by N. R. Larry
“Two.”
I shook my head. “No, please. Please.”
“Three.”
I rested my head against her frail shoulder.
“Four.” Her voice sounded weaker, like the life was being sucked out of her.
I waited for five, but it didn’t come. Slowly, I lifted my head. Sophie was slumped over in my arms. Sniffling, I lifted her up on a wave of telekinesis and sailed her into the living room. The shifters, none of who I recognized, looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.
I shook my head and lowered her onto the couch. I opened my mouth to say I was sorry, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the words. There were none. I gazed at Katie, Zed, and Douglass. They seemed to understand. They stood up and got behind me.
I swallowed the phantom lump in my throat. “I need a moment.” With that, I turned on my heels and walked outside. My friends followed me to the porch, where I left them, as I trudged down into the yard.
Cody was kneeled over Ty, who was back in human form, sweating and writhing on the floor.
“Mrs. Sophie is dead,” I said in a flat tone.
Cody’s gaze snapped to me. For a moment, he looked shocked. Then his face crumpled into a mask of pain.
“Go be with her,” I whispered. “And I’ll be with him.”
He stood up, hesitated, but I waved him on. “I know,” I muttered. “But I have to say goodbye.”
His footsteps padded away from me. As soon as I was sure I was alone with Ty, I sank to the earth and rested my head against his chest. He convulsed underneath me, fighting off the effects of Sophie’s venom.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t cry because Mrs. Sophie told me I had no more time to cry, but my insides felt like they were being ripped apart and left to float around in my body, useless.
I was useless, only I couldn’t afford to be.
Everyone had lost so much. If I shut down, it would all be for nothing. I laid with him and clutched him hard, as if the act could make our reality any different. I laid with him like that for I don’t know how long.
Finally, his body went still underneath me.
I glanced up. There were tears in his eyes. With a gasp, I sat up, because, in that moment, I saw him. Ty. The shifter who taught me how to hold running water in my hands.
“I’m…” He gritted his teeth. “Sorry.”
I shook my head. “I love you,” I whispered. The words came out of my mouth before I knew they were true, but once they were out, I didn’t doubt the honesty behind them.
I did. I loved him. I needed him, and that didn’t make me weak.
It would make me strong.
“Have to…” He closed his eyes. “Run.”
“Not yet.” My voice cracked. I leaned over him and pressed my lips to his. For a second, he kissed me back, and that moment was full of more love than I’d ever felt in my life.
Then he raised himself up and slid his hands around my neck. I broke the kiss and stared at him, frozen.
“Ty, don’t.”
His hands squeezed around my neck. His expression changed, and he was gone. Murder filled his eyes. I let him squeeze down with his hands until I could barely breathe.
I didn’t let any tears fall. Instead, I counted to five and shot magic into him. He flew back and was on his feet in an instant. I struck him again, and he froze. I stared at him for several minutes, the anger in his face, and forced myself to see Ty again. When I did, I turned away from him, leaving my magic to hold him in place.
I walked past my friends and into the house. I marched up to the shifters, allowing my heart to harden so I could get past these next few moments. I stared at Cody. “Get out. Ty is out back. Leave. Now.”
They didn’t argue, and I was thankful for that. I sat down in the living room for several minutes, staring around at all the hate that had been allowed to live here.
“Lawrence?”
I peered up into Katie’s face.
“We have to go,” I said, standing up.
She nodded. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but I walked outside anyway. Right out the front door and down the long, gravel driveway that led up to the house. When I was at the gate at the bottom of the property, I turned around.
Douglass, Zed, and Katie stopped and turned around with me.
“Fire,” I whispered. “Come to me.” I held out my right palm, and a swirling orb of fire danced above it.
“What are we going to do now, boss?” Douglass asked.
I narrowed my eyes at the mayor’s house. “We’re going to dismantle all this hatred. Brick by brick. Starting right here.” And with that, I tossed the flame at the house. It went up faster than I would have thought possible. Wood and brick moaned under the heat as the house crumpled to the ground like it was made of cards.
When it was no more than a pile of smoldering ash, I turned and started walking.
My friends followed.
* * *
I led them for what felt like days but was really only hours, walking until I was literally falling down. We were outside of the city when I decided to hole up on the astral plane while we made plans for our next move.
I stopped in the middle of the road, opened a portal as easy as someone might open a doorway, and we all stepped inside. We ate things we’d scavenged on the way out of the city, and slowly, my friends fell asleep.
As tired as my body was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to join them. I sat by myself in the blank landscape I had created with my magic and dragged my fingers across the scar that was already healing across my left cheek.
I knew I could hide it with magic, but I didn’t want to. I felt like I should be marked. Like I should wear a reminder what blind hate could do to people. Not only that, it would give me the strength to kill Ty’s father if and when I got the chance.
I couldn’t think about him.
So instead, I thought about what was to come.
“Air,” I whispered after several hours of sitting with my thoughts. “Come to me.”
A translucent panel of energy emerged in front of me. It looked like a mirror, but it was really a bundle of energy that communications could be stored inside of. Communication was how I planned to start the resistance.
For a while, I stared at my energy mirror. Finally, I said, “My name is Lawrence Kincaid and I have a message for the people the Party has deemed too filthy to live.” I narrowed my eyes. “Rise up and you will find me with you. Rise up and claim your right to live and love again. Rise up, and show these people you aren’t afraid. That they should be afraid. Rise up, because the alternative is to lie down and die, and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of dying. It’s our time to live, and their time to fear. It is time… to resist.”
I wrapped those words tight in my energy mirror and sent them out into the city.
Then I dreamt of the world I wished to see. No purity officers. Witches all over rising up to make a difference. Shifters turning into animals and running out into the wild, free to do as they pleased. A world where the human heart had one shared goal, and that goal was decency toward all of humankind.
It was a vision I was willing to, and probably would, die for.
And it was all because one man had the courage to love me.
The End
* * *
Continue the Underground Magic Series in book two, Underground Resistance, available now for pre-order on all online outlets and releasing July 2017.
* * *
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About the Authors
N. R. Larry
Natasha Larry is a mother and DC comics fan girl. She writes multicultural paranormal fantasy for teens and adults. She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her published works include The Night and Darwin's Children.
She lives somewhere in Alabama... As th
e Batman.
Want more from N.R. Larry, visit her author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natashalarrybooks/ , and be sure to check out The Night: https://www.facebook.com/thenightebook/ . She also hangs out on Twitter at https://twitter.com/natashalarry .
Margo Bond Collins
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung," turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters and fight evil, too.)
You can learn more about her at www.MargoBondCollins.net
For news about forthcoming releases, giveaways, and more, join her newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cQlxLf
Also from N. R. Larry and Margo Bond Collins
Underground Resistance (Underground Magic, Book 2) Available July 2017
Underground Revolution (Underground Magic, Book 3) Available October 2017
Immortal Winter
