“Goddamnit. Come on, you lazy oaf, wake the hell up—”
“Oh my god. Aaron. Aaron!” Another panicked voice brought my cursing to a halt. I looked up at Amber’s stricken face as she saw him and the deep crimson shade of his clothing.
“He’s fine. Unconscious, but fine,” I told her. Her hands shook as she got down and frantically searched for a wound.
“But there’s so much blood!”
“Amber—”
“So much—”
I slapped her.
“Damnit, Amber, he’s fine! I’m his signasti. Wouldn’t I know? Anastasia slit his throat, but I fixed it. Okay? So I need you to calm down.” I spoke in a calm, self-assured voice, even though I was anything but. The truth is that I was worried, but I didn’t have time to perseverate. He was alive, and for now that would have to do.
Amber lifted a hand to her cheek, her lips parting in surprise. It took a full three seconds for the dazed and confused look to wear off and she saw the scene for what it was.
“We need to move him,” she started slowly.
“Yes,” I nodded. “But I need to be here fighting. Anastasia is still around here somewhere, and I did not just stick my neck out for her to slip between my fingers. Can you get him to the elevator on your own?”
“Go. I will take care of him. You’re needed out there.” She didn’t waste another second speaking with me as she turned her full attention to Ash. I knew he was alright. I felt it. But I wanted to be with him and I couldn’t. There was nothing I could say or do now.
I pulled myself up, breathing in the blood and stench of death.
All around me people were fighting.
Where they had come from, I didn’t know, but they were clearly here.
What I did notice was that not even one was a Vampire. Made or Born.
My eyes swept the street, searching for signs of Anastasia.
I found Johanna holding her own against three larger males, Oliver and Liam had teamed up while Scarlett appeared to be using this as a chance to take out her anger on those she viewed as traitors. I couldn’t say I blamed her when I was searching for where in god’s name Lucas had gone.
Of course, it was right at that moment that I saw it.
Fire. Hellfire, to be specific, coming from the other end of the market.
I took off sprinting and didn’t look back.
Chapter 135
Obsidian flames swirled before me. A tempest of death. Of ruin.
I could not control the flames of hell, nor could I find a way through them to the other side. A nasty combination of rain and ice hailed around us, but the cyclone before me stayed untouched, acting as a wall of flame that separated me from my sister.
No one could put those flames out except for Alexandra.
No one but me could talk her demon down.
I ran at the wall of fire hoping for one desperate moment that I was wrong. Just as I began to feel any heat, the fire brought me to an abrupt stop. I rebounded, falling on my ass.
No. This can’t be happening. It can’t be—
What was I doing? Sitting here, panicking like this was the end of the line. I was a matter manipulator, goddamnit. Anything was possible. Isn’t that what I keep saying?
There was a way into the cyclone and I was going to find it.
Trying to break through that wall would be useless. I couldn’t even see on the other side, and with Alexandra’s powers interfering with my own, ground entry wasn’t going to be an option.
Which only left the top.
Where the winds were the worst and the fire fanned in wide sweeps.
It was also a solid hundred feet high off the ground. Higher than I could easily jump.
But not so high that I couldn’t lift myself.
Heat pounded at my head as I began to sweat through my clothes. I couldn’t burn, but that fire was hotter than anything here on earth. This was going to be one hell of a stunt if I could pull it off.
I widened my feet in a solid stance, closing my eyes. Darkness and death awaited me there, but it wasn’t my mind that I was taking a trip through. I reached for the power inside me, the energy that whorled beneath my skin. It zapped through, pulling the air tight.
At its most primal level, I could build and destroy. Create and recreate.
At a fundamental level in how I learned control, it all started with one thing.
Moving an object from one place to another.
This wasn’t so different, right?
Right now was not the time to be questioning myself. I didn’t need the Selena that was working through her shit. I needed the Selena that never gave a shit. The one that fought down demons and Vampires without blinking an eye. The one that collapsed a building in her rage and grief.
The one that created an earthquake that spread hundreds of miles.
I needed a way to be both her and the girl I’ve been.
To be neither of them, and simultaneously both.
I needed to be…whole.
I could not be the girl I was three months ago any more than I could be the girl I was three days ago, or the girl I would be tomorrow. All I could be is what I was now. In this moment.
And right now, it was time for the world to know that the matter manipulators had returned.
That I had returned. That I was fighting. That I would not give up.
I would not bow. I would not accept failure.
Success was the only option.
And with that thought, I launched myself into the air. The winds Blair generated became my booster as I swept them up under my body, sending me higher. The air thinned as I shot well above the cyclone, reaching my pinnacle directly above the swirling vortex of fire and ash.
I hovered midair at the apical of my leap, staring down into the hellscape that awaited me. From this angle, it looked like the gaping mouth of a giant beast waiting to swallow the world whole. I could not make out the bottom, but I also did not feel fear. For my sister, for my vengeance, for my Ash—down the rabbit hole I would go.
Gravity caught up with me, whereas at the height of my jump it had been a vacuum, now I was sucked into the wormhole.
