Broken

Breaking the halls

The plan was insane.

Page 1001 said the Halls were powered by one thing: belief.

Everyone in it believed the rules were absolute.

If enough people stopped believing, the Halls would collapse.

Kade’s key unlocked the chains. It also unlocked a hidden compartment in the table.

Inside: the pen. My pen.

“We have to get everyone to see it,” I said. “All the Reapers. All the prisoners.”

“How?” Tayo asked.

“We show them the truth.”

I cut my palm again. Blood.

I wrote on the white walls. Big.

_THE RULES ARE A LIE._

_DEATH CAN BE CHOSEN._

_YOU ARE NOT BOUND._

The ink sank into the walls. And the walls screamed.

Alarms. Red lights.

Reapers poured in.

I stood in the center. Book open. Pen in hand.

“Listen to me!” I shouted. “You don’t have to do this! You can choose!”

They attacked.

I didn’t fight. I wrote.

Every time one touched me, I wrote on them.

_FREE._

And they stopped. Dropped their weapons. Stared at their hands like they’d never seen them.

One by one.

Until Vey was the only one left standing.

“You’re destroying everything,” he snarled.

“You built it on fear,” I said. “I’m building it on choice.”

He lunged.

The door blew open.

Kade.

Bleeding, limping, but gold light blazing.

He tackled Vey.

They crashed through a window into the white void outside the Halls.

I ran to the edge.

Below us: nothing. Above us: stars.

Kade and Vey were falling. Fighting.

“KADE!”

He looked up. Blood on his face.

He smiled. That crooked one.

“I told you to listen to me,” he said.

Then he drove his hand, glowing gold, straight into Vey’s chest.

Vey shattered. Like glass.

And the Halls shuddered.

The white walls cracked.

The chains fell off everyone.

Prisoners, Reapers, all of them, were suddenly free.

The Halls were collapsing.

Kade was falling too.

I didn’t think.

I jumped.

The book in my hands opened. Pages flying.

I wrote in the air: _CATCH._

Gold light caught me. Caught Kade.

We landed hard on solid ground. Outside.

Abuja. Dawn.

Behind us, the Halls imploded. Silent.

No explosion. Just... gone.

Kade was unconscious in my arms.

Tayo was sobbing next to me.

And the black ink in my veins was fading.

Because the cost was paid.

The Halls were gone.

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