It was like the three guards had been hit by an invisible skimmer. Two of them went flying, while the third merely hit the permacrete with a startled cry.
A flicker of hope in my chest.
Then the shaking permacrete of a charging raknoth.
I leapt away without thinking and narrowly avoided Alton’s grabbing arms. I tried to backpedal, set my feet, but he was on me, and he wasn’t letting up.
I ducked one punch. Twisted past another. In the corner of my eye, I saw Carlisle rising from the downed guards, rushing toward us.
Then my foot caught on the corner of a ventilation fan.
Alton’s fist flew toward me. My world condensed around that fist.
There was no avoiding it.
It was like what I imagined being struck in the chest with a sledgehammer might feel like. If not for James’ armor skin, I thought I might have died on the spot. Then again, I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t.
I might’ve lost consciousness momentarily. There were scrapes and jarring impacts, but I only half-felt them, like I wasn’t quite there.
Then there was a flash of the rooftop edge and I tore back to awareness as I realized I was headed over it.
Arms out, legs down. I scrambled frantically to find some purchase and stop my wild roll.
Too late.
My heels kicked against nothing but open air.
I was falling.
I tried to scream. There was no air in my lungs. All the air in the world below me, and none in my lungs. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
I was on my way to die when I crashed into something strong and unyielding and decidedly not there. An invisible platform of thin air.
Carlisle.
Before I could be properly astounded, the miraculous construct flung me upward and dished me back onto the rooftop. I landed in a heap of pain, fire spreading through my chest as I gulped for air with a raknoth-hammered diaphragm.
Across the rooftop, Alton was closing on a distracted Carlisle. The raknoth snatched the arm Carlisle had extended my way and wrenched violently.
There was a wet cracking sound, and a heavy grunt from Carlisle. I waited for him to miraculously reverse the tide, but Alton drove him to the ground, still cranking on his broken arm.
I caught sight of the pulse gun I’d left for Carlisle. It was right there on the permacrete, where Carlisle must’ve dropped it. The fire in my torso flared brilliantly when I tried to move. The pain was bad—worse than I could recall having felt. But I couldn’t let it stop me.
Carlisle was in trouble.
I reached for the gun with my mind. Willed it to my hand. Then I rolled over and fired five stun rounds at Alton’s back. Four hit. He went rigid as the rounds delivered their shock charges.
The brief distraction was all Carlisle needed.
He sprung to his feet, spun past Alton’s convulsing form, and drove a foot into the back of the raknoth’s knee. The leg buckled, dropping Alton to his knees. Carlisle drew a dagger from his tunic with his good hand and plunged it into Alton’s back, right where his heart would be—assuming he even still had one.
The knife didn’t pierce far into Alton’s dark suit and scaly hide. The stun bolts had nearly depleted their charges, too, judging by his shift from spasms to wild thrashing. Apparently the sedative portion of the rounds wasn’t having much of an effect on him.
Trying to score another shot was a stupid risk. I didn’t have a clear line, and my hands were far from steady. But the raknoth was clearly recovering, and, with both of us injured, I didn’t see things improving from there.
So I took careful aim, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger twice.
My last two stun bolts caught Alton on the side and locked him up for another few seconds while Carlisle reset behind the knife and drove into it again. He must’ve added some serious telekinetic juice, too. The dagger drove through Alton’s tough hide like a pneumatic press.
Carlisle yanked his dagger free and leapt clear of Alton’s frenzied screeching and thrashing.
I prayed it was the bastard’s death throes I was witnessing. But I wasn’t counting on it. And for good reason.
Alton lurched back to his feet with a few choice curses and went at Carlisle like a wild animal, grabbing and swiping and biting and cursing. Carlisle kept a step ahead, despite the left arm hanging uselessly at his side.
I tried to push myself to my feet, but the pain was unbearable now. Something—several somethings, maybe—were broken inside of me.
So I watched helplessly as Carlisle thrust a hand at Alton and lit the air around the raknoth’s head with dozens of explosions of startlingly bright light, each accompanied by a loud pop.
I didn’t understand why he was wasting his energy. Neither, apparently, did Alton.
“Enough of your damned trickery,” the raknoth roared from inside the brilliant light show, blindly swatting. “Come meet your end like—”
A heavy black skimmer came soaring out of the night sky and plowed straight into the raknoth with a thick crunch. Alton sailed across the permacrete like a skipping stone and toppled unceremoniously over the edge with one last furious roar.
The skimmer settled, and James and Phineas climbed out.
“Let’s go,” Phineas said. “Now.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. He just, as it turned out, needed to peel me off the permacrete and half-carry me to the skimmer. Carlisle made to pick me up first, but Phineas growled, “Your arm,” and that was the end of the discussion.
At least I mostly managed to keep from crying out in pain.
I didn’t feel right. My head swam, my vision darkened. I nearly fell back over, but Phineas’ grip was strong.
That had been one strong punch.
Carlisle watched me with a worried look as he went to open the rear skimmer door for us. I didn’t understand how he wasn’t passing out from the pain of his shattered arm. I didn’t understand much at all right then besides the pain and the nausea it was bleeding over into.
