by Wendy Knight
She kinda liked that.
Enika rolled over onto her back and stuck her toes in the water again, burying them in the mud. “I need to find a way to make my ax burst into flames.”
“SHE’S EXHAUSTED. WHEN DID she sleep last?” Cole asked as he carried Nyx home. The sun had come up while they hadn’t been paying attention, and although Nyx got into her protective gear, it wasn’t fast enough. She’d been burned pretty badly, and had ridden home in the jeep.
That’s how he knew things were bad. If she didn’t fly, she was hurt, no matter how much she said she wasn’t.
He kicked open the door to her rooms, Enika on his heels, locking it behind her. “I don’t know. Like 48 hours, I think? I can’t believe I forgot she never went to bed yesterday.”
It had taken them a half hour to get home, even with Enika driving like a bat out of hell. There were times he was sure they were going to die, and not at the hands of rabid aliens. Nyx had been completely silent the whole time.
He laid her gently on the bed, watching her jaw clench in pain under the tight suit. “Help me get this off her. The coolness down here will soothe her skin.”
Enika nodded and they started peeling it off, inch by inch. Nyx’s skin was blistered, torn in some places with open wounds sizzling beneath the suit. She squeaked in pain a few times, but otherwise didn’t make a sound, and didn’t move except to breathe.
Finally, she was free. He pulled the sheet over her as gently as possible and turned to go as Enika staggered to her bed across the room. Nyx’s hand shot out and caught his wrist. Her eyes were open when he turned back to her. “Stay with me?” she asked, her bottom lip almost trembling. “Please?”
There wasn’t a force in the world that could have made him leave her.
He kicked off his boots and eased down next to her as carefully as he could, because every movement hurt her, and he could see the pain in her eyes. Resting his head next to her, the silk of her wings brushing his cheek, he slid his arm across her ribs, the only place he knew that wasn’t burned. A smile fluttered across her face, brief and painful, and her eyes slid closed.
She was his. He had her back.
All it took was both of them nearly dying several times.
He listened to her breathe. The tunnels were nearly silent — the thick cave walls muffled almost all sound, and although the people beyond that door were awake and buzzing, the only sound he heard was Nyx’s soft breathing, the occasional hum and crackle of her blood, and Enika’s whimpering. He wondered idly if the nightmares would ever stop — if they found peace, would the horror ever leave his sister alone?
He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep. Nyx had no clock in her room, and the only light came from the crack under her door. Suddenly, though, he was surrounded by screaming, RayAnna’s hands tugging him off the bed, and Nyx…
Nyx was gone.
He caught a glimpse of her as she shot out through the doorway. Her wings were already burning, and the blood ball sizzled in her hand.
“What’s going on?” he yelled. The room was filled with people. Mostly children, everyone crying and screaming. Enika was fighting her way to the stairs, ax in hand.
“The Pys found a way in. They’re attacking the tunnels.” RayAnna sobbed, curled into a ball, half hidden under Nyx’s bed. “There are so many dead already.”
“Pys or humans?” he bellowed when she buried her face in her hands. But he knew the answer. If it had been Pys, RayAnna would have no reason to be crying.
He jerked his boots on, nearly falling over three times as adrenaline made his hands shake.
“Where are you going?” RayAnna asked, her hand gripping his leg, fingernails digging into his skin.
“I’m going to help. Stay here. Lock the door behind me.” He grabbed his gun, checking to make sure it was loaded as he waded through the sea of people. There was no need for the bow and arrow. Nyx’s blood would do no good against the Pys.
Nothing would, actually. Nothing except Nyx.
He caught up to Enika at the top step. She pulled the thick door shut behind her with shaking hands, and then turned to the tunnels. “I don’t know which way to go,” she whispered.
Cole sucked in a ragged breath. “Follow the screaming.”
At last count, Keven had told him they had over 300 people in the compound. Cole would guess there were at least fifty crammed into Nyx’s room. They passed another hundred in the amphitheater, and maybe twenty five more in the cafeteria.