Fire licked at my exposed hands, eating at the edges of my clothes. A roaring filled my ears with the shouts and screams of those both inside the cyclone and the flames themselves. The scent of burning flesh and fur and cloth made me close my mouth and hold my breath against the ashes that sprayed the air.
I bit my tongue as the ground rushed in. Faster and faster, bracing my legs for the impact that was to come. I extended my feet, softening my knees, and at the very first touch of ground beneath my feet, I let my momentum carry me downward.
Strands of purple and black energy exploded outward as I landed, kneeling in the dirt, a single fist planted in the baked mud. The ground trembled upon my impact, collapsing inward before the force rolled out in a tidal wave of dirt and concrete.
A veil of dust and debris billowed in the sharp breeze as the rain and ice and fire began to die away. I swept a hand out and the cloud of filth sank to the ground where it settled in the mud.
In front of me, the terrain slanted, climbing until it tapered at the top. I frowned, rising off my knee to turn in a circle.
Suddenly, the slant made sense when I realized it wasn’t an odd change in terrain, but that I stood at the bottom of a crater. One that my impact had created.
I turned in circles. Looking for any sign of my sister among the bodies that littered the ground.
But her fiery red hair wasn’t one of them. I swallowed hard, unable to assume the worst.
Because if I did, if I let myself think that something could have possibly happened to her…it wasn’t an option.
“Alexandra!” I yelled, my voice growing hoarse on the third shout. I turned in circles, searching far and wide for either her or Anastasia, but neither of them were anywhere to be found. However, someone else was.
“You,” I spat, leaping from the crater to flat grou
nd.
I stalked toward Lucas, prepared to deliver the wrath of a god.
“Selena,” Tori warned. There was an edge to her voice as she stepped in front of her brother. I didn’t even think twice about pushing her aside.
“You lying piece of shit,” I snarled. “Where are they?”
“Where is who?” Lucas asked, grinning like a damn fool. He readjusted his suit coat and presented me with a million-dollar smile.
Like a dog kicked one too many times, I snapped back.
Faster than he or anyone could react, I wrapped my hand around his neck and squeezed, drawing a tight, audible gasp. I pulled him down, making him fall to his knees before me.
“Where is Anastasia? Where’d she take Alexandra? Where is Lily being held?” I shouted in his face, not paying enough attention to how hard I squeezed. Lucas’s eyes started to turn red around the pupils as he attempted to pull my hand from his neck.
“Let go of him,” Tori ordered. I didn’t twitch a muscle.
“Not until he tells me what I want to know.”
I squeezed tighter, willing Lucas to talk. Willing him to fix this broken desperation in my chest that made me want to scratch and claw and scream.
“You’re killing him!” she screamed. Small, pale hands tried to pry us apart, but Tori was no match for a demon.
And me—I was no match for my rage.
“If he dies, then I’ll be seeing him in hell,” I replied.
A bright red flush crept up his cheeks, quickly replaced by a darker purple. I shook him once, squeezing tighter. Liquid condensed in the corners of his eyes, spilling over, down his cheeks, dropping onto my hand.
I could do it. Right here and now.
Crush his windpipe. Hold him down as he choked to death by my touch.
My touch that he craved so much, he got Lily killed. He tried to get Ash killed. And now Alexandra was missing.
He deserved this—he deserved to die—
“Don’t do it.” The voice surpassed all shields, permeating every crevice of my mind, making his presence known.
Ash.
“Don’t do it, Selena. He’s not worth it.”
“She got away, Ash!” I rasped, breathing hard. “Anastasia got away. Alexandra is missing. We don’t know where Lily is. It’s his fault. He deserves this—”
“If you kill him, you’ll regret it.”
And there it was. The truth. Cold and hard like a bitter pill. I didn’t want to swallow it, but here’s the thing about facts. When all that other shit fell to the wayside, the truth would remain. It would endure.
“I hate him,” I whispered vehemently, but my grip loosened a notch.
“Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.”
I took a shallow, unsteady breath, trying to prepare myself for what I was going to do next when his lips moved.
“No…ake…Ale…”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion, trying to make out what he was saying. His eyes locked on something just behind me before rolling back in his head. I repeated it over in my mind. Blinking rapidly when it clicked. “Not…take…Alexandra.”
I dropped Lucas and spun where I stood.
The black market looked like something truly out of hell.
Tents had been burned. Blood ran in the streets. The dead littered the ground. The skies calmed down to release a light misting. The cyclone of hellfire had died out entirely leaving only small patches here and there that continued to burn, but those were fading too. Slowly, but surely.
I searched the hellscape we created for a shock of bright red hair.
A light in the darkness.
But no such hair existed.
Behind me were Tori and Lucas.
Coming down the street, Oliver was helping a hobbling Johanna while Scarlett carried Liam.
Amber and Ash were nowhere in sight, but if he could pass my shields and speak to me, I knew they were okay.
To my left, the market had been decimated. Whether it had been my earth shattering, crater-creating impact—or the storm Blair created—I wasn’t sure.
