The blast knocked him back, buckled his knees. Julia heard a grunted curse, and then Herbert was on her, and two others joined him, grabbing her arms and legs and hoisting her up, like they were ENTs carrying a gurney.
She shrieked as she fought them, but their grips were right. They were carrying her down the hall, she was screaming, and then Cayne was there. He ripped Herbert’s head right off then cut through a dead woman’s right arm.
Julia fell, landing on her butt as Cayne wrestled with two more. She was up, looking for some kind of weapon, when Strong burst from the stairwell.
“You asshole!” She ran into him with a head butt, releasing a burst of energy without even meaning to. It knocked him down, and Julia jumped on top of him, ignoring the grasping hands of— oh God Anise! Her face was ghastly, and Strong took advantage of Julia’s distraction. He smacked her across the face and she crashed against the wall.
Cayne took care of Anise, but Strong took care of him with a powerful blow.
I guess that’s why he’s called Strong.
Julia tacked him, sat on top of his stomach and smashed her fist into his face, shocked to watch his dirty aura flare around him as he curled in on himself, his light—oh, God—extinguished.
Good
, she told herself, spinning, but it wasn’t good and her heart stopped because Cayne was on the ground and they were all on top of him.
“Cayne!”
Her voice brought him around, and he staggered up, arms outstretched, glazed eyes looking for Julia. Pain lit up his eyes and blood ran down his chest, but his arms encircled her, and though he groaned, he lifted her and rammed through the nearest bedroom door. He dropped Julia onto the rug, pushed a dresser in front of the door, and stood over her, trying and failing to lean down; blood soaked his green t-shirt and turned his jeans crimson, making her stomach churn and her lips quiver.
“Julia…?” He panted. “Are you…okay?”
She nodded. “Yes! Are you? What can I do?”
He shook his head. “Be fine.” His mouth pulled up on one corner, and she felt heartbreakingly sure he was trying to give her a reassuring smile. “Just…come with me. No…
arguing
.”
He took her hand and led her to the window, and he just stood there, breathing labored, face pained.
“Will you heal?”
He nodded.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
Finally she got the blasted window open, inviting in a burst of freezing air; she could hear the terror-stricken shouts of resort guests as blue light flashed outside and fists banged on their door and suddenly Dizzy’s voice was there out in the hall, shouting Julia’s name.
Cayne’s huge wings came out, and they were fine and unhurt—of course!—and he already seemed a little less winded as he scooped her up, leaned through the window, and pushed out into the night.
“Fly over the resort first! Don’t leave!”
But Cayne was swooping across the snow-covered lawn. He spun in place briefly, giving Julia a horrifying glimpse of the resort going down like a sinking ship. One of the domes had collapsed; below them, dozens of people were moving like angry ants in the snow.
“I’m sorry,” Cayne said, and Julia felt him reposition so he could carry her away. But before he could get far, she heard a mighty boom and felt a whoosh of air as Cayne’s left wing folded, and they crashed into the snow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Cayne? CAYNE?!” Julia’s voice came back and with it a horrifying panic. His blood was in the snow and his wing was crumpled and he wasn’t moving. “Cayne,” she sobbed, grabbing his warm face and leaning over him. “Cayne? Please be okay! Please wake up!”
“Julia!”
She glanced over her shoulder, saw Meredith was running to her. She turned back to Cayne. “Cayne! Get up!”
Meredith pulled her off of him and grabbed her arm. “Julia! Everyone saw you! They saw you fall! You need to go!”
“No way! I have to heal him!”
Why wasn’t she already healing him?!
She put her hands on his chest and pushed a burst of energy into him. It left her weak and shaking but his eyelids fluttered.
“Meredith! I didn’t know!”
That deep, insistent voice was Nathan’s, and hearing it made Julia’s adrenaline kick into overdrive. She laced her fingers through Cayne’s and tugged. “Wake up,” she screeched. “We need to leave!”
He groaned. “Julia?”
“I’m right here.” She caressed his warm forehead.
“I swear I didn’t know! I didn’t order this!” Meredith was blocking Nathan, waving her arms wildly and shoving at him when he tried to touch her. “I don’t believe you! Liar! Go away! I won’t let you hurt my friends!”
Nathan grabbed Meredith’s arm, and she started to sob. Cayne was getting to his feet, already looking at the sky, where several levitating Chosen seemed to hold various lookout points over the action. For a half second, Julia’s eyes swept the grounds and she was rocked by the sheer numbers: so many attacking Chosen, so many Swosen, many more human guests. She saw Adam paralyzing a pretty female Swosen in a skimpy gown, then spotted Dizzy, within scary spitting-distance, sitting astride the chest of curly-Ein. He clutched his head, and Dizzy laughed.
What would be left of this place when it was over? Julia hoped she wasn’t around to see.
“I’m not here to hurt them,” Nathan was insisting. He still had Meredith’s arm, and she was trying to pull out of his grasp. “Julia needs to hide! The people here are after her!”
“Are you insane?” Meredith slapped him. She actually freakin’ slapped Nathan across the face. The best part? He went down.
*
Julia frantically searched Cayne’s aura for knots, finding none that should prevent him from flying. She spun to Meredith. “Where’s everyone? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know! Drew was right beside me, and then he wasn’t. I don’t know where Carlin is!”
“We’ve got friends,” Cayne said, and his wings were out again, and he was hugging both Meredith and Julia, hunkering low to the ground, ready to spring if he needed to. Jacquie, her ‘pencils’, and Henry were hobbling across the snowy lawn toward them.
“Omigod.” Julia had an awful thought: Where was Blake?! What if he had died? She needed to go look for him!
“What is it,” Mer said.
“Blake! What if he’s dead!”
