Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set

by Stephanie Fazio

“Kaira,” Smith called. “Mag cops on the way—”

  The rest of his words were drowned out by Yutika’s scream.

  “Michael!”

  He was on his hands and knees, his body unnaturally still as sweat streamed down his red face. Subject 6 was lying on his back. His invisibility flickered in and out.

  Michael groaned.

  Bri and Yutika raced toward them, but they both stopped before they reached the pair. My friends cried out and clutched their heads. I managed only a single step before nausea surged through my gut. Mental claws dug into my brain.

  Through vision that was spotted with darkness, I saw Subject 6 stagger to his feet.

  I was desperate to stop him, but my legs weren’t working. Every time I tried to so much as lift my foot, the pain in my head became too unbearable to think about anything else.

  Subject 6 limped down the hallway toward A.J.

  No.

  Sir Zachary, who had been at A.J.’s side, leapt in front of Subject 6 and started to bark fire. Without warning, Subject 6 disappeared from view.

  At that moment, I was able to reclaim control over my mind. My legs unfroze.

  “Come back here, you bastard!” Bri screamed, racing down the hallway after Subject 6. Gray was right on her heels.

  They disappeared into the stairwell.

  I started after them, but I was barefoot, and glass shards from the syringes were strewn across the floor. I picked my way carefully. I was afraid that if I cut my foot and got so much as a drop of the Magical Reduction Potion in an open wound, I might lose my magic.

  “Kaira, cops!” Smith shouted.

  I switched directions and helped Yutika haul a stunned Michael to his feet.

  “Get yourselves and the crew team back in the limo,” I shouted, just as a ruckus from the stairway announced the arrival of the police. “I’ll distract the cops.”

  I pulled out my phone and waved it at Yutika, letting her know I’d call as soon as I’d taken care of the cops.

  Yutika gave me a thumbs-up, and then she turned back to help Michael. One of Gray’s teammates got under Michael’s other arm, and together, they heaved him up.

  “Hey,” I called to the cops who had just emerged in the hallway. “Over here!”

  I hopped over the broken glass as I made my way toward them. Smiling to myself, I transformed my appearance so I took on the guise of an eight-foot-tall grizzly bear.

  The Mag cops blinked. They’d clearly been trained not to react to illusions. Except, it was unlikely they’d ever experienced an Illusionist as powerful as me.

  Time to up the stakes.

  I opened my mouth, rearranging my illusion so it looked like the bear was showing off its monstrous teeth. I held out my hands, letting the cops see razor-sharp claws.

  That was all it took.

  One of the cops screamed. Another wet himself. They all fled back up the stairs, away from my friends.

  I chased them outside, where passersby shrieked at the sight of a grizzly bear on the streets of Boston.

  Gray was going to be so upset he missed this.

  I herded the cops into their cruisers and ran down the street after them, just to make sure my friends had enough time to get away. Then, I ran around the block until I found a pile of garbage cans that hid me from view while I dropped my illusion.

  I was exhausted from the effort the illusion had required. For several seconds, I leaned against a brick wall and breathed.

  My phone started to vibrate, and I connected the call without even looking at the screen.

  “I’m at—” I glanced at the nearby street signs, “Medford and Cook Street. I’ll meet you guys at the corner.”

  “Kaira Hansley?”

  The voice on the other end of the line was familiar, but not one I’d been expecting. I looked down at my screen and saw Joseph Galder’s number.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, putting the phone back to my ear.

  “Kaira, we need to talk,” Joseph said.

  “Um, yes. Absolutely.” I grimaced as my bare foot came down on something slimy. A.J. was going to murder me for what I’d done to this dress. “How about tomorrow morning? I can bring Gray—”

  “No,” Joseph said quickly. “I need to talk to you alone. Right now.”

  “Joseph, this really isn’t the best time,” I said, picking my way around an overturned trash can and heading back toward the main street.

