The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

at my best friend in the entire world.  “You know what, don’t tell him that,” I said, reconsidering. “I’ll tell him myself.”
    “Where are you going?” Echo stood. “We still need to run some tests, make sure everything’s on the up and up.”
    “And you can,” I said, making my way to the door. “I just need to get some air first.”
    “Alright, I suppose,” Echo answered. He wanted to stop me, I could tell. But he could tell I wasn’t in the mood to be stopped. I grabbed a pair of sweatpants slung across the chair that seemed to be my size and ducked into the bathroom. A splash of water to my face and a much-needed tooth-brushing later, and I was standing outside.
    It was here now, with a warm wind moving through the trees, that I could finally feel some evidence of what had happened to me. My skin prickled like it hadn’t felt the sun in some time. And the breeze moving through my hair sent cozy shivers up and down my back. It was quiet out here, the sort of quiet that could only exist inside the Hourglass; where nature had been stripped of animals and insects. It was strange to think that, just a few miles from here, armies of Breakers readied themselves to take my head off.
    It was warmer than I remembered it being, which made sense since I had been out of commission for a month. Running fingers through my hair, I took a deep breath.  The weight of everything that had happened started piling onto me like bricks being laid across my chest. Owen was gone. Flora was gone. The Breakers knew. Renner, Royce, and the rest were going to try to get me out of here, Echo said as much. And maybe that’s what I should have wanted. God knows I wasn’t safe within these walls, even if what Casper said was true, and the anchors that surrounded this cabin and its grounds kept me hidden. How long before the Council found a way around that and came for me? It was a miracle that it hadn’t already happened.
    But, even though I should have wanted to run away and never look back (fight or flight instinct and all), all I could think about was Owen and what he said to me before I left. He made me promise not to come for him, to live the rest of my life without him and to try to be okay with that. He might as well of asked me rip my heart out and try to live without that. It would have been just as hard. No, I needed to find a way to get to him, to break him out of whatever hellish cell the Council almost surely had him rotting in, and take him wherever it was Renner and the rest were trying to take me.
    “Cresta…” I recognized the Southern twang almost immediately.  Royce stood in the distance, wearing a pair of jeans and a tight black t-shirt that made the muscles in his arms look big and defined. He had a knife in one hand and a bundle of wood slung across his back with a leather strap. His eyes- copper, not raven- widened when he saw me. “Echo told me you’d be awake any time now, but seeing you up and about is different, I suppose. How are ya, Sweetheart?”
    “We need to find Owen,” I said instinctively.
    Royce’s eyes steeled over, his jaw set, and he looked away from me.  “Good to see you too,” he muttered.  He adjusted the wood across his back and brushed past me, grazing my shoulder on the way. “Uncle Renner’s doing better, not that you asked.”
    A spike of guilt hit me. Renner had gotten hurt badly saving me from the Council and its army, and I hadn’t even thought about him.  “Look,” I sighed. “It’s not that-“
    “No, you look Sweetheart.” Royce turned back to me. “I get that, at the moment, your mind is sort of messed up. You’ve got a lot going on. We all do, and I guess it makes sense that you wanna cling to what ya know. But there are a lot of people who gave up a lot of things to get you this far, and I ain’t talking about me. You miss your boyfriend. Can’t say I blame ya. Seemed like he had that whole ‘sensitive dude’ thing down pretty good. But he’s