by May Dawson
He didn’t get to finish, because Lex punched him across the face. Apparently, no one was calling Maddie names on Lex’s watch.
This time, Rafe didn’t hesitate. The two of them locked up, trading blows, slamming each other into the furniture. I moved around the room, staying out of the way. All their pent-up anger seemed to unleash on each other.
When they were on the floor, trying to pin each other, driving brutal fists and elbows into any place they found an opening, I asked, “Is this really who you are without Maddie around?”
I thought I was the only one she made into a decent man.
The two of them suddenly broke away from their fight to look at me. It seemed as if they’d forgotten I was even there, then were suddenly reminded they were squabbling like children at my feet.
The two of them broke apart abruptly—as if they’d declared a truce psychically, which wouldn’t surprise me with how close the two of them were, when they weren’t trying to kill each other—and scrambled to their feet.
“Go back to bed, Jensen,” Rafe said. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Longer than usual. The days after Maddie were a whole lot worse than the days before Maddie, now that I knew how much I needed her.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m going after her. You, Lex?”
“You’re not walking out that fucking door,” Rafe warned. “You won’t be able to come back. I’m not letting you make that mistake.”
Lex clapped his shoulder, and the affectionate gesture made Rafe stare back at him, his brows drawing together suspiciously. They were both bleeding, banged-up, hair wild.
“I know you just want what’s best for us and that must make this fucking maddening,” Lex said, his voice calm. “But you don’t get to choose whether or not we make a mistake. It’s ours to make.”
Rafe’s jaw stiffened. He stared at us, his eyes narrowing. “I’m not coming with you.”
He said it as if he were trying to convince himself.
As if, despite the way Rafe presented himself, it took everything he had to put rules above friends, for once.
“That’s all right.” Lex clapped his shoulder again, then headed for the door. “I know you. You’ll come if we all really need you.”
“I won’t,” Rafe said. “You’re going to get yourselves expelled.”
“You know I’ve never given a damn about that,” I said.
I was back to my old self in that way, after all.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Maddie
I scrambled out of the car, leaving Silas crumpled in a heap at the bottom. There was no way I could leverage his weight above my head and get him through the door. I had to tilt the car back over onto its wheels.
There were voices shouting back and forth to each other, distantly, and a prickle ran up my spine. Those weren’t the good guys.
Well, there were no good guys right now. There were the shifters who wanted to kill us for the pieces of the Dark Collar, and there were the evil witches on our ‘side’.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered as I swung myself up and out of the car. I perched on the edge of the window to get my balance, then I jumped down.
The car’s roof had slammed into a copse of trees; luckily for us, we’d lost most of our momentum, or the roof would have peeled in and crushed Silas and me.
I braced myself with one foot against a sturdy trunk, then pushed against the roof of the car with all my power. I leaned in, my muscles straining until I felt as if they might pop. Then I pushed harder, imagining magic flooding my muscles, warm and golden and powerful, giving me enough strength. The car began to tilt on its wheels. I gritted my teeth and pushed harder, putting my shoulder into it. The metal roof made a desperate sound, as if it would tear apart completely under the strain.
Then the car began to totter, its weight pulling away from my shoulder, then falling back again. I leaned forward frantically, pouring all my magic into it, afraid it was going to fall back and crush me between the roof and the trees.
Something popped in my muscle, and I held back a scream as something was suddenly very, very wrong in my arm. It dangled uselessly, and the car threatened to roll back on me, and I muttered in Latin and threw myself against the roof.
It teetered for a second, then suddenly, all the weight left me. The car slammed back upright, rocking the ground beneath my feet.
I swayed and almost went down. Suddenly, the pain from my torn muscle was so intense that it wrung my stomach, and I almost went to my knees to wretch. But somehow I stayed on my feet, reached with my good hand for the door handle. I had to get Silas and myself free.
“They’re breathing!” someone shouted in the distance. Someone called back, “They’re all breathing.”
“What kind of magic is this?” The shifter sounded panicked.
Ungrateful assholes. Silas did everything he could to keep from killing anyone, and all they could think was how awful magic was.
The door didn’t open. God damn it. We were all kinds of out of luck tonight.
I ran around the door to Silas’ side, keenly aware of the figures moving toward us through the mist.
“Hold your fire,” someone commanded. “We may need them alive.”
Silas would’ve told me to run. But he was unconscious, his face slack, and I hauled him out of the car, got him across my shoulders. If I had more time, maybe I could have given him enough of my power to bring him back and power him up again, but I wasn’t sure.
I had a gift for magic. But Silas’ magic was something else altogether, like something I’d never seen before.
I grabbed his arms and wrenched him out of the car. My knees almost buckled as I wrestled him over my shoulders, but the first few steps were always the hardest. Then I was moving, carrying him around the car.
“Stop right there, or I’ll kill him,” a familiar voice warned.
Duncan.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said as I turned. I released Silas, letting him tumble to the ground behind me. At least he’d be protected. My body was between him and Duncan.