And they passed dozens and dozens dead, hearts and throats torn out and tossed aside, in their search for Nyx. Twice, Enika had to stop and throw up. Twice, he thought of telling her to go back. But he wasn’t stupid enough to believe she would even think about it, and he felt better having her here, by his side, than in a room that the Pys could take out in less than ten minutes.
Nyx, though, would never let that happen.
He could smell the acid in the air before they turned the corner and found where Keven and Blair, Justin, Trigger and Mike and a handful of others were making their last stand. There were four Pys alive and screaming, one dead on the ground. In between it all was Nyx, more terrifying and more beautiful than he had ever seen her. She’d been hit — he could see the sizzling wound from their blood balls. But she didn’t seem to notice. Her hands moved so fast they blurred, throwing everything she had at the Pys in front of her. Sometimes, all she could grab was air, but the force she threw it with knocked them back, breaking bones and splitting their skin. That, doubled with the guns from her backup, and they were holding their own.
Cole swung his gun up, barely taking time to aim before he pulled the trigger. It exploded into the small cave, over and over in rapid succession. The Pys took the heat, but it didn’t kill them.
The Pys outnumbered her, four to one.
He reloaded, jamming another magazine in, and swung the gun up again.
“I need something to fight with,” he heard Enika cry, and then the ax fell to the ground and she was gone, sprinting back the way they came.
He stared in shock at the discarded ax. Enika never left that thing behind.
There was no time to worry about Enika. Nyx took another hit, crying out as she tumbled backward. Her wing, this time, and the hole went clear through.
She was grounded.
But she was fast. His Phoenyx, she’d been a runner. Apparently, she’d held on to that skill. She sprinted back up the tunnel, her feet blurring against the cement, jumping off the side of the wall and catapulting herself into the Py leading the attack. All he could see of her hands were claws, tearing at the Py. As the other three surged forward, the boys attacked, pushing them back with the sheer force of their barrage.
Nyx finally got what she was after as her claws ripped open the Py’s throat. Lifeless, the leader slid to the ground, her blue, sparking blood staining the cement under her.
Nyx was already on her feet. By now, her torn wing was covered in blood — hers, and the Pys she fought. One arm was torn open from elbow to shoulder, and she was burned and cut in too many other places to count. But she didn’t pause, didn’t slow. She fought with tooth and nail and whatever she could grab from around them.
“We’re running low!” Keven yelled. “Cole?”
“Incoming!” Cole ripped a magazine out of his back pocket and tossed it up the corridor. Keven grabbed it, slammed it into his gun, and whirled back toward the fight.
Enika shot past him, carrying a rag.
A burning rag.
Dropping it against the concrete, she shoved the end of an arrow into the flame, then fitted it into the bow. “Nyx!” Enika screamed.
Without looking, as though reading Enika’s mind, Nyx dodged sideways, and the arrow flew past her head, into the Py’s open, shrieking mouth. Nyx doused it in her own blood, and it exploded, splattering the Py’s head all over the walls. Again and again, Enika shot her flaming arrows as the boys kept up their barrage of bullets. Nyx melded with them, creating new attacks,
new ways to kill their enemy.
The last Py standing, half-burning, turned and fled through the tunnels, her claws tearing apart anyone she came in contact with. Keven dropped his gun in front of him, falling exhausted against the wall. Blair attempted to shake out his arms.
Nyx went after the Py.
She didn’t even hesitate, didn’t acknowledge that she was almost in as bad of shape as the Pys she left behind. Her torn wing tucked tight against her side and she sprinted down the corridor, a dark blur in the smoky light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NYX HAD TO CLIMB OUT OF the trap door.
Up a ladder.
She’d jumped, expecting her wings to snap out and catch her, lift her like always, but the left one didn’t catch. It just sent massive spasms of pain shooting through her body as blood — her own — rained down on her.
So she’d been forced to climb.
By that time the Py was in the street. Nyx could see the Garce in the shadows, coming because the smell of blood hung in the air like a mist.
