by May Dawson
“So fucking sloppy,” Echo said, his voice disgusted. “They’d give Clearborn a heart attack.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard Silas curse. Echo dropped f-bombs like it was his job. It was unsettling how good he was at acting.
The shifters fanned out, heading for us.
“It’ll be better if we don’t have to kill anyone today,” I said softly. “I would like to be able to go home again.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” Echo muttered.
The two of us melted into the shadows, trying to disappear. Echo caught me with an arm around my waist, drawing me with him. His jaw brushed my temple as we stood intimately close, pressing ourselves into the shadows of a tree, and his lips moved with the words of a spell.
The shifters walked right by us.
Echo released me, but caught my hand. Together, the two of us made our way back through the woods, doubling back while the shifters searched for us. As they shouted at each other behind us, their voices moving further and further away, I smiled. Magic almost made things too easy.
The two of us stepped out onto the pavement, which seemed to ripple under the moonlight. Still moving silently, we headed for their car. I pulled my hand away from Echo’s reluctantly, getting ready to draw my weapon in case they’d left someone behind.
Echo eased into the driver’s side as I slipped into the passenger seat. He started the engine before we slammed our doors shut, knowing the noise would alert them.
Sure enough, the shifters came running out of the woods just as we pulled away down the road.
I laughed out loud as they fired shots at us that didn’t hit, and Echo shoved down on the accelerator. It was delightful to have stolen their car and gotten away. No one even had the chance to recognize me.
“It’s so stupid that the packs have their ban on magic,” I said. “If we just embraced it, we’d be unstoppable.”
“There’s a terrifying thought,” he said.
I glanced at him sidelong. “You don’t think there’s any such thing as good guys, huh?”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “Good causes, maybe. Good men. But I don’t think either the wolves or the witches deserve magic. I don’t think any group should be trusted with too much power.”
I stared at him, feeling struck by hurt. I knew the shifter community wasn’t perfect—the bullying at the academy had made that crystal-clear, and so had the abuse that Lex had suffered—but that was a small, mean minority.. “I just want to make the world a better place. Safe.”
He glanced at me, frowning. “I’m not lumping you in with them. I don’t have to trust you with magic,” he said. “You are magic.”
I stared back at him, struck by his words. He didn’t even believe in his own side, not fully, but he believed in me. It lit a warm glow in my chest. “I’m going to throw something at you. You get so critical when anyone else is cheesy.”
“I know you feel the same way about me, it’s okay, you don’t have to admit it.”
“I can’t believe I came all this way just to deal with you,” I said.
He grinned and reached to take my hand. When his long, lithe fingers wrapped around mine, I ran my thumb across his skin. My heart beat fast whenever he touched me now. He was so familiar and yet a stranger, too.
“You would’ve come all this way just to find me,” he said simply, “even if you didn’t have another mission.”
I scoffed, because I’d never tell him he was right.
But it was true.
Chapter Forty-Five
Echo
“It’s nice being back together,” Maddie sighed later that night.
“We’re in the middle of a high speed chase,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror at the second car that had appeared on our bumper.
“Still,” she said.
“Take the wheel,” I said.
Exhaustion was starting to make my magic tense, resistant. I’d burned a lot of it tonight. I had a lot of power, but even so, I needed to recharge eventually. But I could guide bullets with minimal expenditure.
Maddie swore at the effort of trying to slide into the driver’s seat as I scrambled into the back. As my foot left the accelerator, the car started to slow. The car behind us bumped into us, hard, and Maddie grunted as she was jolted forward into the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” she demanded as I braced my shoulder against the door, preparing to lean out and fire off a series of shots. “We’re trying not to kill anyone tonight.”
“I’m going for their tires,” I snapped, irritated that she was questioning me in the middle of a car chase. She really wasn’t sure who I was.
I meant it when I promised she could go home again.
I fired off several rounds, and was rewarded by their front right tire popping. Their car swerved in response, but they kept following us, sparks spraying up from the cement.
I threw myself across the seat, preparing to set up on the other side to take out their front left tire.
“Silas,” Maddie said, her voice urgent. “Brace yourself.”
Without hesitating, I dragged my seatbelt across my chest and latched it, then grabbed the seat back in front of me and the handle above the door. Through the windshield, I glimpsed the blinding headlights ahead of us.
“Off-road!” I said urgently, knowing they must’ve set something up on the road in front of us, but Maddie was already driving the car into the pitted gravel and the grass at the side of the road. Branches flickered by our windows, then scraped over the windshield and the roof of the car, making a sickening noise.
“I’ve done this before, you know,” she shot back.
“Yeah, so they might know your—”
The front tires popped as we hit the strips they’d laid in the grass. As the car slid to one side, Maddie hissed in a breath of fear that made my heart stop in my chest.
Then we were tilting, rolling over. My head slammed into the soft headrest in front of me, then banged into the glass to one side as the airbags deployed.