Duncan grinned at me, the moonlight eerily lighting his face. “Time for me to finish what Farro started.”
An icy finger of fear dragged down my spine, but I raised my chin and stared him down.
“Why don’t you just go away?” I demanded.
“Like my alpha did?” He took a step toward me.
Fury sparked in his eyes that might have made me want to take a step back. But I didn’t let bullies like Duncan cow me, and I stood between Duncan and Silas. My first job was always to protect my pack.
“I didn’t do anything to your alpha,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t see it the same way. These crybaby men never took responsibility for themselves.
“Clearborn killed him for you,” he hissed.
“I guarantee you, Clearborn isn’t big on doing me favors,” I said.
“I would love to tell him that you’re working for the Day,” he said, his voice gloating. “But he’s probably already dead.”
Fear spiked through my chest. “What do you mean?”
“Jesus, Duncan,” someone groaned behind me. “You have to make sure you kill her now.”
I bared my teeth in a smile that was a growl too. “Good luck with that.”
“Our pack has a mission from the council to retrieve the Dark Collar,” Duncan boasted. “Clearborn tried to block us, but our mission is going to be our alibi. He’ll pay for what he did to Garmond.”
My mind raced. I had to find a way to get a message to Clearborn or to my men.
But first, I had to get out of here.
If the only way out was to step over Duncan’s body, well. We all make sacrifices. “If you want to fight, let’s fight, Duncan.”
“I don’t need to fight you,” he said. “I’ve got all the cards. Look behind me.”
I didn’t have to. I knew there were a dozen shifters from Garmond’s pack standing behind him, all heavily armed.<
br />
I raised my hands—the one hand that I could, anyway. My other arm dangled uselessly at my side. I was already unarmed. I’d had to drop my gun to get Silas free.
“You’re right,” I said. “You don’t have to fight a one-armed girl if you don’t want to.”
I didn’t try to hide the disdain in my voice. Someone laughed out loud behind Duncan, and then someone else said, “Oh, come on. Don’t let her bait you.”
“Where’s the piece of the Dark Collar, Northsea?” Duncan said my last name like a slur, like he always did.
I used my good hand to pat my chest. “Come take it from me.”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed, then his gaze flickered to Silas’ form behind me. “Is he dead?”
“Nope.”
“Good. We only need one of you alive.” Duncan threw his rifle over his shoulder by the strap instead of shooting me, then moved abruptly to meet me. “I finally get to show you just how small and weak you are.”
I stepped forward. “People keep trying to tell me that.”
Neither of us hesitated. We circled each other at first, but once the first punch was thrown, we both threw a furious volley of blows and vicious kicks and elbows. We were trying to kill each other.
He got in a punch across my face that cracked my cheekbone, and I almost screamed in pain. He pressed on, grabbing me, trying to choke me.
I managed to flip him. He went down hard, slamming into the ground. I followed his fall up with a brutal series of kicks. He tried to grab my leg, then the toe of my boot shattered his nose, and he screamed, raising his arms to try to protect himself from me. I slammed my boot into his head, and he fell onto his back.
A gun was cocked, very near me. The sound brought my head snapping up.
“That’s enough,” the man with the gun said coldly. “Give us the Dark Collar.”
Buy some time, Maddie.
“It’s in the car,” I said. I might’ve pretended that my voice shook, from pain and adrenaline and fear, if I’d been thinking about setting up my next move. But I didn’t have to fake it.
“Go fetch.”
My knees were unsteady beneath me as I stumbled past Duncan and Silas too, to reach the car. Weapons. There were weapons in the car.
In the dim light of the moon trickling into the car, I groped for the gun I’d lost. Found it. I wrapped my fingers around its cold, hard grip.
I hadn’t wanted to shed the blood of another pack. Even if I had good reason, I might not be believed. Wolf’s blood on my hands would make it harder to go home.
But I didn’t want to die tonight.
Even if I did manage to kill some of these shifters, the odds that I could kill get Silas and myself out of here were… not awesome.
I needed a spell, but I could barely think through the haze of pain, my useless arm and my shattered cheek. I staggered on my feet and grabbed the seat back to steady myself.
It didn’t matter how bad the odds were. I wouldn’t give up.
I grabbed the gun in my hand and I murmured the same spell myself that Silas had used. I’d never used it before, and I closed my eyes, trying to funnel my magic into my trigger finger, into the bullets themselves.
Then I whirled, raising the gun, hoping for the best.
The night erupted into a chorus of bullets and screams.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Echo
Consciousness hurt.
Life, energy, power, magic. They all came back to me with a start, and I almost sat up reflexively.
Only my training saved me, with a blur of pain-honed instinct. At the academy, our instructors forced us to max out our magic over and over, until we fell where we stood. They taught us to come back smart or suffer for it, just like we would in the real world.
