Chapter 17 - ONE SECOND OF EYE CONTACT
Noah saw gold.
Not glowing gold. Not mythic fire.
Mara’s eyes looked almost ordinary for one impossible second.
Then pain hit his left hand.
He looked down.
Gray was spreading across his fingertips.
“Mara.”
She screamed his name.
He turned away.
Too late.
Stone reached his wrist.
Celia shouted, “Break eye contact!”
“Already figured that out!” Noah yelled.
His attempt at humor came out as panic.
He grabbed June with his right arm and pulled her behind a lab table.
Gunfire cracked through the room.
Mara dropped to her knees, eyes squeezed shut, searching blindly for her glasses.
Adrian moved faster than anyone expected.
He kicked the glasses away.
“No!” Noah shouted.
Adrian grabbed Mara by the hair and forced her head up while keeping his own face turned aside.
“Open your eyes.”
She clenched them shut.
He pressed a pistol against June’s back.
Noah saw it.
Mara did not.
“Open them,” Adrian said, “or the child dies.”
June whimpered.
Noah’s hand had become stone to mid-forearm.
The weight dragged at his shoulder.
He staggered up.
“Mara, don’t.”
Adrian smiled.
“Heroic.”
Noah aimed his gun with his right hand.
One-handed. Shaking.
Adrian kept June between them.
“Noah,” Mara said, eyes still closed. “Where is he?”
“Three steps in front of you.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Noah continued, “Little left.”
Mara smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
Adrian realized too late.
She opened her eyes toward a polished steel cabinet.
Reflection.
Safe for Noah.
Safe for June.
But the cabinet showed Adrian exactly where she was looking.
He turned instinctively.
Directly toward her.
Their eyes met.
Adrian went silent.
Gray climbed his throat.
“No,” he whispered.
Mara did not look away.
Noah shouted, “Mara!”
Stone reached Adrian’s jaw.
His pistol slipped.
June ran.
Still Mara stared.
There was rage in her face now. Years of hiding. Her mother’s fear. Katie. Eli. Noah’s hand.
Adrian’s eyes were the last thing to change.
He was still conscious when the stone sealed over them.
Mara kept looking for two extra seconds.
Two.
Noah would remember that.
Not because Adrian deserved mercy.
Because Mara had wanted him to suffer.
When she finally closed her eyes, blood ran from her nose.
Celia rushed to her.
“Mara, don’t open them again.”
“Why?”
“Your vessels are rupturing.”
Noah looked at his stone arm.
Then at Katie’s statue.
Then at Mara, kneeling blind in the middle of the lab.
He understood the choice before anyone said it.
Mara could try to reverse them.
But each person she brought back might take something from her.
---
The chapters are on the left side of your screen.
If you enjoyed the story, bookmark my site: https://metro.treeiq.biz
May you like
New stories are posted daily, so check back for updates.
