by Anah Crow
“We’ll see about that.” Greer’s look was purely venomous, and Dane missed having his fangs to bare.
“You should be hoping they might,” she added. “When we get a stable cultivar, we’ll put the primary stock in storage.” She left him with that and headed down the aisles of cages, off to whatever crisis was distracting her from work.
Dane tested the cage again. Every day, he felt weaker. He didn’t know what storage meant, but it was going to be worse than this. If he thought for a second that Moore would buy it, he’d take Jonas’s old place in order to get out, but there was no way he could mean it enough to pass any test she’d give. Lourdes might lie for him, but Moore wouldn’t be satisfied with her word alone, not if she’d taken Jonas away.
Snarling with frustration, he pushed off of the front bars hard enough to bang his head on the back ones.
“Let it go.” Jonas was slumped against the near side of his cage, staring at the back wall. “At least they might put us to sleep after this. I can’t sleep.”
“You sleep all the time,” Dane reminded him. Jonas looked fine on the outside, but he wasn’t right in the head. Some magic healed the spirit as well as the body. Neither of them was that fortunate.
“Sleep tires me out. I’m always running.”
“Well, go to sleep in your sleep,” Dane said reasonably. Being cruel to Jonas wasn’t fun anymore.
Moore fucking ruined everything. “Close your eyes and dream about sleep.” If Jonas slept, he’d be quiet, and Dane could eavesdrop.
There was a rumble as gurneys came in the wrong door. Dane shuffled forward on his knees to see.
Bodies. Mature Hounds in uniform. The trainers didn’t put uniforms on them until they were reliable.
Had the others tried an assault on the place and failed? There weren’t that many bodies. Dane’s heart beat so hard he was afraid it was going to damage itself. It slowed as the gurneys came closer, and his fear turned to malicious glee.
The Hounds didn’t look human anymore, most of them. Their bloodied bodies were half-feral, and many of them showed the marks of teeth and claws. Bad manners indeed. Now he understood.
Had to be Jonas’s fault, though. He hadn’t been here long enough for “his” Hounds to be in uniform.
Besides, from the complaints he heard, “his” were even more trouble than the ones they’d made from Jonas’s magic. It was comforting to know he was ruining Moore’s plans by proxy, if he couldn’t do it himself.
He saw Greer returning and amused himself by making up dialogue for her and the others as they ran about in a panic. Good thing for them Moore wasn’t here.
Dane grew bored and Greer wasn’t coming over to entertain him, which was disappointing. He closed his eyes, but something fluttered—dark and light and dark and light—and he sat up to look.
Everyone was frozen in the moment, then the lights went out again. All through the vast space, there was a single clang made up of more small sounds than Dane could count. But he knew what it was. Every cage unlocking. Every one but his and Jonas’s cages, of course. Before he could inhale to laugh, there was chaos.
The lights came back on in time for Dane to watch a half-feral Hound launch itself into the middle of the lab area. It was clumsy, still learning its new body, but even its flailing was impressive as its claws sliced through plastic and steel and cables as easily as if they were movie props.
“Hey, Jonas. Look.”
The staff were brutally outnumbered—Moore never planned for failure. As their tasers failed to stop the Hounds, panic set in and they tried to flee. Jonas perked up for the first time, squawking at the sight of a Hound gutting a technician and spraying a pristine row of white computers with blood. Nothing amused Jonas like a good bit of gore.
Dane caught a glimpse of Greer through the chaos, walking toward the near exit at a sedate pace, head high. Smart girl. The Hounds didn’t give a damn about her since she wasn’t running or fighting; they were all instinct and she had nothing they were programmed to hunt. Good. If she was alive now, he could kill her later, personally. Her and the weather mage.
The sounds of fighting and killing and dying were a chorus louder than Dane’s dreams, intense enough to make the cage bars hum with it. The possibility of getting free was exponentially larger than moments ago, but Dane couldn’t focus to think it through. Jonas was now rattling his cage and howling like a banshee. If Dane had been on the outside, he might have fought his way into Jonas’s cage just to shut him up. He had to think.