  “Please,” he said, sounding desperate. “It’s about Graysen. I have to talk to you about Graysen. Just stay where you are. I’ll be right there.”

  “What about Gray?” I asked, getting worried.

  No answer. When I glanced at the screen, I saw the call had ended.

  I was redialing Joseph’s number when a car came to a screeching halt next to the alley I was in. The tinted window rolled down, and an unfamiliar man in a business suit poked his head out.

  “Kaira Hansley?” he asked.

  “Um, yes?”

  I moved closer to a street light and gripped my phone.

  “Don’t worry,” the man said as he exited the car. “Joseph sent me. I’m from the Magical Marking Office, and I just have a few questions for you.”

  My blood turned to ice. I started to run.

  I heard the man’s shoes pounding the sidewalk behind me. I skidded to a stop when another suit-clad man came around from the driver’s side, pegging me in.

  I darted to the side and leapt off the curb. My foot landed wrong, and I went down as my ankle gave way. I scrambled back up, ignoring the pain that shot up my leg. Before I could make it into the street, one of the men grabbed my arm hard enough to bruise. I turned to knee him in the groin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other man close in on me. He raised his arm.

  A needle descended. And then, there was only blackness.

  CHAPTER 46

  Itried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt heavy. My head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton.

  Where was I?

  The couch beneath me felt familiar, but I couldn’t move my head to take in my surroundings. I tried to speak, but my lips weren’t working right.

  The fog over my mind began to lift. I blinked and found myself looking into familiar blue-green eyes.

  Except, something was wrong. These eyes weren’t full of love. They were cold. Empty.

  That was when I realized why the couch I was on felt familiar. I was in Joseph Galder’s house. And he was sitting on the chair facing me.

  I tried to shift and found I couldn’t move. Looking up, I noticed the Nat cops who stood on either side of the couch, pinning my arms in place.

  “What is this?” I asked, my voice groggy.

  “I apologize for lying to you,” Joseph told me in a cool voice. “But I knew you wouldn’t have agreed if I told you the truth.”

  “Agreed to what?” I tried to stand, but the cops held me in place. “What have you done to me?”

  I glanced to the side, and that was when I saw the man standing against the wall with his legs crossed. It was the man in the suit…the one who—

  “You drugged me!”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I became aware of a faint burning in my neck, right where he’d stuck me with the needle.

  “What the hell, Joseph?” I demanded.

  “I want to be very clear with you, Kaira,” Joseph said. “This is not about retribution for ruining my career and my son’s life. This is about setting an example that will, in time, help end the violence that you have perpetuated.”

  “What are you talking about?” I tried to wrench my arms free, but the cops only tightened their grip.

  “I’m talking about the fact that you continually hold yourself above the law,” Joseph told me. “By breaking high laws, you’ve given others permission to do the same. You have broken the careful unity the Alliance worked so hard to build. Now, innocent Naturals and Magics are suffering. I may no longer be part of the Magical Marking Office, but I still have a duty
to uphold the laws of the Alliance to save the people of Boston.”

  He nodded to the suit, who approached me as he might a rabid animal.

  “Kaira, this is Tim Allistair,” Joseph said. “He’s the head of the Magical Marking Office. I believe the two of you spoke recently.”

  My eyes darted to the man’s arm, which was held behind his back like he was hiding something.

  I gave Joseph an accusatory look. “I was trying to get you your job back so you wouldn’t hold that against your son anymore. Not so the two of you could conspire to kidnap me.”

  “UnMarked Magics are the reason why this city has devolved into violence,” Tim Allistair said calmly, ignoring my prior comment. “The rest of the world is watching us, and if the Alliance falls, countless lives will be lost in the ensuing violence.” He stepped closer to the couch.

  I stopped struggling against the cops. Maybe if Allistair thought I was done fighting, he would come close enough for me to kick out his kneecaps.

