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Darkness covered Larkwood, with only red emergency lights to give the slightest ability to see. I stood there, at our rally point, alone. My job had been to secure an escape route, which meant I had to waithereuntil the others arrived.
Had Hera made it back? Was Wade safe? Had Brax escaped after destroying the generators? I knew they’d all completed their parts of the plan, but that didn’t mean they’d survive to get to the rally point.
An entire school full of angry, free shades clashed with terrified and trigger-happy guards. It would only take one stray bullet to take out Wade or Hera.
Brax was tougher than that, but not indestructible.
A huge body appeared at the far end of the hallway, nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness. Red eyes flashed, but I knew they weren’t from the lights.
I’d rarely come face-to-face with Brax’s berserker like this. I’d asked him once what it felt like, and he’d admitted he didn’t remember all of it. Part of his brain turned off and he operated on instinct and basic thoughts. That also made him so dangerous, because hewasn’t fully himself. It was easy to go too far, to mistake friend for foe.
Not that I feared him. If he recognized one person, it would be me.
“Brax,” I said, drawing his gaze to me.
He came forward, his movements not at all human-like. He slumped forward to fit in the room, having grown so much larger than usual. When he reached me, he crouched down to stare at my face.
It was like getting sniffed by a wolf and hoping they liked what they smelled.
He huffed, the hot air blowing across my face, but I recognized that as relief. It seemed he’d recognized me, that he was happy enough I was unharmed.
His skin had taken on a reddish tint, but even in the darkness, I could tell that wasn’t the only red on him. Instead, slick maroon dripped from him.
I highly doubted that much of that was his blood.
I swallowed hard at the reminder of just how dangerous he was. It didn’t scare me. In fact, it was one of the few times I found myself thankful for that. Given the screams and roars that echoed through the building, the chaos surrounding us, this side of him would come in handy.
He turned his gaze around as if searching.
“They aren’t here yet,” I told him. The plan was that if anyone didn’t show up in time, anyone else would still go. We’d all gone into it knowing we might not all make it, but standing there in that moment made that promise far heavier.
Accepting something in the hypothetical was easy, but leaving without Hera and Wade in reality felt impossible.
The building shook, as if something had exploded, and it tossed me toward the wall. I kept myself upright, then stared at Brax, a question there.
Were we going to leave the others? Would we prioritize our own lives and freedom over Wade and Hera? A year ago, I would have said absolutely, but a lot had happened since then.
Brax moved his gaze behind him and huffed again, his answer clear.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go gather the troublemakers.”
Chapter Twenty
Hera
I held my trembling hands out in front of me, so tired that I couldn’t believe I remained on my feet. I wouldn’t have if Wade hadn’t stood beside me.
If I had done this alone, I probably would have given up. Each floor we went through, each hallway housed something else.
And everything wanted to kill us.
The shades, the guards, all of them attacked us on sight. I doubted it was just us, either. Larkwood had devolved into so much chaos that violence was all it knew. It wanted to tear itself apart at the seams, the anger and pain from so many years exploding out.
I’d used my powers to put down person after person, knocking them aside, trying to clear us a path. I knew it was too late, that our plan would have had Knox and Brax escaping without us already.
Still, we had to try. What other option did we have?
“I’ve wanted to tear you to pieces since you got here,” said a shade who had backed us into a corner in a large classroom. It was a woman I didn’t recognize, one I didn’t know.
