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I summon all the patience I can. “Sorsha’s with us. She’s as close to blood as anyone who wasn’t created by the guardians can get, and she wants what’s best for you too. If we could just talk this through, I’m sure we could figure out a way to go forward that—”
“They’re going to try to take our powers away!” a youthful voice cries out from closer to the helicopter. “They want to crush us like they did to the boss.”
“No!” My jaw clenches for a moment before I can speak through my frustration. “We’re looking out for you just like Booker said. We can set up new lives free from anyone ordering us around or forcing us into awful situations.”
The tattooed man who appears to be the most outspoken of the criminal shadowbloods sputters with derisive laughter and starts striding toward us again. “I don’t think so. Sounds like you pipsqueaks figureyoucan give the orders now. No fucking thank you. Get out of my way. We’ve got so much more to do.”
I don’t like the awful implications of his statement—and obviously neither does Sorsha. She steps forward to meet him, her wings flaring brighter. “Stop right there.”
His face flushes with anger. “I’m getting back on that chopper to go where I feel like, and I’m taking whoever wants to come with me. Unless you really are trying to call the shots for us now.”
“You can’t just take off,” I protest. Not to do whatever it is he and the other shadowbloods are planning—we can’t leave these super-powered criminals running rampant.
“Oh, I think we can,” the tattooed man growls, and springs forward to lunge past Sorsha toward the helicopter.
A yelp of dismay breaks from my throat. Sorsha spins, her hand whipping back to fling fire toward him—and a streak of blinding light sears from Nadia’s hands straight into the phoenix’s eyes.
Sorsha gasps, and her spurt of fire flies wide, singeing the back of the tattooed guy’s coat before smacking into a nearby tree. The flames roar up the trunk with a wash of heat.
Suddenly, everyone seems to be yelling. I whirl around, reaching out toward Nadia and Tegan, but the two girls dash toward the helicopter. Other shadowbloods race off into the forest or follow them to the chopper.
Zian looms over me, his head swiveling as if he’s hoping to protect me from all sides. My throat aches with a futile scream I don’t know how to let out.
Who should I be attacking here, if anyone? Technically Sorsha attacked them first; Nadia was only defending someone she apparently sees as a friend.
Jacob charges toward the helicopter too, lifting his hands. One of the propeller blades is already bending with a metallic groan when a shadowblood thug hurtles into Jake.
They thump to the ground and roll on the concrete. Barbs jut from the older man’s hand and wrist, and he rakes them across Jacob’s face.
As I scramble to help, my lips parting with a shriek I might emit after all, the thug shoves himself away from Jacob with a stomp of a foot that’s grown abnormally large and a crack of Jacob’s forearm.
The first squeak of sound breaks from my lips, and another body slams into me from behind. I topple face-first toward the pavement, only just throwing out my hands in time to catch myself with a scrape down to my elbows.
I buck at my attacker with all my supernatural strength, but they’re already heaving away off me. Zian barges toward him with a wolfish snarl.
Devon has clambered partway into the helicopter. He raises his hand toward the warped blade as another of the former inmates hauls himself right onto the top of the aircraft to reach it.
As heat flares from Devon’s hands with a ruddy glow, softening the metal, the guy up top wrenches the propeller back into its proper shape.
I push myself toward them. If they get that thing in the air—if we can’t even try to talk sense into them—
Then Tegan leaps between us Firsts and the chopper, her mouth opening wide.
I’ve seen the twelve-year-old use her power once before—to help us escape the guardians on the island facility. Then, she only emitted a puff of noxious smoke just large enough to cover a narrow path.
Now, a rippling haze billows out of her with a heave of breath. It rushes toward us, stinging my eyes and burning my lungs in an instant.
“You don’t get to stop us!” she shouts. “No one gets to hold us down ever again.”
I crumple, coughing and wheezing. Zian slumps beside me.
And the rumble of the helicopter’s propeller reverberates through the clearing.
I hear Sorsha muttering curses, but no more fire streaks through the air. Between Nadia’s light and the toxic haze, she’s probably afraid she’ll end up incinerating us rather than the escapees.
I’m not sure I’d even want her to try. The adult shadowbloods might be hardened criminals, but the kids… There’s got to be a way to shake them out of their madness.
A soft pressure wraps around my wrist—the curl of a tentacle. As the whir of the helicopter fades into the air, a breeze gusts through the smoke, washing the worst of it away.
