Rhys and Sarah stood ready to add their power to mine. It built inside me, turning me into a volcano about to burst. I prepared to channel it all at Hagan.
Then a gleam caught my eye, and the ball rolled over and stopped in front of me, between me and Hagan. Lifting my foot, I brought it down hard on the crystal orb, but it remained intact, untouched by the force of my rage.
Deep inside, I knew that the ball had to be destroyed. Only then would we have a chance to defeat Hagan’s power. We could end this, like the Council should have ages ago. Trapping him inside the building, and then feeding the bonds keeping him contained, had only delayed the inevitable. They had left it to us—kids who should have been hanging out with friends or playing video games—to destroy a force who would control the world.
The dragons hovered over us, puffs of fire erupting from their mouths. They waited for the command, but this was not my role.
It was Cece’s.
But first we had to destroy the ball. Only then could my sister finish this, once and for all.
While Wolfy snarled and ripped at Hagan’s leg, Aidan shot power at him. He growled and lifted his hand, preparing to eliminate the threat. The sword flashed again.
The Destroyer.
Oh …suddenly it all made sense.
I shifted into my witch form. “Get him, Wolfy!” I yelled, running toward Hagan.
Wolfy released Hagan’s leg and leaped up, latching onto the man’s throat. He lost his grip on the sword, and it banged to the ground.
I snatched it up and turned to Rhys. “Rhys! We need to take care of this ball, and you’re the sorcerer who can do it. Use the Destroyer to end this!”
His gaze fell on the sword. “You’re...right.” He took it from me and, lifting it over his head, bellowed a curse as he brought it down on the orb.
Magic erupted around us, and flashes of light lit up the sky.
The crystal ball that had controlled us—had used my sister—exploded, leaving a mound of shards coating us and winking in the morning light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cece
I shot up off the ground, coughing and wheezing like I hadn't had air for years. Through bleary eyes, I surveyed where I was and quickly found a grim reminder of what I'd been doing before I’d nearly died. A horde of sentinels encircled something, and I could see Aidan’s angry tendrils flying through the air in attack mode. Flashes of Rhys’s magic flared and crackled. But I couldn’t see Maddy’s dragon. Hagan had been petting her when I’d attacked and knocked the ball away.
Now I couldn't see either of them—or the ball.
“Maddy!” I shouted over the din.
With a blast of energy, everyone, myself included, was blown backward. I landed hard on my back and tried to roll to my side so I could breathe. Some bizarre-looking creature had landed on my legs, and I wrestled to get them—and the skirt of my damn dress—out from under it.
“Maddy!” I screamed again, searching the bodies of downed supernaturals for her. For Aidan. For anyone I cared about. All I saw was Hagan standing in the middle of the carnage, at the epicenter of all the chaos, smiling back at me.
“I don’t need the ball to destroy you children,” he said, taking a step closer. “Only a fool would think that.”
I took a breath to steady my nerves and buy the others time. I could feel that the blast hadn’t killed them. All they needed was enough time to recover.
And if there was one thing I was really good at, it was running my mouth.
“I’ve been called worse,” I said with a shrug.
Hagan had the gall to look amused. “I wish I could keep you, Celine. You intrigue me. Besides myself, you are the most powerful empath I have ever met. How interesting it would have been to bring the world to its knees together.” His gaze flitted to my bloodied sister who stood next to Rhys. “Too bad your loyalty could never be trusted.”
“Kinda hard to trust when you’ve never done anything to inspire it.”
His malicious smile widened. “Indeed. Anyway, it hardly matters now because you’ll be dead in a moment.”
“I don’t think so,” Maddy shouted at him. “You don’t control me anymore.” Her eyes shot to me and narrowed. “And you can’t control her anymore, either. Cece’s never needed a stupid ball to amplify her gifts. Like you said, she’s one of the most powerful empaths ever.”
“And yet it still won’t be enough,” he replied. I felt the press of his magic sweep over the yard, the sharp prickle of it washing over me, looking for a way inside—a way to hurt me yet again.
