by Lina Jubilee
Very fast.
We both dodged as a bright purple blossom jutted out our way, Roulette tumbling and skidding on her butt.
I glanced down the street, but Darien was blocks ahead, caught in a battle with the elf woman. His ice had at least stopped her from growing the vines further.
Roulette’s healing blast certainly hadn’t, though.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” said Roulette, flicking her hand open again. This time the light burned through the blossom practically about to absorb us, shredding it to pieces that curled into ashes. “Yeah!” she shouted, clearly enjoying this.
I rushed up to her and grabbed her under both elbows, grunting as I lifted her to a standing position even as her hand kept blasting a hole through the blossom clear into the vine. She pivoted, taking that destructive power down the length of the plant, eating away at it and stopping just short of blasting through to the buildings and retreating pedestrians on the other side.
Then all of a sudden, the light emanating from her hand went out, the destruction of the vine halted.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Even if her boost from my lips had died out, she still should have been able to dole out some destructive power.
“I… I don’t know.” She flexed her fingers and shook her hand again. Nothing.
My blood ran cold. I dropped my hands from her, looking around, searching—
The elf princess Alanna peeked out from around the corner of an alleyway behind us.
“Hello,” she said quietly, and I heard her despite the chaos unfolding nearby.
Roulette looked gobsmacked. “This is the power-sucking princess you were talking about?”
Alanna stepped forward, removing the hood of her cloak from her head. “You know I’m a princess?”
“I told her,” I said. “Remember me? Yesterday? Coffee shop?”
A cry rang out from the north and Roulette and I both looked to see Darien staring at his hands, the elf woman he’d been battling doing the same—neither using their powers. The elf recovered first, though, and spun, kicking Darien in the gut.
“Babe!” shouted Roulette, but before she could so much as take two steps, Alanna rushed in front of her, crouching down in one fluid movement, her cloak billowing to the side. She extended a fist straight into Roulette’s stomach and Rou collapsed, spewing bile from her throat and gasping in pain.
“Rou!” I scrambled to her side like a fool and Alanna did a spin kick similar to that of her elven comrade and I just narrowly missed it, falling backward and slamming the back of my head on the sidewalk.
“Uh, shit!” I said, rolling over and feeling dizzy.
As I rolled, I blinked and Darien on the sidewalk down the block came into focus, the elf woman straddling him.
Fucknuts, I thought. Help! I pictured Zander, but I didn’t know if he could hear me in the nullifying princess’ vicinity. I didn’t know whether or not his powers could reach through.
A spark of light resounded overhead, and I blinked. Chastity. Down the block in the other direction.
But the light cut out as she tried to aim it down, Alanna somehow protecting herself with her nullification powers in a sphere-like shape over her head.
“Chastity!” I groaned, my voice too quiet as I sat back up. I put a hand to the back of my head and pulled it away to find it dotted with a little blood. I dragged myself over to Roulette. “Chastity is here,” I whispered.
“Stay down,” said Alanna, reaching for small knives she kept in sheaths in her belt. “If you don’t want to get hurt anymore, stay put.”
She walked around to the other side of us, putting herself between us and the approaching Chastity, her knives at the ready for close combat. She didn’t seem afraid of Chastity’s light powers at all—nor, I supposed, should she have been. Chastity kept blasting it straight at her, only to find it fizzling out partway. My teammate hesitated at the end of the block.
She’d probably figured out that if she took another step, she’d lose her ability to produce her power at all for around an hour. But she was a hand-to-hand combat master. Come on, Chastity, I thought.
“Darien,” said Roulette, her voice cracking.
I whipped around, ignoring the way my head pounded at the movement. Multiple elves were picking up a slumped-over Darien, dragging him away.
“What the—?” Then I remembered. Alarik had wanted to take me just yesterday. And a depowered Darien might serve just as well for whatever they’d had in mind.
Roulette struggled to her feet and Alanna spun around. “Stay put.”
Chastity roared, running toward us and spinning to kick Alanna, but Alanna spun right back, her leg flying over my head and narrowly missing Roulette’s back. Rou stumbled forward and a man darted out from beneath the remnants of the giant vine beside us, righting her.
“Alanna, I asked you to stick to the north,” he barked, his voice low and sultry.
I did a double take. Alarik. Of course.
Ignoring him, Alanna cried out as her knife soared over Chastity’s head. My stomach plummeted in relief as my teammate bent down and stuck her leg out in an attempt to swipe the princess off her feet.
Roulette seemed woozy and she tried to push Alarik away, but his grip on her shoulders tightened as his gaze roved beyond his sister in combat to me on the sidewalk.
“Aurora,” he said, both curious and seductive.
Fuck me. I had to squeeze my thighs together to tame the blood flow headed for my apex and focus on anything but his beautiful eyes.
“Let her go,” I snapped, stumbling up to my feet.
A boom echoed from somewhere far down the street and a spout of water soaring above the building rooftops let me know Kouta was down there—most likely with Zander in tow.
Silence on the bond. If he was thinking about me, his powers weren’t reaching me.
