He stumbles to a halt, his eyes wide. “There are void creatures—all over the place. I saw a whole bunch of them. I’ve never heard of so many being in the same place at once… They looked like they were coming from the west end of the park.”
With those last words, his expression turns more solemn.
My mouth goes dry.
Those storage containers Cole observed—could they have been holdingvoids?
Why—how?—?
There isn’t time to even fully form all the questions spinning in my head. Another scream rings out, this one closer by.
And a dog with vacant eyes and drool staining its jowls leaps out of the brush.
Salvatore flicks the switchblade already in his hand, and it extends into the sword I’ve seen him use against a void creature before. That was a much smaller creature than this hound, though.
As he steps between me and the dog, it growls ominously. Its muscles bunch as if to pounce.
Its gaze never leaves Salvatore, even as a hawk drops out of the sky toward us.
Byron curses and shoves me to the side. At the same instant, electricity sizzles.
The bird jerks. The smell of burnt feathers and flesh floods the air as the hawk plummets to the ground much less gracefully than its initial dive.
It thumps against the earth, head jerking. Its scorched wings keep twitching as if it’s attempting to take off again.
How is it still alive?
Byron grimaces and aims another zap at the bird that disintegrates it into outright ash. Salvatore swipes at the dog, and it jumps to the side with a gnash of its jaws.
Hollers and cries are carrying from all across the park now.
Asher’s hand flexes at his side—wishing for his own sword, I have to imagine. “We need to help everyone else. No one could have been prepared for this.”
As if to prove his point, yet another void beast trundles toward us—a bushy raccoon with pointed teeth bared. I grasp a ball of ephemera between my hands, ready to hurl it at the creature.
My mind is already tracing the path we’d need to run to get out of the park, to find a car that could whisk us far away. I don’t want these vicious creatures sinking their fangs and claws into my matches.
What’s the point in seeing our plan through if the men I love don’t survive to the end?
What was the point in putting them in all this danger if we don’t get the one outcome we came for?
The second question freezes me in place.
How much more blood will I have on my hands if we run away and abandon all the other Luminary students in the park? However Ross and Jovak arranged to bring the void creatures here, it has to be part of their scheme to murder me tonight. No one who showed up for the seminar would have their lives on the line if it wasn’t for me.
And the threat is very real. Patrols usually only deal with one void at a time, and they’re specifically trained for the job. No one here except Asher has done much combat practice against voids. No one at Luminary ever expected to befighting them beyond the occasional, carefully controlled school demonstration.
I have no idea how anyone else will cope.
Another scream reverberates through the night. From the sounds of things, they aren’t doing so well.
I meet Asher’s gaze, my stomach churning even harder than when I woke up from my nightmare. The image of his limp, bloody body—the other Asher, the one I killed—flashes behind my eyes.
Every particle in my body balks at leaving him in danger.
I force myself to speak anyway. To say the words I know he’d want to hear.
“You’re right. We have to stay and stop these things. How would you tackle this many? We’ll follow your lead.”
