Seconds to Midnight: A Maiden of Midnight Prequel
Cain- Day Twenty-One

Cain- Day Twenty-One

She wasn’t here! Sprinting for the Divider, which I could see was devoid of any sign of my cousin, I eyed my watch, the remaining three minutes ticking down, a horrible feeling sinking into my gut. Why wasn’t she here?! Around me, people sprinted for the Divider, many of them calling out to family or friends, holding their hands and ducking their heads as they ran.

I had paced the frontlines one final time before noticing the wards were coming down. Then, the same thing had happened at the cells, freeing the remaining prisoners.

The Manor had not wanted these people to get through. Seeing as it was the final five minutes, someone obviously had decided that anyone who could get here on their own was worthy enough to survive. Already, smaller bombs had begun dropping along the frontlines. Nothing nuclear yet, but it was coming. I knew it. That’s what the countdown on my watch was for.

But Des was nowhere to be seen. Running up close, keeping out of the way of people who shoved me aside, I spotted her phone in the snow, frosted over. Spinning, I scanned the horizon, screaming her name over and over, hoping she heard me over the people around me. She didn’t answer, didn’t appear from anywhere. I searched the ground as well, for any sign of her body anywhere.

As my watch ticked down to one minute, an alarm began blaring in the distance, where the Manor was. A nuclear warning. The wailing siren did not compare to the alarm bells in my mind. She was missing. My bestfriend was missing, and the world was ending.

The screams of everyone around me became that much louder, their panic heightening to a dangerous level. Super-Naturals began tearing each other apart in front of me.

And yet, despite all of it, despite the fact that I should be heeding my own order earlier and going through without her, I couldn’t. I would rather die standing here waiting for her.

“DES?!” I screamed, my voice cracking in panic. Don’t let me go through without her. Why did I leave her here alone?! How could I be so stupid?! We’d had everything planned down to the last damned second! How did it go wrong now?!

“DESTINY! PLEASE!” I wasn’t sure who I was begging more. Her, or the depths of Hell.

A flash of black against the snow in my peripheral vision caught my attention. She was sprinting toward me, heading off the path that led to the Manor, her hand fisted around something.

And across the sky, with only thirty seconds to go, I saw a plane cleave through the air. It dropped a row of bombs down in a line toward the Divider, far enough away that the ‘BOOM!’ of them landing was dulled. The plane that followed behind it carried the end of the world with it. Who had been chosen for such a monumental task?

Pushing my way through the crowd, I ran for my cousin. If we were dying here, it was together.

There was something about racing against the end of the world that put things into perspective.

Destiny and I reached out for each other, her face just as panicked, that first plane nearing us. An explosion threw her off her feet, sliding into the ice and snow. Above our heads, too close, I heard the air shifting, whistling.

“CAIN!” She screamed in a panic, scrabbling toward me, her eyes shifting to something behind us, tracking it as it fell through the air.

Grabbing her hand, I skidded to a stop on my knees, pulling her under my body and wrenching the blanket over our heads, my power covering it as I clapped my hands over her ears, curled around her as the world erupted around us…