“Come on, kid,” Phineas rumbled. “You’re almost there.”
Alton had made a pretty mess of the skimmer’s armored hood. Damn, the raknoth were tough. But we’d taken one down tonight. There was that. And now we just had to get out of here before—
The rushing thrum of approaching craft drifted over the rooftop.
I knew that sound. Would know it anywhere.
“What’s that?” James asked, frantically scanning the dark sky.
“Legion transports,” I grunted, then stiffened as Alton’s words flashed back to me.
… hand you over to Kublich when he gets here, he’d said. That’s right, Haldin. Mommy and Daddy’s killer is on his way to finish the Raish tree…
Kublich. He was in one of those transports.
“Dammit, kid, we have to go,” Phineas growled.
I resisted his pull, looking to the dark sky.
There. The outlines were closing on the rooftop now.
The door burst open behind us, jarring my attention. Several armed guards poured out, weapons at the ready. In front of us, more troops were arriving by another door.
Phineas gave up on playing nice and hauled me into the skimmer, barking at the others to get the grop in. Carlisle slid in beside me and slammed the door shut as Phineas dove into the driver’s seat and did the same. James appeared in the front passenger seat just as the guards opened fire.
Slugs pelted off the skimmer’s armor with sharp cracks and twangs. No one spoke a word as Phineas scrambled to bring the engine to life and lift off.
The first Legion transport reached the rooftop, swiveling around to give its passengers access. And there he was, tall and proud in the frame of the open side door.
High General Adrian Kublich. Alpha damn his black soul.
I forgot the pain coursing through my body. I forgot the guards and the slugs pelting us and everything in my world except for my desire to sink daggers into the appraising dark eyes Kublich directed m
y way.
Carlisle’s hand clamped down on my wrist.
“Go!” he barked at Phineas.
I tried to yank my arm free. Carlisle held tight. I tried to push past him, toward Kublich, mindlessly growling and flailing and—
Phineas threw power to the engines, and, for several seconds, I was powerless to do anything but press into the seat like dead weight as we shot off into the night sky.
When I could move, I whipped around and strained against Carlisle’s grasp, watching Kublich’s stern face shrinking in the rear window.
“No,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“Hal…” Carlisle’s face was plastered with concern, his voice thick with it. It only amplified the desperation in my chest, the roiling inferno threatening to overwhelm me from the inside.
The skimmer veered downward, and Kublich was lost to the night.
“NO!”
My voice broke with the force of the scream. The skimmer jerked in Phineas’ hands.
A fit of coughing seized me, each one a harsh bite on my raw throat. When it was done, my hands were flecked with blood.
They were all watching me. Carlisle. James. Even Phineas studied me in the mirror before turning his focus back to flying.
I’m fine, I thought to say. It’s fine.
But instead, I slumped into a wretched ball in my seat, hugging my legs against the nausea riding in on the returning tide of pain—physical and otherwise.
I closed my eyes.
Hold it together.
I felt like I was going to burst. Going to die.
Hold it together.
I’d never been in this much pain.
Carlisle’s hand settled on my back.
The first hot tears streamed silently down my cheeks. And there, in the dead silence of the skimmer’s cabin, I squeezed my eyes tighter and let the sobs rack my body until there was nothing left but to give in to the inexorable weight of my exhaustion.
Carlisle’s hand never left my back.
22
Sweet Dreams
When I woke in my soft bed, I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. Only that I was at Franco’s. And that I felt warm. And good.
Like, really good.
My head was tingling pleasantly, my brain floating in warm honey. Honey. Honeyhead.
Was I on drugs?
I squinted up and found two clear bags hanging on the bedpost and a thin tube that ran to a bandage on the back of my hand. An IV.
Huh.
The sight should’ve bothered me. I was pretty sure about that. But I was also pretty sure that, in fact, all was well. Definitely not cause for concern. The pain when I tried to shift in bed, on the other hand… That was unpleasant. It rose through the warm honey fuzz like an invading army. It flashed me straight back to Vantage. To the racks. The monsters. To Alton Parker.
And to Kublich.
I sat up with a drunken growl. Or tried to, before the pain doubled and I flopped back to the bed with a gasp. I lay there, trying to hold on to the rage—wanting to steam with it. But I was tired. So tired. The urgent need for action dissipated, gently but insistently pulled away by the warm weight of the drugs.
I slept. At some point, I might’ve felt Carlisle’s presence hovering near. He might have come and gone between fitful bouts of sleep. Time passed erratically.
When next I truly climbed to consciousness, a hand was resting on mine, warm and soft. I cracked an eyelid and spied Elise at my bedside, worriedly nibbling at her lower lip.
I did my best not to move.
This was good, right?
Yes, my honey-brain decided. Yes it was. Maybe, if I was careful, I could just lie there forever, enjoying the tender warmth of her hand on mine. That sounded pretty damn good to me.
“Haldin?”
Apparently I needed practice at playing dead.
I opened my eyes. Elise was on her feet now, leaning over me, her right hand still on mine. “You’re awake.”
Alpha, she was beautiful.
I tried to blink the bleariness from my eyes.
“Elise,” someone whispered.