But standing on top of ten-foot-tall pile of ruined booths and splintered wood were Alec and Blair. They were ripping debris and garbage up by the handful, desperately trying to get to something—someone—when a hand shot through the hole they’d created.
My heart thrummed, hopeful but so scared to hope.
A second hand appeared and Blair leaned over to grasp them both.
Pulling up a girl with flaming…black hair.
She released her and the other girl lifted her chin, searching the remains of the devastated market. She twisted her hands together, a familiar nervous gesture. I doubt she even noticed the way she picked at her hair, even though it was on fire and kind of hard to ignore.
Her eyes met mine and I had to think this wasn’t a complete and total failure.
One of her eyes was the same chocolate brown it’d always been.
The other was midnight black.
Alexandra and her demon had merged.
My little sister was safe and sound, even from herself.
I just wished I could say the same about the other one.
Chapter 136
I sat at the end of the couch with Ash’s head in my lap. The light coming from the fireplace reflected shadows across his face, still pale from the blood loss.
I suppose I should have been counting my blessings that I was able to save him, but after what went down tonight…I shook my head, running my fingers through his hair.
Someone squeezed my shoulder gently and I looked up. Blair stood beside me, leaning against the couch. Her grey eyes were shadowed, as if she was still fighting with the beast that lurked within.
“What happened out there tonight?” I asked her, still unable to believe it all myself. “We had them. Anastasia was in the market. How did she get away?”
Blair shook her head, sighing deeply.
“It’s not that simple.” She shifted away from the couch and went to the double French doors that overlooked the grounds. Not that much could be seen with the skies as dark and ominous as they were, hiding what little light the moon gave off.
“Not that simple,” I breathed. My hands clenched into fists. “My sister is still missing. Ash almost died tonight. Meanwhile, Lucas is downstairs still breathing and you want to tell me it’s not that simple?” I demanded, a wave of hysteria and madness entering my tone. It had nothing to do with being crazy, and everything to do with the impossible cards I’d been dealt.
“We were ambushed,” Alexandra cut in. She sat leaning against the side of the fireplace, resting her flaming hair against the marble exterior. She hadn’t figured out how to extinguish them, but it didn’t seem to burn anything it touched.
Still, it was better to be cautious before she sent the whole mansion up in flames.
“Ambushed?”
“Yes, but it’s not what you think. After the group split, we waited in the alley like we were supposed to. Everything was going according to plan. You and Aaron left. As soon as the screaming started, Jo and her group followed. Tam had Xellos open the portal to start getting people out…” She hesitated, her eyebrows drawing together. “The elevator opened behind us and the next thing I knew, we had a dozen Born Vampires in the alleyway. If it weren’t for Alec already hiding us, we would have been slaughtered before we could act.”
I blinked. “That’s not possible. I saw the High Council’s reaction when Gregory Kamarov showed up. There’s no way they would have tried to save her.”
Alexandra’s eyebrows went up as she shrugged semi-sarcastically. “Well then, I don’t know what to tell you because that’s sure as hell what it looked like,” she snapped.
“Even if they did,” I started, taking a deep breath to try and keep my temper, “we were trained to hunt Vampires. A dozen Born against you, Blair, Tori, and Alec shouldn’t have been a problem.”
Alexandra shrugged again, looking away sharply.
Ther
e was something she wasn’t telling me.
I opened my mouth to call her on it when another voice piped up.
“It was my fault.” Tori raised her head away from her tucked knees, tears glistening in her eyes.
“What?”
True to my promise with myself, I couldn’t find it in me to be terribly sympathetic given my night, but I didn’t rip her apart immediately.
“I saw Lucas with her and thought I could do somethin’,” she said as her voice trembled. “I ran out into the street after him and the Born saw. Alec came after me. Then him and Lucas started fightin’ and Blair got involved. She almost killed Lucas because he almost killed Alec, and next thing I knew, everythin’ was on fire and Anastasia was gone.”
Silence. Or as much silence as there could be with my blood roaring in my ears.
She blew everything for that lying piece-of-shit that had my sister murdered.
I couldn’t even respond because the only possible thing I could come up with either involved throwing her out the window or telling her how much of an idiot she was—when neither action would help us now.
For better or for worse, I just had to deal.
“So, basically what I’m hearing is that the Born took Anastasia, but no one bothered with Lucas.” I figured repeating the facts to make sure I had this right was the safest thing to do at the moment, for both me and her. Tori nodded, sharing a broken look with my sister that I was positive I wasn’t meant to see. If I was being frank, her being Alexandra’s rock was one of the only reasons I wasn’t tearing into her right then.
“Speaking of, what are we going to do with him?” Amber interrupted. She sat on the other end of the couch with Ash’s feet strewn across her lap. Dried blood saturated most of her shirt and stained her entire right arm and half her face. She was tougher than I gave her credit for.
“Question him,” I answered like it was obvious. Amber pursed her lips.
“If you do the questioning, he might ‘accidentally’ end up dead. You sure you want that on your conscience?” Amber asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“She won’t be doing the questioning,” Johanna answered. “I will.”
Daizlei Academy Omnibus Collection Page 80