When it didn’t, I realized something.
“Never bullshit a bullshitter,” I muttered under my breath as my eyes went wide.
“What did you say?” he asked as he forced his magic harder at me.
“I said, you’re a lying sack of shit.”
The rest of the sentinels were on their feet, looking to Maddy for direction, or at least to see if she thought I'd lost my damn mind. And maybe I had. But it was too late to take it back at that point.
I felt Aidan step up behind me, his hand on my back a grounding force, even without our bond.
“What is it?” he whispered in my ear,
Maddy and Rhys were at my side soon after, with Sarah in tow. Together, we stood as one, staring down the piece of shit who’d manufactured this whole situation. We’d lost our father because of him. The entire student body, aside from us, had fallen at his hands.
He claimed we were no challenge to him—that there was no way for us to win.
But now I knew better.
“Any of you like being the underdog as much as I do?” I asked, smiling back at the asshole gearing up to wipe us out. I reached back and took Aidan’s hand. Then I pushed as much power as I could into that connection.
He gasped at the rush. “Always full of tricks, little witch.”
“Or maybe I’ve just realized that Maddy isn’t the only one in this family with some untapped power. It just took a little crystal ball dust in my face to realize it.
“Cece?” Maddy asked, calling my attention to her. I glanced to my right, where she stood next to Rhys. I placed my free hand in hers and held her gaze.
“Remember what Coach Peters used to always tell me?” Her brow furrowed for a fraction of a second. Then I pushed that amplification force through me into her, and her eyes went wide. “I’m going to be the ball…”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed these final moments together,” Hagan said, his irritation plain. Bad guys really did hate to have their maniacal plans interrupted.
“And I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Kimbra’s body. That your escape from Wadsworth was all you’d hoped for.”
He stopped moving forward, and the sentinels tightened their ranks around us, creating a wall of sorts.
“Sarah,” I said under my breath as he prattled on about our deaths, “you think you can pull a hallway move on him?”
I could practically hear her smile. “Of course I can.”
“Rhys, you got any fancy spells to tie a soul to a physical body?”
“Maybe...” he said as he mulled it over, “but that’s intimate magic. I’d need to get it inside of him for it to work.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Aidan all but growled.
“Maddy,” I said, squeezing her hand tighter, “you know what you need to do?”
She squeezed mine back. “I do.”
I looked to the sky, where the dragons circled in a strange holding pattern of sorts, awaiting a command from their leader—the one wielding power over them.
I took a deep breath and prayed that I wasn’t wrong; that I hadn’t built our entire plan on a bad hunch.
With a harsh exhale, I released Aidan and Maddy, dug my heels into the ground, and reached into the untapped well deep within me—my own interior crystal ball. I threw my arms wide, and with a warrior cry that rent the air, I blasted that energy at the others until my limbs screamed and my lungs burned, and I knew t
here was no turning back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Maddy
Hit by my sister’s energy, I was slammed backward. My heart stopped, then pattered in my chest. I could barely breathe as the power soared through me. I caught myself and charged forward as heat and hope roared through my veins.
Yes…
Sarah advanced on Hagan as he snickered. We’d show him . She closed her eyes and grimaced before her face smoothed. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and I felt her power arc through the air like a physical thing. It hit him, and he took a step backward. His hands rose to his throat, and his face bulged.
Rhys’s magic spun around him, a tornado of power. He gathered it up and thrust it toward Hagan.
With a flick of his hand, Hagan sent Sarah flying backward. She hit the ground hard and leaped to her feet, charging toward him again.
Rhys drew more power to himself and it churned around him, a mass of anger and pain with bits of all of us mixed in. Aidan shot energy to him, adding to the mass building around my boyfriend. The sword dropped from his grip as he pulled more power in, and I could have sworn that some of it came from the remnants of the kids who’d been stolen. They watched from the building, silent, their mouths gaping in horror.
Rhys combined all that power, conjured it, and blasted it toward Aidan.