If they got out, they’d only be human in a sea of teeth and fangs and madness—their lack of magic made them less attractive to the Hounds right now, but he’d have to keep Jonas from taking a swipe at one of them. The rattle of a machine gun increased the danger. The soldiers didn’t have a chance against this
many, but they were going to try, and Dane and Jonas both had an uncanny resemblance to the things the soldiers were here to kill.
A familiar sound got him in the gut, a sound that terrified the animal still lurking in him. Fire. There was a terrible wailing that cut off into nothing, and the fire roared down from between the rows of cages, cutting so close that Dane had to get back from the bars or be singed.
“It’s him.” Jonas’s voice was raw, but Dane heard the anticipation. “You don’t get to kill me anymore.”
The fire died and Dane was looking out on a half-destroyed landscape, everything in a wide swath was reduced to ash and concrete.
“Let’s go.” Noah came walking up the aisle, into Dane’s view. He was bare naked and whole, like he’d come up out of his own fire that way, whole except for the remains of tubing under the skin of his chest. “Hold your breath.”
Dane did what he was told, pressing back and holding his breath as Noah’s flaming hands tore the front of his cage open and left it hanging from the hinges, dripping molten steel.
“Let’s go,” Noah said again, and like that, those hands were back to flesh. Dane let them pull him out of the cage and hold him up as he found his feet again.
“Where’s—”
“Here,” Noah said, cutting him off. “Just not in person. Are we bringing that too?”
Dane took a step on his own. He had to make this body work. Already, they’d caught the attention of a Hound feeding on a scientist under a broken table.
That. He looked over his shoulder at Jonas pressed up against the bars of his cage, reaching out, but not to Dane. Reaching for Noah.
Noah flicked a ball of fire at the Hound under the table and the fire swallowed it whole. A twist of Noah’s hand and the ball collapsed into a white-hot star shedding the ashes of his prey.
“Up to you.” Dane wasn’t in charge here, and he wasn’t going to pretend to be. They’d had to come for him this time.
“It’s your choice, ” Lindsay whispered in Noah’s mind. “Jonas was a favored pet. I’m surprised to see him in a cage like the others.”
Jonas. The man he’d decapitated in the elevator, then tried to incinerate. Minutes later, he’d been burning to death in his own fire.
“Don’t leave me.” Jonas was surprisingly coherent for a man who looked completely mad. “Kill me before you go.”
Noah didn’t need to guess as to the purpose of the collars. Jonas wasn’t a Hound and wasn’t a threat right now. If they left him, Moore would use him further. Noah ripped through the bolts and lock on the cage with white fire.
They had both come close to death in Noah’s fire. Noah had his second life. He wasn’t going to deny someone else a chance at the same.
“Do what I say, or I will kill you,” Noah warned. “Completely.” He grabbed Jonas by the wrist and dragged him out of the cage.
“We need to go.” Dane kicked apart a broken desk and picked up the leg. He was right, they had the attention of nearly a dozen Hounds now. They were cowardly things, yelping and cringing even as hunger and instinct pushed them to try to bring Noah down. “The door behind us goes deeper in. To get out, we have to
get across the room.”
The lab was devastated and Noah could easily make out numerous Hounds stalking and fighting each other, beyond those creeping closer. They were too mad or too stupid to know what was happening out of sight, where Noah could hear the soldiers fighting to contain the revolt, even as more Hounds turned savage. He wasn’t leaving without wiping the place clean.
“When I tell you to go, you both go.” Noah pointed at the door across the lab. Lindsay could see it and would know where they’d be emerging. “I’ll make sure you get there.” He incinerated the nearest Hound, and the next. Stepping back, he nearly tripped over Jonas.
“Don’t go.” Jonas grabbed at his leg and Noah got him by the collar, pulling him to his feet.
“You’re going. I’m not.” Noah all but threw Jonas at Dane. “Get him out of here. Go on.”
“Happy to.” Dane pushed Jonas ahead of him as Noah blew a path clear with a knot of fire that tore the far door off the hinges. Noah walled the black path off with fire, closing it behind them as they went.
Now, he could work.
