Page 90 of Break Out the Girl

It’s right.

Me.

Dragons can go fuck themselves.

I swoop my right arm through the air. It leaves a trail of sparkling vapor, the inertia moving me in that direction. So I can fly!

I extend a leg, a perfect extension—with absolutely no strain, no aching muscles.

Just grace.

It’s as though I’m an air-dancer. A ballerina who belongs to the wind. I twist and turn, allowing myself not to fight the process. My skin gleams and shifts and I realize I’m no longer a solid form.

With a phantom push of my toes, I launch upward towards the clouds. I soar, leaving Basil open-mouthed below me.

Everything is new, everything.

Everything except the bonds.

They are stronger than ever. I follow them, flying straight over the high perimeter fence.

Trees? An entire thick forest?

Not a problem. I’m a tempest of silver mist.

My body whooshes past massive oaks like fast-moving water around a boulder. Natural, fluid, perfect.

I am the wind.

But I cannot allow myself to give fully to this…this whatever it is. Tally and London need my help. Sky needs my help.

François?

He’s close, ready to be whatever I wish.

I drop low, turning myself into a rushing, low-hanging fog that skims over the gorse bushes and rotting logs until I see them. Except ‘see’ isn’t the right way to explain it.

My consciousness knows they are there. Whirling like a shimmering dust devil, I enter a muddy glade.

OK, so now I have to turn—

The silver mist condenses instantly. Oh! Shit! That was easy.

London and Tally run toward my human form as I stagger into the mud, trying to regain my balance.

Motherfuck. Gravity feels like a physical insult!

My bones are suddenly so clumsy. Tally’s warm hands catch my shoulders before my knees can buckle, his gold-eyes wide and wild. “Fucking stunning,” he breathes.

“Kitten!” London pushes into me, throwing his arms around my waist. “A lady-tornado. The whirl in my wind.”

“No time,” I gasp, one hand clawing into Tally’s plaid flannel shirt, the other knotted in the curls on London’s chest. “I felt your panic detonate. Tell me what’s happening. Where’s Sky?”

Taliesin stills completely. “Out here somewhere, Rory. She’s been buried alive in these woods, and could be anywhere.”

The horror hits me like an icicle to the chest.

Buried alive.