Aidan closed his eyes. His arms lifted, and the energy shot toward Hagan in a tidal wave.
With a flick of the man’s finger, Aidan and Rhys went flying.
Sarah cried out and renewed her chokehold, but Hagan simply glared, and she was flung backward at least twenty feet. She hit the ground hard and groaned. Rolling onto her belly, she rose up on her arms, but the dullness in her eyes told me she was spent.
I needed to do something, or it would be over. But what?
“Maddy!” Cece pointed, and my gaze followed hers to the sword lying in the grass, gleaming.
The Destroyer...
I inched toward it, compelled to lift it.
“Get it!” Cece cried.
With a nudge of his head, Hagan blasted me with magic, and I froze. I watched in horror, helpless to make one more attempt to end this forever. Was I too late?
Aidan hobbled over to Rhys and added energy to the bands he was building for a second time, the wall he’d throw at Hagan again. Then he focused on the man, determined to do what he could to make this work. Strain creased his face, and his arms shook at his sides. “I can…” He shook his head, and staggered backward before surging forward again, determination in every stride.
Rhys flung more magic at Hagan, trying to distract him, but it parted when it hit, oozing around him and dissolving on the other side. The grass smoldered before bursting into flame. Fire licked toward us, toward the building.
We had to do this. Now . Or it would be too late.
“I’ve…I’ve locked him inside, tied him to Kimbra’s body,” Aidan cried, his body shaking as he forced his magic inside Hagan, struggling to keep the entity locked up. “Hurry! I can’t hold him for long.”
“Together!” Cece shouted.
Sarah struggled to her feet and staggered over to stand with Rhys and Aidan. With a whip of her arm, she locked the remnants of her magic onto Hagan.
Panic bloomed on Hagan’s face for a moment before his fury took hold, darkening his features. Fire raged around him, but it didn’t touch him. He stood inside the inferno, his lips twitching up in a smile.
“More,” Aidan hissed to Sarah and Rhys.
Sarah closed her eyes, and she must’ve dredged up a speck more energy, because the smile fled his face. Flames licked at his shoes.
Rhys and Aidan blasted more power at the man, and his image wavered.
“Maddy!” Cece cried from behind me. I turned and she stood wavering, pointing at Hagan. “It’s time. Do it!”
I channeled all my power and, with a snap, broke free of Hagan’s bonds. Darting over to the sword, I snatched it off the ground and rushed toward him.
“For my sister,” I yelled. “For the kids at Wadsworth. For my father. And…” I braced his shoulder with one hand and thrust the sword into his chest with the other. My voice dropped to a bare whisper. “…for me.”
He gulped, and his gaze met mine. “You… How...dare you?”
I released him, and he staggered backward before falling face-first to the ground, pushing the sword further into his chest. Power smashed across me, and my skin felt like it had been lit on fire. I stumbled backward, almost falling, and dust floated around us before drifting to the ground.
Was it over?
My gaze met Cece’s and she nodded, though she couldn’t know my thoughts. In the calm descending around us, I sucked in a deep breath and released it.
Maybe —
Wadsworth exploded.
The impact knocked me off my feet, sending me hurling backward. I rolled on the ground and rose to a crouch, staring toward Hagan lying in the smoldering grass.
An inferno engulfed him.
Another blast from inside the building shook me. It shook the world.
I covered my head with my arms and rocked, hoping that, when I opened my eyes, something—anything—would remain.
The crackles finally died down, and silence replaced the fury bellowing around me.
When I looked up, Hagan’s body was gone.
Nothing remained but a pile of smoldering ashes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cece
I collapsed to my knees, exhausted. Silence permeated the yard of Wadsworth, which had, up until that point, been embroiled in chaos. But Maddy had put an end to that, once and for all. Hagan, the trapped being of Wadsworth, was gone, reduced to ash, just like the building that had once imprisoned him. Smoke plumed from the site where the stately building had once stood. Rhys’s family estate was no longer.
“Cece!” Aidan called, rushing to my side. He hauled me to my feet and threw his arms around my neck. “You did it.”