Was that me?
A drunken smile pulled at my lips.
“Oh, thank Alpha,” she whispered, smiling back at me.
It didn’t seem possible that that smile should triple her beauty. Maybe she had powers of her own. It was uncanny. I wanted to tell her. Should tell her, said honey-brain. Needed to tell her.
“Yurr…most beau—ful…”
She laughed and abruptly wrapped me in a tight hug. Or tight enough to send a wave of pain through my torso, at least.
“Sorry!” she said in response to my groan. “I’m sorry. You just…”
All at once, her demeanor flipped, and she released my hand and gave me a sharp flick on the forehead.
“Ow… What the scud, lady?”
“I was worried sick! No one tells me a damned thing around here. I just found you lying half-dead in my house, all hooked up like we’re running an Alpha-blessed medica here.” She shook her head. “You didn’t look alive.”
“You should see the other guy.”
She looked like she was thinking about giving me another thwap. Instead, she sighed and pulled my blankets down to the waist.
My breath caught.
It was like Divinity’s premier abstract artist had gotten ahold of my torso and had nothing to work with but purples and blues.
“You were saying? About the other guy?”
I could only stare at my bruises in horrid fascination. At least the sight sobered my fuzzy thoughts a bit.
“What were you guys doing out there?”
I finally tore my gaze away and met her eyes.
What was I supposed to say?
“We were… trying to figure out what some bad people are planning.”
She searched my face, looking for more, then shook her head. “Oh, good. I was worried for a second there you were gonna be super vague about the whole thing.” She bit back her next comment. Then, more calmly, she said, “You can trust me, you know.”
I dropped her gaze, not sure what to say. Keeping her in the dark wasn’t fair. I sure as scud didn’t want to do it.
But it wasn’t my call, was it? And if there was even a chance that keeping her away from the truth of the raknoth would keep her safe…
I wasn’t so sure I blamed Franco for wanting to keep her away from the entire mess.
“So did you?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Did you find out what your bad people are planning?”
I thought back to the grotesque abominations in the lab and to the poor souls still trapped on those blood racks, and guilt filled me.
“Sort of.”
“And the other guy?” She pointed at my bruised torso. “The one who did this to you?”
I watched in my mind’s eye as the skimmer plowed Alton Parker off the rooftop. The impact alone would’ve been more than enough to kill any human. Alton, I wasn’t positive about, but the ten-floor fall that followed?
“We took care of him.”
She considered that with a grim face. “Good,” she finally said. “I know my dad wouldn’t involve himself in this kind of thing unless the people on the other side deserved it.” She shook her head. “But I still can’t believe he would let Carlisle bring a kid into… whatever this thing is.”
I bristled and was promptly rewarded with a wave of aching pain.
“I’m not a kid,” I grunted.
She fixed me with a level look, sage beyond her years. “We’re both kids, Haldin.”
I bit back my decidedly kidlike retort and shrugged. “Maybe so, but I can take care of myself just fine.”
She arched an eyebrow and stared pointedly at my bruised body.
“This is different,” I insisted.
This was only because I’d been fighting a super-powered—apparently bloodsucking—demon. But I couldn’t say that, could I?
“Look,
it’s not their fault. Carlisle’s tried to talk me out of this thing more than once. I have my reasons for being here.”
The look on her face—part guilt, part sympathy—told me those reasons were no mystery to her.
“Your parents,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t just an accident, was it?”
An aching lump formed in my throat. I shook my head, fighting back unexpectedly abrupt tears.
Damn drugs. Or maybe it was Elise. Somehow, having her ask about them felt completely different than if it had been Carlisle or Franco or anyone else. Beneath her caring gaze, I felt open and vulnerable and—
Elise closed me in another hug, more carefully this time.
“I’m so sorry, Haldin,” she whispered.
I didn’t know what to say—didn’t have to say anything, I realized. She knew enough. She’d lost her own mother to the raknoth, after all. Only she probably didn’t even know that.
It wasn’t fair. But all I could do was hug her back tightly.
She rested her cheek against the top of my head, and, for a long while, we stayed like that, and I felt warm and safe and cared for.
Tears weren’t far away when the door opened and Carlisle slipped into the room.
Elise and I quickly broke apart, but Carlisle paid little mind to our intimate moment. He just looked relieved to see me awake.
“How are you feeling?”
He took in the extensive discoloration of my torso, which probably gave him all the answer he needed.
I forced a smile. “Kind of like I was the one to fall off the building. But other than that, not so bad.”
“Someone fell off a building?” Elise asked.
Carlisle hesitated, glancing between us. “Yes. But I’m sure your father wouldn’t appreciate us regaling you with the story.”
Elise flashed him a charmingly conspiratorial smile. “Aww, come on. We’re all friends here, right?”
Carlisle’s lips twitched, but he wasn’t to be convinced. “I’m sorry, Elise, but could I talk to Haldin alone for a few minutes?”
She rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide her irritation. “You know what? I was on my way to go train anyway. So go ahead. Have fun talking about all the secrets poor, helpless Elise mustn’t know. Please, don’t let me get in the way here in my own house or anything.”
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