Wild turned toward me, stepping in close enough that I could smell the chemical tang of her perfume.
“Do you have a thing for the girl, Mr Hawthorne?” she purred. “You always did like broken things. Lyra Vale is proof of that, isn’t she?”
“Lyra is a fucking bitch.”
Wild’s lip curled. “Careful. Language like that will not be tolerated.”
I smiled at her, blood caught between my teeth.
“I’m going to watch you die one day,” I said softly.
For a heartbeat, Wild’s eyes widened and she stepped back.
“I think you’ll find that difficult under my roof.”
I rose to my feet, slow and feral.
“Because of the wards?” I guessed.
“Of course. There is nothing you can do to me. Nothing.”
Power crackled beneath my skin, begging to be unleashed — just one second, one slip, and she would understand exactly who she was taunting.
But a guard burst through the doorway, panting.
“Warden!”
Wild didn’t look away from me. “What?”
“Ferals. Hundreds of them. They’re coming this way!”
Her gaze snapped toward him, face draining of colour.
“What do you meanhundreds?”
She shoved past him and bolted into the hall, her guards scrambling after her.
We followed.
I took the stairs two at a time and slammed into the window overlooking the road.
“Holy shit,” Dev breathed.
A sea of mutants surged toward the school —thick, fast, unstoppable, like a living wave devouring the horizon.
The alarm started blaring.
“Fuck!”
Ash stumbled up behind us, guards gripping his arms.
He was barely upright, shaking from the taser hits—
Then a breeze brushed past him.
Soft.
Warm.
