Setrákus Ra bellows.
He rips into my rib cage. His claws dig through my flesh, saw through bone. He’s trying to dig out my heart.
Hold on, John.
I let him shred me. Focus on the warm glow. I could melt away in that glow. . . .
“Do you . . . do you really think you can outlast me?” he sneers. A black vein bursts on his forehead.
“I’ve done it all these years, what’s a few more minutes?”
“You were always a fool, Pittacus.”
“I’m not Pittacus Lore,” I say through gritted teeth. “I am Number Four. I’m the one who kills you.”
A tremor. The entire cavern complex shakes. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a vivid flash of red light.
The bombardment has begun.
Thank you, Sam.
Just keep him here. Bury him down here, with all his horrible experiments.
The withered, hideous face before me laughs maniacally.
I close my eyes.
Picture Sarah. She holds up a camera, snaps a photo and smiles at me.
I let my Legacies pour out of me. All of them.
Until there’s nothing left.
CHAPTER THIRTY
CONSCIOUSNESS COMES BACK SLOWLY. THE CAVERN floor vibrates under my face, a rumble louder than thunder shaking the entire complex. I come dangerously close to the edge of the chasm that Adam and Phiri fell down. With a groan, I roll away from the gap, onto my back, and try to sit up.