Page 134 of Break Out the Girl

Don’t pass out, I’m fucked if I pass out.

But my vision is darkening. My limbs feel heavy and useless.

The bear doesn't stay to finish me. Instead he crashes through the brush, racing blindly toward the open clearing.

Move, Tally. Move.

I’m shifting without choosing to do so, the brain-blow scrambling my circuits. As I drag my dazed, aching, human body to my feet, the terrifying sound of gunfire blasts out from near the trailer.

Shit.

Stumbling, half-blind, I arrive at the treeline just in time to see a massive bird falling from on high. Its wingspan has to be twenty-feet across. Talons curved, its cruel beak opens and it screeches so loud my ears hurt.

“Move!” Cosmo roars jumping from the porch steps. His skin erupts into brilliant, shimmering golden scales as his body expands, his dragon forming within seconds as he leaps into the air.

Ludo is there too. Or at least the minotaur that was once Ludo. His chest has tripled in size and he lowers a pair of massive, curved obsidian horns as he charges straight into the fray. Two of the thugs with guns fire in his direction but the bullets seem to be almost bouncing off his skin.

“London! Get Basil!” Rory screams over the deafening roars. The faun pivots mid-air, changing his trajectory to scramble toward the kid's limp body.

Rory turns her focus to Regan Grieves. He’s the one who now holds Sky.

“LET HER GO!” she screams.

My beautiful girl is pulsing with an unearthly silver light. Magnificent and furious.

Head still swimming, I clutch the nearest tree to stop myself from falling as her physical body dissolves into a violent, churning column of gale-force wind.

48: AURORA

The moment my skin dissolves into pure wind, the tether to my human fear snaps.

I focus the entire weight of my storm on the massive, shadowy raptor cutting through the airspace towards my people.

Motherfucker.

My focus is split between Sky and the airborne monster that looks like it could destroy us all. But not today, big bird. Not today.

I throw a wall of pressurized, freezing air directly beneath its path, making a thermal updraft that forces its twenty-foot wingspan to stall mid-air. The bird flaps frantically for several seconds, then tilts, almost rolling over the top of my winds.

OK. Two can play at that game.

I start to twist, become the tornado that will take it down.

But another movement makes me stutter. What now?

Whooshing higher, I see him. Golden wings, beating heavy and strong.

Dragon.

He opens his jaws, releasing fire. But not a lot of fire. Seems like my brother could do with a helping-gust.

Channeling carefully, I fuel his flames, sending them towards the feathers of the bird-thing.

The predator lets out a piercing shriek as Cosmo’s boosted flames hit, filling the sky with the putrid stench of burnt feathers.

Neither Cosmo nor I can speak aloud, but it’s like we can read each other’s movements.

He angles right, soaring above the bird. I start to whip myself, round and around, containing the beast in my walls of rushing wind. Into this funnel, Cosmo roars again.