“Curses,” said Alarik, looking over his shoulder. “Alanna, that’s enough. We’ve got one of them already.” He looked down at Roulette in his arms and then at me. “Let’s take at least these two if you can’t secure that one.”
Chastity roared then, jutting her leg upward in a kick. I really owed it to my teammates to get better at the type of fighting even Typicals could do since I had little to offer otherwise.
But Alanna jumped back, turning her dodge into a feint and spinning back around, kicking Chastity in the side, sending her tumbling, and knocking her out cold.
“Chastity!” I screamed, stumbling toward her. But Alanna flicked her knives back into her sheaths and grabbed me by both arms. She was stronger than me, and no matter how I struggled, I couldn’t get free. Two other elves appeared from beneath the remainder of the vine, ducking to get around the mess of it Roulette had made. “Your Majesty,” said one. He stopped, looking at a petal from a blossom that had grown from Roulette’s unintended healing trick. The petal alone was as big as his head. He picked it up. “How…?”
Alanna pinched her lips. “It was the one you have, brother. I saw before I got too close. She made it grow in one moment, then destroyed it the next.”
Roulette groaned and used what appeared to be the last of her strength to try to get out of Alarik’s grip, but it was no use. He studied her. “Take it with us,” he said, nodding toward the elf with the petal. “Help Alanna—”
A blast of wind skirted down the street, dissipating as it seemed to hit that invisible, block-long sphere around Alanna. Torynt. Alanna spun us both around, and sure enough, Torynt, Lila, Kouta, and Zander alike paraded down the street straight at us at a slow gait. The entire team of Renegades.
“We have to go,” growled Alarik. His lips turned down as he looked at his sister. “Too many of us are infected to fight.”
“I can nullify them too,” she said, and I used her momentary distraction to try breaking free again. No dice. She just gripped harder. She laughed. “We know it works, brother. The evidence is all around us.”
“These are enough,” he snapped. “We retreat!”
I could see Zander stop a couple of blocks over, extending a hand out beside him to order his team to cease its movements. They watched him and he focused, staring straight down the street at me. Probably trying to reach me through our bond or project—but neither was taking.
One of the elves came over to take me from Alanna as the other went to assist Alarik with Rou. “Be careful with that one,” he said over his shoulder toward us. “I don’t want her left behind—”
A thunderous noise shook the skies overhead.
Zander was pointing up and Torynt and Kouta were both shooting their elemental powers up in an arch, high, high above us—above where Alanna’s nullification powers could apparently access.
That’s my boy, I thought. I wanted to holler and pump my fist.
“What is that…?” asked Alarik as the other elf took a weakened, slouching Roulette from him. His features morphed into clear distaste.
“It can’t hurt us,” started Alanna, but the tsunami spun, hitting the water tower atop an apartment building. It creaked. “Roots and sediment,” she breathed. Both she and the elf beside her looked up. I could hear it creaking. “Run!” she screamed.
Yanking away, I bolted in the direction opposite where they were dragging Roulette, cursing myself for letting her go, but rushing to Chastity’s prone body, hoping against hope she was okay.
“Chas!” I started. The elves had already begun running in the opposite direction.
“Leave her!” Alanna’s voice cried.
“No!” said Alarik, but whatever else he said, I couldn’t hear as the water silo let out a final groan and tipped, water sloshing.
I couldn’t be distracted, though. I put shaking fingers along Chastity’s neck. A pulse. I slipped my arm around her, trying to drag her down the road. I had to somehow get on my feet and flip her over my shoulder—
“Aurora! Move!” snapped Zander from beside me. His ghostly projection had broken through. Alanna must have been out of range—must not have ever passed close enough to him to take his powers away entirely.
“I can’t!” I screamed. “Chastity—”
Lila popped into existence beside us, flesh-and-blood Lila. She could teleport to any place she could see.
“Get them—now!” screamed projection-Zander.
She wrapped one arm around my shoulder and slid the other between the concrete and Chastity’s back. Water started pouring from the skies, rushing over my face like a waterfall, and in a blink, we were gone.
I was panting even when we landed down the block, clear of the impact. The sound of the water tower falling to the asphalt resonated in my ears, the debris floating into the air already surging our way.
“Again,” snapped Lila, hugging us both closer. We appeared at the end of another block, much farther from the impact.
Soaked to the bone, I breathed in and out, so close to hyperventilating.
“Relax,” said Lila, annoyance coloring her tone. “We’re clear.” She let us both go and I cradled Chastity. Damn it, we needed Roulette. And she needed us.
A van squealed around the corner, trapped behind a barricade of cars abandoned by their drivers when this whole thing had started.
“Veras!” I said, a mixture of elation and relief surging within me.
Lila stood, frowning.
Projection-Zander appeared beside us. “Lila,” he said.
She growled. “I know, boss.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes. Then she placed her hands on my shoulders and we blinked out of existence again.
Chapter Seven
I didn’t have much to fight back with, even when at a hundred percent. Dizzy from my head wound and overwhelmed with everything we’d just been through, I didn’t stand a chance of fighting back. A couple of teleportations down the road, past that disaster site again, and I was right beside Kouta, Torynt, and Zander—real Zander. Flesh-and-blood Zander I hadn’t been this close to in a year.