  “You are a symbol of hope and defiance to Magics nation-wide,” Allistair told me. “When it becomes known that not even you are above the law, other unMarked Magics will come to see that our laws are the cornerstone of peace and unity.”

  “I’m pretty sure kidnapping is illegal, too,” I pointed out.

  “This is all perfectly legal,” Tim Allistair assured me. “Boston police have been fully appraised of the situation.” He nodded to the men restraining me. “And the acting Alliance Director has given us permission to proceed.”

  Pruwist.

  That sleazy, slimy, son-of-a-bitch. As soon as I got out of here, I was going to wring that man’s neck.

  “Haven’t you noticed the pattern with all the violence?” Joseph asked me. “Ex-Director Remwald was an unMarked Magic. So is this Super Magic who has murdered members of a group that promotes peace.” He stared at me with eyes that were and weren’t like Gray’s. “If you care about Boston citizens the way you say you do, then how can you think Magics shouldn’t be Marked?”

  The men all stared at me, waiting for some kind of response. I opened my mouth and then closed it before any sound escaped.

  I’d never before thought of magic as good or bad. It was a part of me… just like any other organ in my body. Mags shouldn’t be punished for something that was part of us.

  I thought about my family. I thought about the way their trackers had been used to hunt them down so they could be slaughtered like animals.

  But then I thought about our encounters with Subject 6, and how helpless I’d been when he was breaking my mind. I thought about what he’d done to Bri, and how he’d forced her to hurt our friends.

  The men were right about Remwald using his illusions to kill. And then there were the UnAllied, who wanted to use their magic to enslave Nats.

  Were these men right? Was I giving Mags tacit permission to bring terror and death to our city, because I was publicly arguing for the abolition of the second high law?

  The thought chilled me to the bone.

  “I hope you will see this as a kindness, rather than a cruelty,” Joseph said.

  Allistair brought his hands around, displaying a tray full of medical instruments.

  “No.” I began to struggle again, yanking my arms and kicking out with my bare feet. “I’d rather die than be Marked,” I said savagely.

  “We were hoping you would make the right decision and go through this willingly,” Allistair said. He sighed. “But the Magical Marking Office will not permit a known second law-breaker to remain unMarked.

  The cop on my left side wrenched my arm around until my forearm was exposed.

  “I have a deal with Pruwist,” I said, fighting against the men who held me. “You can’t do this!”

  “This is an Alliance matter, not a personal one,” Allistair said as he pulled on surgical gloves. “The interim Director understands that the good of the city is more important than the desires of a single individual.”

  He tore open a small packet. The astringent smell of alcohol filled the room as he swiped the gauze pad across my forearm.

  The back of my dress was plastered to me as cold sweat trickled down my spine.

  “No, please,” I begged, trying to yank my arm away. “Joseph.” I turned to Gray’s dad. “Please don’t let them do this.”

  The small whimpers coming out of me were pathetic, and yet, there was nothing I could do to stop them.

  Something that might have been regret passed over Joseph’s face, and then it was gone. He wasn’t going to help me.

  I thrashed, but the cops only tightened their hold until I lost feeling in both my arms. The men all stayed far away from my flailing legs.

  “As I said before, this isn’t vindictive,” Joseph told me, as calm as I was frantic. “We will make an announcement after you’ve been Marked to help ease tensions in the city. It will be a consolation to the Naturals, who are demanding that the Super Magics and unMarked Magics be held accountable for all the violence they’re causing. Your Marking will stop the violence long enough for Dr. Pruwist to regain control over the city.”

  “Gray will never forgive you for this,” I gasped.

  Joseph said something in response, but I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of my pulse. I couldn’t breathe. Tears were blinding me, making me even more terrified because I couldn’t clearly see what was happening.

  Allistair picked something up from the tray with a pair of tweezers. He brought the tiny piece of metal in front of my face. It was a tracker.

  “No!”