“We all did,” I said, smiling into his chest. He pushed me away just far enough to give me a once-over. “I’m fine.” I looked past him to find Rhys hugging Maddy, Wolfy at her ankles, and Sarah standing just off to the side, arms folded over her chest, an incredibly ‘Sarah’ gesture if ever I'd seen one. “Everyone okay?” I asked.
A chorus of ‘yeahs’ was their response.
Aidan took my hand in his and headed over to the others.
The sentinels Maddy and Rhys had called—those that were still alive—had disappeared, just like my dragons. In a flash of panic, I scanned the property for them and any sign of the Council’s minions, but I found nothing but open grass and trees in the distance. No dragons. No sentinels. No bodies.
No evidence that there had been a bloody battle here.
“How is this possible?” I muttered to myself. The others seemed to get my meaning and looked around for the carnage, only to find it gone. And speaking of gone…the dragon pin was no longer on my chest. The ring Maddy hadn’t been able to remove was missing. And the Destroyer was nowhere to be seen. “Where did they all go? What is going on—”
“Magic,” was Aidan’s only response, as though that explained it all. Seeing my confusion, he shrugged. “We destroyed a great evil—and apparently its implements, too. The magic released from that needed an outlet…I guess it chose an unexpected one.”
My gaze drifted to the smoldering rubble of Wadsworth. “I guess it decided the building had to go, too.”
“Hagan’s ties to it were too strong,” Rhys said, a hint of sadness in his tone as he eyed his family’s fallen legacy.
“But my dragons,” I said softly, searching for even a spark of their energy. Then, from somewhere in the yard, I felt it, and I sprinted toward the spot where the painting lay unfurled in the grass. I snatched it up, praying that they were all right. My aura of concern was met with a huff of smoke. “Glad to see you, too.”
My slightly manic laughter drew the others as I rolled up the canvas.
&
nbsp; “They’re okay,” I said.
“As are the sentinels,” the mini-wolf added. “They have returned home, but they will come again.” He turned to Rhys and Maddy. “When you call them.”
Before I had a chance to unpack that statement, Sarah’s expression went blank as she stared off past the group.
“Look,” she said, pointing to a strange pale blue wisp of smoke drifting up toward the sky. “What is that?”
One after another, more wisps wafted out of the remains of Wadsworth as a growing sense of relief washed over me. It was only then that I realized what was happening.
“Souls…” The word left my mouth on an exhale. “They’re the souls of those that died in Wadsworth. They’re free now—at peace.”
Together, we watched them drift off into the vast sky above, honoring them and the lives that had been cut short. Good or bad, they hadn’t deserved to die like that. They hadn’t asked to be part of the dark truth behind Wadsworth.
Once the final soul had disappeared into the ether, we brought our attention back to the situation at hand.
“So...what do we do now?” Maddy asked.
“Well, I don’t know about you losers, but I don’t plan to stick around here.” Sarah ripped a chunk of fabric from her skirt and walked over to Hagan’s ashes. She scooped up some, then dumped them into the fabric and twisted it up like a sachet of dead guy while we all looked on in utter confusion.
“Sarah…what in the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“What? You think some expert-level necromancer couldn’t figure out how to resurrect that dick with his ashes? I don’t plan on letting that happen.”
“What are you going to do?” Aidan asked, an edge of concern in his voice.
“I’m going to bury them somewhere far from here,” she said, as though that were obvious.
“But—”
“I’ve always wanted to see Paris. Maybe I’ll find myself a lonely little rich boy to take me there.” Her smile was meant to be malicious, but it didn’t have the heat it used to. “Maybe you don’t think I’m a catch,” she said to Aidan, “but I’m willing to bet some unsuspecting human might feel differently.” Before any of us could say anything, she turned on her heels and started off toward the front gate to the estate, stopping to pick something up along the way. Whatever she’d found seemed to please her, given the shit-eating grin she wore. “It’s been real, kids. Let’s not do this again anytime soon.”
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 20
