Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera (best new books to read txt) 📗

They’re lucky that way.

I turn on ghost mode, straining for air and freezing as I peek through the thick stone wall. The hallway is filtered stark white and shadowy like an X-ray because of my power. I get everyone through as quickly as I can, beginning with Emil, Maribelle, and Prudencia so they can defend me if guards appear in the meantime. I get Tala through right as it feels like some blood vessels might pop behind my eyes, and as I grab Wyatt, I’m certain I’m going to pass out and we’ll both be frozen inside this wall forever.

Emil grabs my wrist, pulling me into the prison. “You good?”

My breaths are shallow. “Just a lot of people,” I say as color fills the world again. “Got us through.”

Prudencia rubs my back, and her touch grounds me in my body. “You all go ahead. Time is limited.”

Maribelle and Tala take off down one hallway, dark yellow phoenix fire lighting their path.

“Play this smart, Bright,” Emil says, holding out his fist.

“Stay alive, bro,” I say, fist-bumping and whistling with him.

I don’t think either of us ever thought this childhood handshake would follow us into a prison.

“I’ll protect him,” Prudencia says as she hugs Emil. “Get going.”

Emil and Wyatt run the opposite way, and Emil looks over his shoulder before they round the corner, as if this might be the last time we see each other. He’s forgetting that we’re the Infinity Kings—we’re going to go on and on and on.

“This is a literal nightmare,” Prudencia says. She keeps looking back and forth down the two hallways as if someone is going to emerge from the shadows. “It’s even darker than they make it look in documentaries.”

I hold her hand, trying to stay strong. We go down a curvy staircase and reach a level that smells like backed-up toilets and body odor. We cover our noses with the headbands and cautiously go down a hall toward a buzzing sound. Behind a wall there’s an electric fence surrounding the cell of a sleeping inmate. Prudencia leads me away.

“What’s the rush? That could be Ness for all we know.”

“We don’t have time to interview every inmate who might be Ness in disguise,” Prudencia says.

“You tell that to Emil when we leave without Ness.”

“Ness has no reason to hide anymore. Everyone knows he’s alive. Where would they have put him? Solitary confinement? A custom cell?”

“His power isn’t dangerous enough for that,” I say.

Those custom cells are more for the likes of powerful people like me. If I had to design a cell to lock up someone with Reaper’s Blood, I’d start with shackles to prevent any dashing at unsuspecting guards, put them inside a tank of water so any phoenix fire will be short-lived, and entrap the specter in a gleam-shield to prevent them from phasing through any wall, ceiling, or floor. I bet I’d still find a way out.

We continue on, finding more traditional cells with inmates who start shouting when they see us. Prudencia and I stay in the very center away from reaching hands; if anyone touches her, I’ll shove a fire-bolt down their throat. I scan everyone’s face, but no Ness.

“I bet some of these prisoners would have great stories for Celestials of New York.”

“I’m going to unfollow you in real life,” Prudencia says.

“Hey, I’m just saying—”

The ceiling bulbs flash red and metal grinds as all the cell doors slide open.

The inmates have been freed.

Sixty-SevenManhunt

NESS

My heart is beating as fast as the flashing red lights. The other inmates cautiously step outside their cells as the doors open. I don’t know what powers they possess, only that they’re probably not as lethal if they’re in these standard cells. That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.

Unless everyone else has been falsely imprisoned too.

There’s static coming from the speakers in the corner. “Attention! Before you start blowing off some steam and beating the lights out of each other, you got to know something,” says a low voice I’ve never heard before. “Those of you who weren’t incarcerated until after late January will remember that a senator’s son was one of six-hundred-something people killed during the city’s Blackout. Except he wasn’t. Eduardo Iron lives and breathes in this prison. He became a specter for the Blood Casters and will be standing trial for acts of burglary, trespassing, selling hallucinatory drugs, aggravated assault, identity theft, and terrorism.”

In other words, I’m here for life, if they let me live.

I’m fighting back tears on how corrupt this place is.

“Eduardo has the power to shift,” the voice continues. “He can look like anyone—a stranger, your cellmate, even yourself. If you’re looking for an extra challenge while blowing off some steam, whoever hunts down the shifter before dawn will be rewarded with thirty minutes on the roof this morning.”

I don’t doubt the lure of that grand prize. Breathing in the air before being banished back to this darkness could be as welcome as a hug from a loved one.

The red lights stop flashing as the speaker says, “Happy hunting.”

There are shouts and cheers, even a roar, echoing through the halls.

A bald man with a three-headed hydra tattoo on his forearm is talking with someone while staring at me. There’s one clear tell that I don’t belong here: I’m not wearing one of the lime-green jumpsuits. I charge the opposite way, hearing them call after me.

I fight through the pain of my stinging wound, glowing gray midrun and giving myself the jumpsuit and a new face before blending into a crowd of celestials beating each other to death.

A lot of people mistaken as me in disguise will die tonight.

Sixty-EightFirefly’s Flames

EMIL

“Hide-and-seek with the shape-shifter just got infinitely harder,” Wyatt whispers as we hide in a stairway.

“And he doesn’t even know that we’re trying to find him,” I say.

Just when I thought this place couldn’t be more monstrous, the guards are siccing the other inmates on Ness as if this is some acceptable practice. More than ever I’m terrified to