We slammed into a tree with a terrifying roar of metal, and the roof bent in as we came to a stop, on our sides. Then everything was quiet. The only sound seemed to be my only quick breathing.
“Are you all right?” I called to her. My adrenaline was so high that I couldn’t tell if I was hurt or not, yet, but that was a good thing. There was something wet and warm across my face. Blood. I was bleeding. But I barely felt it yet.
“Fine,” she managed. “We’ve got to move. They’ll be coming.”
I released my seat belt and fell awkwardly against the door, banging my knee in the process. It felt stiff as I scrambled up, and I knew I’d feel that later. I fumbled across the door, found the handle. When the latch released, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had a way out.
“Let’s move,” I said.
“I can’t get out,” she said, her voice calm. “My seatbelt’s jammed. Give me a second.”
Magic flared across her fingers and she muttered a word in Latin to cut the belt. She inhaled a quick, pained inhale of breath, as if she’d accidentally burned into her own leg.
I jumped toward her, wanting to help, but there was a tearing sound as the last of the seat belt gave way. She fell heavily across the car and into the door, and she cried out.
“Maddie?” There was an urgent note to my voice that bordered on fear. I fumbled across the car, found the gun. Checked the clip.
They were coming for us. They’d be here soon. The good news was that the base of the car was up, facing them, and the hood was against a tree. It would be cumbersome for them to spray bullets into the car and kill us in a hurry.
“Maybe I’m not fine,” she said. “Broken leg, I think. I’ll heal myself. Get out of here, Echo.”
“Can’t even figure out what you want to call me,” I said. I desperately wanted to crawl over the console and heal her myself, but one of us had to get out of the car and see what we were up against. “I’m not leaving you. Don’t be stupid.”
“Do we have to argue about every fucking thing?” She started muttering in Latin. The flare of her magic brightened the car. “You used to be a lot sweeter.”
“That was an act, remember?” I braced my feet on the seats so I could get enough leverage to throw the car door open. “Also, squabbling makes you feel better. I know you.”
It was true. Being snarky made Maddie feel more certain of herself. I thought it was cute.
I exhaled, focusing myself. Then I came up fast, knowing they’d be waiting for me, locking out my elbows as I raised the gun.
There were a dozen shifters surrounding us. Waiting for us.
I picked a target and squeezed off one quick shot. As soon as they saw me, bullets sprayed over my head, and I ducked down into the car. The sound of bullets slamming into the metal underbelly of the car was deafening.
“They’ve got us pinned,” I said.
“Good thing we’ve got magic.”
“Yeah? How light-headed are you after healing yourself?” I wasn’t sure how much magic I had left.
“I’ve got more power now than I used to,” she reminded me.
“That’s not an answer to the question I asked.”
“I’m fine.”
“Last time you said you were fine, you actually had a broken leg.” If she’d been fine, we might’ve been able to clear the car and head into the woods in time to not be under siege.
“Echo,” she warned, her voice irritated.
The hail of bullets came to a pause as they waited for me to pop up again. Like whack-a-mole. I didn’t like being the mole in that game.
“I’d rather be out there with the bullets than in here if you’re going to say my name like that,” I shot back, rising through the door again with my gun outstretched. I fired off a bullet, aiming for the first shifter I saw, using magic to guide the bullet toward him. I let myself fall back inside as soon as I squeezed off that one shot, as they started firing again. I heard him scream as the bullet punched into his shoulder. It wouldn’t kill him, but it should slow them all down.
I could see the way they’d been laid out in a half-circle around our car clearly in my mind’s eye. They were walking toward us, but I could use that memory to set up my shots before I popped up again.
Every time was a risk, though. If one of them got in a lucky shot, that was the end of my adventure. Maddie would be alone and in danger. My friends would be abandoned in a prison camp back in my own world.
My life was a lot weightier now than it used to be, and I hated that. I didn’t want to give a damn if I lived or died.
I called to mind the picture in front of me and rose through the window again, squeezing off one shot. Their firearms crackled through the air, and I half-fell into the car again, losing my balance and slipping all the way down to the door.
“I’m good,” she said, starting to climb up the seats in the front toward her own door.
“Doubtful,” I muttered.
I muttered to myself in Latin, preparing a spell from my world, one that took almost all my power.
“I can’t get my door open,” she said. “Goddamn it.”
“Come to this side,” I said, bracing myself below the window again. “I’m going to do something a bit stupid, so I want you to prepare yourself that I may go down. They should all go down, too, but if they don’t, you need to get out of here.”
“You know better than that,” she said.
“Promise me,” I said, a note of steel in my voice.
“Do what you’re going to do, Silas.”
I’d known she wouldn’t promise. “Stubborn girl.”
Then I pushed myself up out of the car. The shifters raised their guns at me, ready to fire.
I raised my hands and with it, raised a wall of magic. They began to scatter even before my magic flared out, but they couldn’t escape.
The world suddenly went very quiet, as if Maddie and I were at the center of a storm. My magic rushed out like a hurricane-force wind, blasting into them, knocking them head over heels. Each of them blinked into unconsciousness as the blast hit them.