  “This tracker has been technologically enhanced,” Allistair told me, unaffected by my sobbing and struggling. He bent the flexible piece of metal with the tweezers. “It will fuse around your artery, so if you try to cut it out, you’ll sever your artery.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joseph wince.

  My skin flickered from white to black to brown. It didn’t matter. There was no illusion that could disguise me. There was no face I could wear that would help me get away. I was trapped.

  My throat was closed off. I felt like I was suffocating.

  “Tim, perhaps we’ve been too hasty,” Joseph said. “Maybe we should—”

  The Head of the Magical Marking Office opened up another alcohol wipe and methodically cleaned a tiny knife that was lying on the tray.

  It took all of the cops’ concentration to hold me still. One of them wrapped his hand around my hair and yanked until I saw stars.

  The knife’s tiny blade came to rest along my forearm. I didn’t feel anything as it pierced my skin, but I saw the line of blood well to the surface. Allistair wiped it away with the alcohol pad and then picked up the tracker.

  I screamed.

  CHAPTER 47

  There was a crash. Allistair jerked back.

  “Kaira!”

  Gray.

  All at once, the vicious hold on my hair loosened. The cop sailed straight over my head. He hit the far wall with so much force he went right through it.

  Bri did the same to the other cop. Michael went for Joseph. Allistair scrambled back as the small knife came free of his hand, only to hover directly in front of his eye. No matter where Allistair moved, the knife moved with him.

  Gray came to me.

  I was free, but I couldn’t move. Black spots crowded at the corners of my vision.

  “Kai.” Graysen gently pried my arm out from where I’d tucked it under me. “Oh God. What did they do?”

  I wasn’t crying anymore, but my entire body was convulsing. I couldn’t make my throat work to answer him. Horrible, choking sounds were coming out of me, but I couldn’t stop.

  “Let me see.” Gray’s voice was soft, but his eyes were full of fire as he took in the long, bloody cut down my forearm.

  Gray said something to the others that I didn’t catch over the sound of my rapid, whistling breaths. Then, he was pulling me onto his lap.

  He held me while I shook and hyperventilated.

 
“I’ve got you,” Gray promised. “It’s over, babe. They’ll never touch you again.”

  He released me long enough to yank off his jacket and drape it over me. My teeth were chattering, and even with Gray’s body surrounding mine, I felt like a block of ice. I curled my fingers into Gray’s shirt, needing the solid anchor to keep me from falling apart.

  Bri bent down so she was eye level with me. She held up the tiny tracker between her fingers.

  “Kaira,” she said.

  Bri waited until my frantic gaze fixed on her. Then, she crushed the tracker in the palm of her hand.

  When Bri opened her fist, there was nothing left of the tracker except metallic dust.

  Even though I thought I’d never escape this nightmare, seeing the tracker destroyed calmed me.

  “How—how did you find me?”

  I was surprised to find that my voice sounded relatively normal.

  “Smith tracked your phone,” Gray said, tucking me closer against his chest.

  “Actually, I tracked his phone,” Smith said, pointing to Joseph, who was standing against the wall beside Allistair and the cops. “You dropped your phone in the street, so I checked the last number to call you, and—”

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  Gray held me through another bone-rattling shudder. When it was over, he cupped my face so we were nose-to-nose.

  “I’m going to leave you with Bri and Yutika for a minute, okay?”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, my voice wavering.

  There was a look in Gray’s eyes that I had only seen once before. It was the way he’d looked at Remwald after I’d almost died from a bullet wound one of his men had given me.

  “I’m going to fucking kill them all,” Graysen said in a low growl.

  He got off the couch. Bri and Yutika immediately wedged themselves in on either side of me.

  “Gray, don’t,” I told him. I tried to get up, but my legs were numb and I couldn’t get off the cushion.

  Gray’s gaze was fixed on his dad. I didn’t think he’d even heard me.

  Michael and A.J. stepped in front of Graysen.

  “Think about this,” Michael told him.