Instead I pressed myself into the earth, taking a second to listen to the sounds around me. Someone’s wet, desperate breathing, very near me, as they scrambled across the ground. The sound of feet shifting across the ground. I dared turn my head to one side, and saw Maddie leaning in the door of the car. There were enemies at her back, close to her, but no one could hear the words she mouthed. Latin. She was imitating my spell.
God, she was so smart, I could’ve smiled, if we weren’t so very likely to die.
If we survived to later, I couldn’t wait to tease her for copying me.
I turned my head to the other side. Duncan squirmed across the ground. He’d dropped his rifle, but he was groping for it blind. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and blood trickled across his forehead.
I held very still, not wanting to tip him off. Then I dove for the rifle abruptly, just as he reached for it. Instead I caught it first and leaned back, bringing it smoothly to my shoulder.
He was so close to me as I squeezed the trigger.
Behind me, I felt Maddie whirl, bringing up the gun.
I didn’t want her to kill any of them. It would haunt her later.
The rifle went off, bucking against my shoulder, but I just pulled it in tighter against the recoil. Duncan’s head exploded back, and he fell.
I sat up, curling my legs up around me, sitting into one of the positions I’d learned to shoot from. My elbow braced against my knee as I picked out one shooter after another, aiming fast, squeezing slow and smooth until the moment I was sure of my target. Pop. Two down. Pop. Three. They fired back, but I had the power now to raise my shield, and it flared into existence, protecting Maddie and me.
Maddie never even got the chance to squeeze off a shot. The shield blocked her. I dropped it just long enough to squeeze off a round, then raised it again the second the bullet had sailed past.
Pop. Eight.
Done. We were done. They were all dead.
I slipped the rifle over my shoulder as I staggered to my feet. That kind of magic didn’t wear me out like the unconsciousness spell did. It was easier to shield and to kill than to tamper with anyone’s mind like that, and it was easier to work one spell at a time than try to alter so many minds at once. I’d been willing to keep them alive, for Maddie.
But I was willing to kill for her too.
She shouldn’t carry the weight of what had happened here tonight.
She looked around at the carnage, emotions flashing across her face. She looked like she was grieving, as if she were scared by what I’d done.
“Maddie?” I asked quietly. “You all right?”
She folded one arm across her chest as if she were holding herself together. “More or less. You killed them all.”
“I had to.”
“The ones you saved before…”
“They would’ve killed us, Maddie.”
“I know.” She swallowed hard, tried to sound normal when she asked, “Are you all right, Echo?”
My new name. Not Silas, not like she’d called me when she’d been so grateful we were re-united. I still felt that relief at having her near me again.
I nodded. I wanted to fold her into my arms, but she didn’t look at me like she wanted me to.
Her arm dangled from her side as if it were useless, and at first it was hard to see in the moonlight, but her cheek was one vivid bruise.
“Let me heal you,” I said.
“No,” she said, almost flinching away from my touch before she smiled at me. “No, it’s all right. You used so much power. I’ll heal myself.”
Regret twisted in my gut.
But I’d always do whatever it took to keep her safe.
Even if it left her hating me, fearing me.
Maddie Northsea was too important to the world to let her fall.
Most of all, she was too important to me.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Maddie
When another car stopped at the side of the road, both Silas and I groaned before we picked up our weapons and staggered to our feet, ready for another fight.
But it was Bennett who climbed out of the car.
He healed me, his touch quick and brusque but warm nonetheless. I cried out wh
en he repaired my torn muscle, and Echo took a step toward me, his face vivid with concern, but thankfully didn’t come any closer.
“Where’s Alice,” I demanded. “Did she get back safely?”
“She did.” Bennett studied the wreckage of bodies strewn around, his face troubled. “I came back to rescue you, but apparently I was a bit late.”
“We don’t need rescuing when we have each other.” Echo leaned his elbow on my shoulder, resting against me in that friendly, flirtatious way Silas and I had at the academy. Except now, I struggled not to flinch away.
He’d done what he had to do. I just needed time to reconcile this brutally efficient killing machine with the gentle, kind Silas I knew. I’d known he was deadly, competent, tough in his own way. But that was different from seeing it play out in front of me.
I’d had such foolish hopes that I could go undercover with the witches and not be touched by darkness. I had hoped I could save the packs without killing my own kind to fit into the Day. I could see now how foolish that had been.
I’d been so naïve, but every day, I lost a little more innocence. And I grieved it at the same time as I knew I had to give it up.
Bennett glanced between us. “I need to speak with the two of you before we all go back.”
“Do you think we could have a conversation someplace with fewer bodies,” Echo waved his hand airily at the disaster around us, “and more French fries?”
“That might be a good idea,” Bennett said. “Get in the car.”
He stopped many miles down the road for the two of us to clean up. He pulled into an abandoned gas station parking lot. It was closed, but no one besides me seemed to see that as a problem.
Bennett popped the trunk and handed me a bag. “Brought you two clean clothes.”
“How’d you know we’d get dirty?” I asked.
“I know you,” he said, “and I know him.”
Echo had already gone ahead of me. His fingertips rested on the door of the convenience store, and then the door swung open.