My power extinguished. I sagged down into the car, my fingers scrabbling against the metal as I tried to hold myself up even though my muscles were suddenly weak.
Maddie had asked for me to leave them alive, and that was what I would do, even though it hurt. None of them would remember anything from the last hour.
Which would’ve been great…
If there hadn’t been headlights on the road just beyond, already coming to a stop. Voices crying out. Reinforcements.
Ours or theirs?
I tried to fight it, but darkness swallowed me, and I tumbled to the bottom of the car.
The last thing I saw was Maddie’s pale face, leaning over me. “You’re going to be okay,” she promised me. “I’m looking out for you.”
That was exactly what I was afraid of. I tried to tell her to run, but darkness took me anyway.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jensen
I jolted awake, the sheets tangled around my legs.
The dark lines of Maddie’s room rose around me. The other guys were in the room next door, back in their own beds. They’d torn apart the bed we’d set up that held us all.
During the day, I hated Maddie as much as anyone. The bond between the other guys and me had grown deep over the course of the school year, with her at our center, as if she were the sun of our little universe.
The pain she’d inflicted on men I saw as my own brothers now had broken something inside me, something dark and hateful and familiar. I was so used to finding enemies and hating them.
But that was only during the day time. During the night, I dreamt about her, about her smile and her long, silky blond hair falling between us and the world like a curtain. I dreamt about my hands on her body and about her lips against my ear and her husky voice.
The other guys didn’t say anything about me coming in here, sleeping in the sheets she’d left behind, that still smelled faintly of her.
I didn’t know which version of myself I despised more—the lovesick version of myself that came out at night, or the cold, mean version of myself during the day. I was almost back to my old self, except that I couldn’t go too far back when the guys around me thought I was someone else, someone decent.
But this last dream of Maddie held none of the sweetness of my usual dreams. I’d seen her in trouble, in deathly trouble, and I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.
But something propelled me forward. I yanked on my shirt and my jeans, then headed out into the hall.
I needed to talk to the only guy crazier than I was when it came to that girl right now. Lex had the most reason to hate her of anyone, but he didn’t.
When I banged on his door, it took him a minute to stumble to the door, then swing it open. He blinked at me blearily. It pulled me back in time to when Faro had attacked Maddie. Even though I’d hated her then, too, I’d hated anyone who tried to steal that bright spirit from her even more.
That was the very first time Maddie Northsea made me lose my damn mind.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“I think she’s in trouble,” I said. “I can feel it.”
“You fought the curse too,” Lex said, and relief spread across his face, as if he didn’t feel alone.
“Not this again.” Rafe stood behind Lex, raking his hand through his hair. “Come on. Give me a break.”
“Say what you want,” Lex said. He was already turning, striding into the room to get dressed. “I’m going after her.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Nope.” Rafe leaned against the doorway, but his relaxed pose was a lie; I could tell he was coiled to fight us both if that kept us at the academy. “Lex. See some fucking reason for once, please. You’ve thrown away so much for that girl.”
“I’m not going to let her die because she walked away from us.” Lex gave Rafe a hard look.
“Because Jensen had so
me fucking dream?” Rafe demanded. “You two are deluding yourselves. You don’t have a bond with her. Or at least, she doesn’t have one with you. She doesn’t give a damn.”
Anger flared in my chest, then hardened into something cold and mean. “Maybe.”
Daytime Jensen warred with Nighttime Jensen.
But either way, I was going to find that girl. I was going to make sure she was okay. If she was, maybe I was going to tell her what an absolute miserable pinecone she was for leaving us. But I would never abandon her if she needed me.
Lex grabbed his leather jacket from the back of his chair and started past Rafe.
Rafe stepped forward, slamming a hand into his chest. “You’re not going anywhere,” he warned. “You can’t throw away the Council’s Own. You can’t throw away your future.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the future if she’s not in it,” Lex said.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rafe demanded.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lex returned. “We can all tell how much you love her. I thought you’d be strong enough to break the curse by now, but apparently you’re just that stupid and stubborn, resisting the way you love her because—”
Rafe cold-cocked Lex.
Lex stumbled back, hit the desk. He leaned back, ready to throw himself into Rafe, ready for a fight. But he hesitated, as if he didn’t want it to go any further.
I watched the two of them in fascination. They always put up such a good show of being a united front, even though we could tell Clearborn was putting cracks between them. Maybe he was even doing it on purpose.
I kind of liked Clearborn, but he was a real bastard, too.
“There’s no curse!” Rafe threw up his hands in exasperation. He had cooled off, apparently, after hitting Lex. There was regret written across his face, but of course he couldn’t just admit that.
“Call Dani,” Lex said. “She can tell you.”
“Oh come on.” Rafe rolled his eyes. “You just want to believe that there’s magic that changed everything, instead of accepting the simplest, most logical explanation, that Maddie was just a bitch and you—“