So many dead.
Nyx shoved herself to her feet and raced after her, ignoring the Garce. If she got away — if she made it back to the ship, wherever that may be, she’d come back with a force bigger than Nyx could handle. They’d all be slaughtered.
Or worse, taken.
So Nyx ignored the pain, ignored the exhaustion and the way her legs felt woozy underneath her. She ignored the way her body tried to shut down or pass out, and she ran.
Like the hounds of hell were on her heels.
The Py had risen into the air, almost higher than Nyx could reach. She raised her hands, calling on everything she had left — which was frighteningly little — and lit the blood ball on fire.
Enika had followed her out.
Nyx pulled. It took so much energy, so much power that she just didn’t have, but she pulled hard enough, and caught the flame from Enika’s arrow. It burned around her hand, so pretty, so deadly. Whirling back toward the Py trying to disappear into the night sky, she threw it. The fire ball rolled through the mist, gathering energy as it went and growing bigger and bigger. The Py tried to dodge, swinging to the left, but, ironically, it hit her in the wing and burned a hole clear through. She tumbled through the sky, end over end, shrieking in horror, until she landed with a thud in on the weed-covered asphalt of Wall Avenue. Nyx made it around the corner just in time to see the Garce attack, five or six of them at once, tearing the Py into pieces while she screamed. Their howls of pain soon replaced the screaming Py — her blood poisoned them even though they craved it.
Like a drug.
Nyx slowly fell to her knees, finally allowing herself to tuck her wounded wing in close. She’d have to get up and fight, in a second. She’d have to kill the Garce because the Pys had ripped open their tunnels, and the Garce could just waltz right in.
But at that moment, she couldn’t. Her hands wouldn’t obey, and her entire body felt drained. She could barely see straight.
Behind her, someone screamed.
Nyx whirled, falling over in the dirt, trying to get her hazy vision to focus.
And then she wished she hadn’t.
RayAnna was in the arms of a Py. One Nyx hadn’t even seen — one who must have been waiting in the shadows. Two more emerged, with two more women in their hands, and the Pys shot into the night sky before Nyx could even make it to her feet.
The humans followed. Cole. Blair. Keven.
They followed with their guns, and Nyx felt like she was watching it all through a telescope. It was slightly distorted and not quite real.
Until Enika started screaming too.
“Nyx!”
The haze burned off, and Nyx was on her feet, racing down 25th street, throwing blood balls wrapped in moonlight, dirt, water, whatever she could find because she had nothing left. But the Pys were faster than she was, and there were more of them. One fought back, hitting Nyx until she fell and couldn’t get up.
Through a mist of blood, Nyx watched her best friend disappear into the darkness.
I’m so sorry.
COLE RAN A HAND across his face, watching Nyx fighting with the pain. They’d not had any idea how injured she was until she’d fallen. She’d fought like a demon until the very end.
Which was just what the Pys had counted on.
She was just one girl. Even The Nine together probably wouldn’t have been able to fight off that attack, and Nyx had attempted to do it all on her own. He couldn’t get the image of her between the boys and the Pys, fighting them off, protecting the compound.
Always, after that, was the image of her falling, reaching for Enika as her body gave way.
He’d thought she was dead.
They’d wrapped her wing as best they could. Bound her injuries. Even with the moon high above them, she was slow to heal.
“She lost too much blood.” Keven had his head in his hands and stared at the floor. “I don’t know what to do. We can’t give her a transfusion. Our blood doesn’t match hers anymore.”
Blair paced. He limped, because he’d been hit with a claw across the thigh, but still he walked. Back and forth and back and forth across along the wall across the room. “What about the Garce?”
“We can hold them off. We’ve got enough arrows to keep them away until we can get the tunnels fixed.”
Blair shook his head. “No, their blood. Can it heal her? She said that’s how the Pys are immortal, right? She can’t use our blood, but can she use theirs?”
Keven looked up. Cole froze. The room went silent.
