AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He flicked his wrist, and Anne cleared her throat, standing. "Surely you aren't going to believe the words of a paranormal girl known to have betrayed everything we stand for. Do I really need to go over her crimes yet again? She's a stupid teenager with an inflated sense of self-importance and a dangerous level of arrogance. "
The handsome black man raised an eyebrow. "Be that as it may, these are serious charges, and I think it merits discussion. There have been many breaches of protocol since you were made Lead Supervisor, and I for one vote for immediate review. "
"I agree, Baruti. " Hong Li turned to Raquel. "Do you have more evidence to back up the claims here?"
Raquel sat up straighter in her chair. "I do. "
"Very well, we'll-"
"That's enough," Anne snapped. "We're done here. "
"Excuse me?" Hong Li asked, indignant.
"I said we're finished. I deny the motion for review, and rule that Raquel is to be immediately and permanently locked up. As for the Level Seven, since she has proven she is no longer useful to IPCA in any capacity, she will be bagged and tagged and put into seclusion at a secret location. "
Hong Li slapped her hand against the table and stood, too. "Since when can you-"
"Since I am the only person here with any vision or sense of the direction IPCA needs to go to continue to protect the world. If you want to cow to the ramblings of an aberration of nature, please feel free to join her. I am not about to let her destroy what we've built here. "
"How can she destroy anything?" a blond man with impossibly square shoulders and a thick German accent asked.
"She's currently working with a rebel group to subvert our work. And aside from that, she's actively trying to open a gateway to another realm, which, in and of itself, could be disastrous for our world, but aside from that would allow all faeries to leave. Which would leave us entirely without their particular skills, and I think you all understand what that would mean. IPCA would dissolve. We would no longer be able to function at any capacity, leaving the world unprotected and at the mercy of the various paranormal elements we work so hard to contain. "
To my horror, the blond man looked like he was actually weighing her words. The redhead trembled-where had they even gotten her?-and a couple of other Supervisors were nodding.
But Hong Li, bless her head-patting heart, was having none of it. "You admit to it, then? Conspiring with unnamed faeries?"
Anne rolled her eyes. "I don't have to answer to you. "
"I beg to differ," Baruti said.
"Very well. " Anne nodded to the terrified redhead and they both started spouting off faerie names as fast as they could.
The Supervisors all started shouting at one another as lines of white light snaked along the walls.
"Raquel!" I yelled. "Time to go!" She ran to us. Reth was already holding the door open. I smashed the emergency alarm button every room in the Center had, briefly flashing back to the last time I'd done it to warn everyone that Vivian had gotten in, just after I'd found Lish's body.
I would not lose anyone I loved tonight.
The alarm blared, so loud it made my teeth hurt, and all the lights dimmed as strobes went off. Reth said a word and raised his hand, making the air behind us shimmer and thicken like water as we ran out of the room and down the hall, Raquel and I on either side of Reth ready to take his hands.
"Too much iron in these walls," Reth said, not even his perfect hair disturbed by his running. "Back to where we came in, if you please. "
I nodded, hoping that Jack and Arianna would take the alarm as my cue for them to leave. Jack was good at running, at least. Then I had a thought that made me feel sick. "We can't leave Vivian here; they won't take care of her. Do we have time-"
Reth jerked to a stop and threw me into the wall.
I didn't even have time to register the faerie before whatever she had done slammed into where I had been standing-and straight into Reth. He stumbled back, falling to the ground as I watched in horror. Reth was Reth. He was perfect, and flawless, and supernaturally tough.
"All mine," the faerie said, the same midnight-haired faerie I'd seen before. She walked up to me but I couldn't tear my eyes away from Reth on the ground. He let out a low sound, his golden voice tarnished, and tried to push himself up. He'd be too late. If she could do that to him. . .
Then I could do this to her. I lunged forward and slapped my palm against her chest, throwing open the connection there and pulling out as much as I could as fast as I could. It flowed into me, but instead of the living flame that Reth had, this soul was so cold it burned, like crystals of ice ripping through my veins, filling me and changing me and I had to stop it I didn't want this inside me but I wanted more no, no, I didn't want this, but-
"Evie!" Raquel pulled me away, breaking the connection, and I gasped, struggling to claw my way up from the ice crystals in my brain, this dark-blue, freezing haze of power cracking through my body. "Evie!"
I blinked, then finally managed to focus on Raquel's eyes.
"Okay," she said, her accent thicker when she was upset. "Okay, you're okay. "