The Hounds came at him as though they were eager to die once he’d started killing them. Until Noah felt Dane pass beyond the reach of his fire wall, he kept his destruction to a minimum, killing them by ones and twos. Sometimes, they turned on each other, but his magic drew them in.
Once he knew that he’d done what he came to do—that Dane was free—he gathered his magic in as he had back in the school, when Lindsay was letting him play.
“You should go now. ” He didn’t want Lindsay to feel this the way he knew he would.
“Noah.” Lindsay didn’t have to articulate a protest, Noah could feel his fear and resistance like a weight. Lindsay’s presence twined more tightly around his mind, clinging like a vine.
“I’ll be there soon. I promise. ”
The rose on his wrist began to fade. “Be careful, ” Lindsay said, and then he was gone.
As Noah sent out the first wave of fire, he was sorry for it. He was angry that it fell to him to do it.
But the fire had no such emotions, only joy and hunger and lust. As Noah fed it with magic, it fed him in
turn, filling him up with malicious glee. That was what Lindsay didn’t need to feel, the euphoria of feeding on flesh.
The second wave of fire ripped through the lab, hotter than the first. It overflowed through the burning, melting doors and roared through the halls. The facility was huge, and though the alarms had sounded, there were still people here and there. Sometimes, Noah could feel them just before the fire caught them.
The fire followed the air through every crack, into every hiding place. Plastic had a terrible, acrid taste, but Noah devoured it all anyway—he didn’t want anything left for Moore to use. In a crypt full of cold so deep it burned his fire in return, he knew he’d found things she wanted to keep, and he pushed magic through the fire to make it strong enough to erase her treasures.
Time to go. Noah’s rational mind knew he was endangering the others if he stayed. He followed the same path Dane and Jonas had taken, drawing the fire from it and pushing the heat and flame aside. He saw daylight through the shimmering, burning air. Daylight and the green of living things. Part of him wanted to stay and hunt down every last Hound and those who made them, but Lindsay was waiting.
Outside, the van waited at the edge of the trees. There was nothing but chaos around the buildings.
Some of the half-finished Hounds had escaped before Noah had managed to destroy the lab, and were running amok. He felt more than heard the distant thud of helicopter blades. That explained why he didn’t see any soldiers—they were waiting for backup. A shadow passed over him and Ylli dropped to the ground a moment later.
“You’re all right?” Ylli looked well enough, if rattled. He spooked easily, but it would take more than that to make him flee.
“I’m fine.” Noah didn’t know how he was, but he was in one piece. “We’re ready to go?”
“Kristan has Zoey. She was watching Lindsay, but she sent me for you, as soon as...” Ylli gestured and now Noah could make out the tall figure that was Dane, and the small person who was almost hidden in his embrace. For a moment, Noah was sure he’d stopped breathing, but he inhaled and nodded at Ylli.
“The other one that came out is in the van already.”
“Jonas.”
“You want to hurry up?” Kristan’s voice cut through the chaos. She had Zoey by the wrist and was all but dragging her to the van. Zoey had her open laptop cradled in her other arm, eyes on the screen. “We can kiss and cry later.”
Zoey looked up as Kristan caught up with them, her eyes huge. “This stuff,” she said excitedly. “You wouldn’t believe it. These people are evil. And insane. But really smart.” She snapped her computer closed and shoved it at Ylli as she broke into a run. “I have to tell Lindsay.”
“No.” The single word came from all three of them at once—Noah, Ylli and Kristan—and stopped Zoey in her tracks.
“It can wait.” Noah reached out to take her arm. “You can tell him later. A lot later.”
“I...okay.” Zoey fell in line, keeping pace with them. “You’re naked,” she said, as soon as she realized. Noah let her go as she pulled away, and she stumbled into Ylli.
“Geeks.” Kristan snorted irritably. “I’m driving. Noah, that other guy keeps asking for you, so I told him to sit in the van.”
They reached the grass and Noah’s hot feet stung with the cool damp of it. The van door was open and a figure huddled behind the driver’s seat. He had no idea what to do with Jonas, but he’d have to manage.
“Why is everyone naked?” Zoey sounded distressed.
