Page 10 of Break Out the Girl

Or he forgets where he left me?

That seems all too possible.

Wump—ppp. Wump—ppp.

Yeah, yeah, stupid heart. I feel you.

Looking down is nothing but three hundred feet of dark, swirling fog and jagged branches. Be calm, Aurora. Imagine you are sitting in front of a roaring fire.

Fuck, or even the sweltering, suffocating furnace of the Digger block. Gods, I’d give anything for a lungful of that thick, recycled air right now.

And some alcohol.

I’ve managed to sneak quite a lot of drinks in my sheltered life. Elites like their liquor, and I’d often made off with bottles hidden in my purse or beneath a full skirt. Anything to numb the loneliness of my life.

Right now I’d choose a warm fire, and maybe a negroni.

On second thoughts, not. That crappy Quo teacher always smelled like cheap gin.

His boozy breath had dropped a bombshell. ‘You all missed the Great Awakening, kids. Sucks to be you.’

Well not any more, Hennessey. Aurora Drakeward is on the loose, so watch out. My innate beast is coming.

A dragon?

Maybe. To be honest it doesn’t sit…quite right.

And that’s fucking annoying. Father and Cosmo are dragons after all.

Please, for fucks sake, don’t let me be something cute and stupid. Give me power.

I want the body and tools to tear everything down.

Fuck.

Or I could take after my mom.

What the hell would my mother’s innate beast be? I wonder if it could even evolve given her permanently tranquilized state.

I guess she could be a sloth.

No. That’s not me. I might not exactly feel dragon-fire in my veins, but I’ll be something magnificent.

It’s like I feel a fuse that has been lit, just waiting for the final spark to hit the powder keg. And then…wings? Claws? Teeth?

Whatever it is, it has to be so deadly I can incinerate Warden Voss, those Grieves men, and every fucker who ever hurt Sky.

Any fucker who ever was a customer for that fucked up ‘business’.

It’s only a matter of time before the magic catches up with my stupid, asinine blood.

Yeah, and if I’ve got pointy teeth, I might just have to give London a nip for leaving me up this fucking tree.

It will be like the worst remake of Twilight ever.

The rain is easing off now, which is a relief, and at least up here I can see what’s going on with the fugitive hunt. Lights are flashing all over the place but mostly to the east. At least I think that’s east, who the fuck knows how to tell directions?

As I twist around to shake out one of my frozen hands, something moves out of the corner of my eye. A pale shape cuts through the midnight gloom. A bird?