“They’re gone,” he said to Lila, completely ignoring me. If I’d had the energy, I would have snapped at him for that.
She nodded and shoved me forward against Kouta, who caught me in his muscular arms.
“Hey,” snapped Zander. “Be gentle with our guest!”
“Sorry, boss,” she said, smacking her lips and tapping her toes.
“Your guest?!” I began, my heart pounding. “Zander, if you think I’m coming with you—”
“Put her in the back seat,” he said, and Kouta dragged me toward a Dodge Charger I knew they’d taken to crime scenes. Inconspicuous, they weren’t.
Torynt opened the back door and Kouta shoved me toward it. I stuck my legs out to press against the door and the area above the wheel well, trying to stop him from shoving me inside.
“Now that’s not nice,” said Zander, grabbing hold of my leg and pulling it down. He frowned. “See? You got scuff marks on the car.”
Spitting at the vehicle, I sneered at him. “Fuck your car.”
The lascivious grin on Zander’s face might have meant that had turned him on.
“You know it did, darlin’,” he said over the bond.
My legs went weak.
Kouta used the distraction to shove me inside, pushing me over to sit beside me. Before I could scramble out the other door, Torynt got in on that side and squished me, Zander taking the driver’s seat and Lila the passenger’s.
The wayward leader readjusted the rearview mirror to look at us and then pressed the button to start up the ignition. “Buckle up,” he instructed.
Huffing, I crossed my arms as everyone else obeyed.
“I mean it, darlin’,” he said.
Kouta and Torynt exchanged a look and between them they buckled my belt across my abdomen.
“All right,” said Zander. He shifted the car into reverse, rested an arm around Lila’s seat, and strained his neck to look behind him. I opened my mouth to say something, but his eyes were focused above me as he stepped on it, the Dodge Charger’s tires squealing backward as we reached outrageous speeds.
They didn’t even try to conceal the Renegades’ base of operations from me. Then again, by the state of the place, they weren’t the type to stay in one hideout long.
“There’s a shower at the end of the upstairs hallway,” said Zander, throwing a pastel pink bath towel at me. “Though the master bedroom has a bigger one—and a Jacuzzi tub.”
Lila parked her butt on a giant sectional couch, kicking off her shoes and resting her sock-covered feet atop a coffee table cluttered with stacks of outdoors-themed magazines and a TV remote. She grabbed one of the magazines and flipped through it, her face never once twitching or revealing any sort of actual interest in the activity.
“Where are we?” I asked. Kouta literally bumped into me as he padded down the hallway into a kitchen. Torynt—a guy we used to stop from causing havoc before Zander had gone all offshoot on us—bounded up the stairs two at a time.
I was sore, filthy, and worried beyond measure. But I had to laugh in disbelief at our surroundings. A McMansion in the midst of a quaint little suburb.
“Did I not mention we’re a fan of Airbnb?” asked Zander. “Never stay in one place for too long with a team of Natches on our tail, right?”
“And you can afford this?” I shook my head. “You know what? Never mind. I really don’t care.” I shoved the towel back at his chest. “And you can shove your shower. My friends were kidnapped, injured—my team has to be wondering what’s going on. I’m leaving.”
Zander moved to stand between me and the front door. “You’re not our prisoner.”
“Good,” I said, laying a hand on his chest and trying to shove him aside. “I got confused for a minute there,” I snapped dryly.
“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Walk home?”
“If I must.” I patted my pocket for the phone that I’d apparently lost who-knew-where during that battle. A throaty exhale escaped my lips.
“You were going to call a Lyft, weren’t you?”
“Or a friend,” I snapped. “To check in with them and see how Chastity is and if they know anything about Roulette and Darien—”
Zander’s eyes glazed over then and his muscles stiffened as his brow narrowed. He was focusing on his telepathic bond—with Jayden, presumably. He chuckled. “Oh, boy, is he worried about you,” he said. “I told him I had you, that you weren’t taken along with the other two by those elves.” He went quiet again. “He assured me Chastity will make a full recovery, even without Roulette to rely on, and—” He cut himself short.
I gave him my best “spit it out” look.
The corner of his mouth twerked upward. “He wants you home, darlin’,” he said. “But I thought that went without saying.”
Glancing around where we were standing, my heart thundered in my chest at the thought of being “home” in this cozy abode with a man like Zander—
A crash in the kitchen was followed by Kouta cursing and then shouting, “It’s okay. Just dropped the frying pan.” Though neither Zander nor Lila had flinched.
Kouta had never been fleet of foot. Nash used to joke that it was because Kouta’s watery powers made his hands slippery. That wasn’t true as far as I knew. Then again, how would I know? I’d done the kiss boosts with Kouta but had never gone further.
What was it about Nash that had made me choose him to go all the way with? Besides the fact that he was definitely willing and he was hot and he so often made me smile?
Okay, that explained everything.
“So, were you going…?” Zander stepped aside, though his muscles were tense and I wondered if I actually brushed past him if he would reach out to pull me back.
It was quiet in my head despite thinking about him—and from the way his eyes roved over the length of my body, he was clearly thinking about me.