“Sit in front and you don’t have to look,” Ylli said soothingly. Kristan ran ahead to jump into the driver’s seat and Ylli hurried Zoey after her.
Noah slowed, partly because his legs were threatening to give out and partly because he thought he was going to be sick. The fire was still burning, out of his control but finding plenty to feed it. It was wicked and poisoned now, growling maliciously in the back of his head. Everything in Moore’s sphere grew corrupted. He took a couple breaths and made himself calm down, and headed over to Dane and Lindsay.
“It’s time to go,” he said, stopping a few feet from them. “We’ll all be in the van.” He turned away before his knees gave out and nearly fell over something. Someone. Jonas. Again.
“It’s time to go,” Jonas said clearly. He wasn’t looking at Noah, though, he was pulling up handfuls of grass.
“Back in the van.” Noah would worry about what was wrong with Jonas later. It would keep him busy. He had a feeling he was going to want to be busy as much as possible for a while.
One moment, Lindsay was immersed in Noah, the next he was alone in the middle of chaos, cold and stiff with being still so long. The door. While his mind fought to adjust to this reality, his body was scrambling out of the van and sprinting toward the door he’d seen through Noah’s eyes, the one Dane would be coming out of.
Hounds and humans raced past him and Kristan’s shouts followed him, but he didn’t heed any of it, just kept running. The door opened and Dane stumbled out, a dark shadow at his side. Three more steps, two, one, and then Lindsay was in Dane’s arms.
Dane grabbed him and held on like Lindsay might fade away, ducking his head to bury his face in Lindsay’s neck. His breath was ragged and labored, and tremors ran through his body.
“You’re safe now,” Lindsay whispered, reminding himself as much as Dane. The warmth of Dane’s arms made it real. “You’re safe. I’m sorry. You’re safe.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” Dane kissed Lindsay’s neck and his ear, working his way over to kiss him on the mouth. “I missed you. Every time they brought more in, I was afraid of seeing you.”
“I was safe. They didn’t get me.”
Lindsay took a step back to see Dane’s face. He didn’t want to say this. He didn’t want to think about it being true. But h
e had to. If he didn’t, he’d have to hide the truth from Dane, and that would be worse.
“They nearly caught Zoey and Ylli. Cyrus died saving them. I’m sorry, Dane. He’s gone.”
For a long moment, Dane’s face was a study in misunderstanding. “No. I can’t hear him, but...it’s the collar. He’s not. He wouldn’t let them.”
“I’m sorry.” Lindsay felt sick. He didn’t want to hurt Dane like this. “Lourdes might have been lying to me, but Ylli...” He felt like he was twisting a knife. “Cyrus saved them from the Hounds and that weather witch, he got them away safely, but he didn’t make it. Ylli said he could hear Cyrus when it happened, that Cyrus was just gone. I’m so sorry.”
Dane inhaled like he was getting ready to argue, his brow knotted into a frown, but Lindsay could see it seeping in.
“He should have told me this was coming,” he said slowly. “He was right. About everything.” Now, he looked lost. “I failed him.”
Oh, Dane. Lindsay cupped Dane’s cheek in his hand and drew him back down. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, wrapping his arms around Dane as best he could. “I wasn’t there. If I had known...”
He never would’ve sent Zoey and Ylli back to Cyrus. There would’ve been no reason for Cyrus to fight, he would’ve been able to simply run. Lindsay couldn’t fix anything now. At least he’d been able to save Dane. Noah had saved Dane.
Noah. Noah had been speaking to them a moment ago, Lindsay realized, and he hadn’t acknowledged it.
Noah was walking away, herding Jonas back into the van. Ylli leaned out to pull Jonas in and gestured at Lindsay to hurry up. Zoey was slouched in the passenger seat of the van, a hand over her eyes, Kristan was already in the driver’s seat.
“Go on.” Dane let go of him. “We can’t stay here.”
In the van, the second row was taken up by Ylli and his wings, and Jonas and Noah were in the third row. Lindsay slid the door shut and led Dane to the last row.
“Hold on,” Kristan said as she started to pull out.
