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A flare of pain shoots into me and then cuts off. The second I drop my voice, Cutler crumples to the ground with a thump.
I’ve paralyzed him—he shouldn’t be able to move a muscle… or his vocal cords.
I just have to hope I didn’t cut off his functions so thoroughly that his vital organs will shut down too. I don’t know anatomy with a surgeon’s precision.
“Leave him!” I cry out, afraid Sorsha might have missed my earlier plea. “We need him alive.”
A sob peals out from somewhere in the mess of fallen columns, followed by a growl of anger. “You’re the monsters,” Nadia cries. “You attack us and torture us, just like—”
“No!” I ease closer, trying to get a clear sense of exactly where she is. “We don’t want to do any of this. Ihatethat we’re doing this. But you were attacking so many other people.”
Maybe sensing my intentions, Nadia sends out another searing blast of light before the blotches have faded from my vision from the last time. I freeze with my hand against the wall, pained tears welling in my eyes as I struggle to see.
Her voice reaches me again, ragged and trembling. “You said we were blood. You said you’d save us.”
I swallow thickly, the guilt that hit me before expanding through my abdomen. There’s nothing I can say that will persuade her to back down.
So I might as well be as honest as I can be.
I pitch my voice to carry, though my throat is getting scratchy from the smoke. “I hate that I couldn’t save all of you. I tried so hard… But being blood doesn’t mean you always have to stand with someone if they’re doing things you can’t accept. Balthazar was myfather, but he was trying to ruin the whole world. I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen.”
Nadia lets out a sound that’s both choked and derisive. “Like you’ve never hurt anyone? I’ve seen what you can do with your scream.”
I wet my lips. “I realize that I’ve hurt a lot of people. You know…”
The memory that wells up in my head brings a sharper pang of pain, but I push myself onward. “I almost killedmyself. I was afraid I was going to lash out and hurt people I didn’t want to, and in that moment, I thought maybe it’d be better if I was dead. If I couldn’t stop otherwise.”
“But you’re still here. Why did you change your mind about yourself, but you’re taking us out?”
My mouth twists with a bittersweet smile. “I realized there was more to me than the anger and the brutality. I cared about people, and people cared about me.”
Nadia scoffs raggedly. “You think I don’t?”
“We tried to give you that chance. When you were in the hall here, you walked right past that little girl while she cried out without even stopping to see what was going on. You—”
Nadia breaks in with an urgent note in her voice. “What little girl? What are you talking about? Did you hurt an actualkid?”
I hesitate. Did she really not notice Andreas’s projected memory?
I guess it’s possible the impression didn’t quite penetrate her awareness, if she was hyper-focused on Cutler and his goals. I can’t remember exactly how close to the doorway she was—she might not have been in a position to see much of anything. And she walked into the gymnasium almost immediately.
She sounds as if she cares now. Like she has a conscience.
Maybe we could have saved her after all. And here I am stalking her, waiting to murder her.
“No,” I say. “We didn’t hurt anyone. It was a test to see how you’d all react. Some of your friends went to go help her, and they’re going to live.”
There’s a momentary pause. But Nadia spits out her next words. “You’re lying. You’re trying to distract me, mess with my head so you can kill me now. I’m not going to let you. Cutler was right—Cutler had a plan. I won’t let you use him either!”
Before I can fully process what she means, a figure dashes into the range of my mottled vision, racing toward Cutler’s slumped body with a metal shard gleaming in her hand.
Nadia’s going to killhimand destroy all hope of us stopping the rogues for good.
Without thinking, I shove myself toward her, my supernatural speed thrumming through my legs. Light explodes from Nadia’s body, blinding me all over again, but I’m already in motion.
The thud of her footsteps guides me. I’m at least twice as fast as her—I hurl myself into her taller frame before she’s within reach of Cutler.
We roll over on the floor, my head jarring against the linoleum. The razor edge of Nadia’s makeshift dagger rakes against my arm.