“Where, exactly, would we get Garce blood from?” Trigger asked slowly.
“There are dead Garce just around the corner. The ones that attacked that Py.”
Everyone spoke at once, but no one said what they were all thinking. Enika and RayAnna and three others had been taken. And they had no way to get them back.
Their only Guardian lay dying before their eyes.
“Honestly, good luck finding anyone that will go out there. Even if it is only twenty feet away from our nearest doorway,” Justin said.
“Even to save her?” Keven asked flatly.
They fell silent.
“I’ll do it,” Cole said, because if it was between his life or hers, he would choose hers, every time. Nyx had a chance of saving his sister. He didn’t.
“She needs you here.” Blair pushed him back into his seat. “I’ll go.”
“This is insane. We don’t even know if it will help her. What are you going to do, pour it down her throat with a straw? They’ve been out there for over an hour. They probably don’t have any blood left.”
“We have to check,” Blair snarled. Without another word, he stormed up the stairs and slammed out of the door.
Justin swore, ran a hand through his hair, and went after him.
Cole leaned his head against the bed, assaulted by memories more horrific than he could bear.
“We’ll get them back, Cole. Enika is tough. She’ll keep them safe.”
Cole just shook his head, gripping Nyx’s hand tighter. Through her touch, he could find strength, but not peace. There might never be peace again.
When Blair and Justin didn’t return in an hour, Keven went to find them. He’d restocked his ammo and kept his belt full at all times. They all did. But against the Pys, should they return, all the ammo in the world did nothing.
An eternity later, with nothing but Cole and Nyx and her ragged, unneeded breathing, her ice cold hands, and her torn wing, Keven came back with Blair and Justin.
Cole looked up, taking in their dirty, dusty clothes and the black bottle Blair held in his hands.
“Pepsi,” Keven said with a small smile. Because Phoenyx had loved Pepsi with ever fiber of her being.
Cole tipped her head up, lowering her chin so her mouth opened. “Are you sure it’s still… good? From the dead Garce…”
“This is fresh.” Blair leaned next to him on the bed, and Cole could see the fresh
wounds across his arms and hands.
“You were attacked?” Cole asked needlessly.
Keven nodded. “They’re loitering. Trying to figure out how to get in. I put more people on the rebuilding team.”
Blair pulled the straw out of the bottle, his finger over one end to hold the liquid inside, and positioned it over Nyx’s mouth. Slowly, his hand shaking just a bit, he dropped the black, shadowy blood down her throat.
Nothing happened.
So he did it again. And again, and again, until the bottle was empty.
Sitting back in defeat, he dropped the bottle. It clattered to the floor but didn’t break. “I guess I was wrong,” he murmured.
Cole went back to holding Nyx’s hand in his, trying to share his warmth because she was ice cold. In his mind, he created and discarded plan after plan for going after Enika and the others.
They all required him to actually have an idea of where Enika was.
The sun rose and fell and they sat silently. Keven came and went, barking out orders and yelling for Blair when the Garce came too close. Thus far, they had held them off. No one asked Cole to move or to help. They left him alone, a fact he was grateful for.
He heard Keven calling for the second shift, which meant it was nine p.m. He raised his head to stretch his neck, searching, as always, her pale face.
This time, she looked back at him.
He yelped and sat back in shock. Her eyes were pure blue, no trace of the brown that had sometimes fought its way through the azure irises before. There was no black pupil. Just pure, metallic blue staring back at him.
Holy hell, they’d changed her completely.
But he didn’t let go of her hand. “Nyx?” he whispered, swallowing hard. Please be my Nyx. Please be my Nyx. Please be—
She growled.
His heart stopped and his breath froze in his chest. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do. If she had changed, she’d kill the whole compound. But he couldn’t — he couldn’t fight her. It was Nyx.
“How—how long—?” she asked, and then rolled onto her side and coughed. Blood, hers and Garce, stained the comforter and the floor and the back of her hand as she wiped her mouth.