“No, still alive. I saw him as I was running—there!” She pointed across the lawn, where the husky Chosen was limping toward them, on line to meet Jacquie’s group as they arrived.
Julia could feel the tension in Cayne’s body, but he stayed put. Right up until the moment that Jacquie…what the hell?
Jacquie waved her arm, and from somewhere up above, an Authority swooped down, all stark white wings and fire. His arrow struck the ground at Cayne’s feet, exploding and sending him flying through the air. Julia and Meredith flew, too, both landing like ragdolls in the snow. Meredith shrieked, and big Blake was there, grabbing Mer’s arms as that uptight ‘pencil’ lady, the one with the clipboards whose names Julia couldn’t remember, put her hand in Julia’s face, and everything went dizzy.
*
Julia heard only Cayne’s name. She thought only of Cayne. Her fear was tinged with fury, so when the pencil bitch finally let up, Julia came up swinging. It felt good to knock someone out. Like finally she could do something, and Julia realized she’d been stupid so far.
Wasn’t she The One? Didn’t that make her the biggest badass here?
She had never thrown blue fire before, but she did now. She saw the curly red-haired Authority flying low to the ground with his arms outstretched, and she had simply to think about doing it and fire was flowing from her fingers.
The Authority went down like a duck, and Julia felt a rush of sheer relief. She spun in the direction of Meredith and Cayne and spotted Drew instead; she realized he was standing over Meredith, who wasn’t moving, and her heart stopped.
Suddenly there was something moving over her, and as Julia raised her hands, strong arms gripped her, and she was being lifted. She might have been carried away by a brown-haired Chosen girl with a slick ponytail and a lip ring, but Henry appeared and he grabbed her foot.
“Julia!”
She didn’t know whether to kick at him and or jump into his arms, and as the levitating woman tugged her, she was fast losing all choice in the matter.
“Julia, I’ll help you!”
Julia shot the levitating Chosen woman with blue fire and fell into Henry’s arms.
“Where is Cayne?” Henry’s face was soot-stained, and Julia realized in a swift second that the largest dome was actually burning; it wasn’t overtaken yet, but blue flames spilled out several first-floor windows.
“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him!”
Julia remembered Jacquie signaling the Authority, and she shoved out of Henry’s arms. She whirled around, looking for Cayne, and ran, although she hadn’t spotted him yet.
She ran around a few ice-crusted trees, slipping in the snow as she turned, and there was Jacquie.
“Julia,” she started.
But Julia blasted her with a tiny bolt of blue fire; the woman screamed, clutching her shoulder, and Julia took a few steps back. “Where’s Cayne?”
“Behind you.”
Julia actually fell for it. The Swosen leader lunged forward and tackled her. She pressed her fingers into Julia’s shoulders, her wavy hair spilling around Julia like a curtain.
“You don’t know anything,” she said sadly. “If The Three capture you, the Earth will go to ruin. Julia, they will use you. You’re not powerful. You’re power
less
.”
Jacquie’s hand caressed her temple, and pain exploded in her head.
“I’m so sorry, honey. This was never in my plans.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Julia’s moan roused her. She cracked one eye open and saw Jacquie’s face, bathed in pale blue light. The woman, battered and bloody, was carrying her feet; someone else had her torso, and it felt like they were moving down a hill. Each step felt like a hammer to her head. Again.
All around them, blue fire lit up the icy night. Screams and sirens made Julia’s head ache fiercely. Out of the corner of her bleary gaze, she saw wings flutter in the smoky sky.
Julia lay very still, trying to keep her body limp although Jacquie had her feet up in the air and Henry’s fingers, clutching her shoulders, felt like talons.
Oh, and these assholes had betrayed her
. Totally. So she really kinda wanted to just blast them both into the sky.
Why shouldn’t she? These people, Jacquie and Henry, Jacquie who had served her tea and Henry who’d just taught her how to play WoW—they were going to murder her. She sensed their intent, and she realized she really
was
a pawn. Just a pawn to everyone. How would she ever trust anyone again?
She knew somewhere deep down that she wouldn’t. Because she couldn’t. Because as long as she was The One, as long as she was some hated, exalted
tool
, she wasn’t living her own life. She was doing something else.
But she promised herself, as snow fell on her cheeks, that she would change that. She would not fulfill her purpose as The One. She would not bring down a barrier the Alpha had placed. She would not cooperate in any scenario where Cayne was supposed to hurt her. And if she had to die to do things her way, Julia figured that she would.
Because she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on anybody else’s terms.
The crunching sound below Jacquie and Henry’s shoes gave way to a wet, whooshing sound, and Julia could tell they had reach the parking lot. She took a big, deep breath. She allowed herself a brief peek at the sky, and she hoped against hope that Cayne was up there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to swoop down and rescue her.
Not that she needed rescuing.
From her prone position, it was easy to fling out both her arms and shoot fireballs at Henry and Jacquie’s traitorous faces. As soon as she hit her marks, she was dropped flat on her back in the icy parking lot—which hurt like a motherlover, but not worse than The Three’s leash had.
Julia scrambled up to find them clawing at each other, screaming and cursing and flailing as they tried to find her.
Too bad, so sad.
She turned and ran through the crunchy snow, following their footprints, thinking as she bolted that there was no haven. There would never be one until Methuselah was gone.
Her head pounded as she scanned the snowy lawn, eyes darting from the sky where Authorities fought levitating Chosen to the formerly manicured lawn, where regulars were screaming and Chosen and Swosen battled using blue fire and hands whose gifts could not be seen.
She heard a cry and Meredith bolted out from between two bushes. Her nose was bleeding, her hair was trailing smoke, and Thierry was trailing her. Julia saw the moment he noticed her; his eyes widened and he lunged forward, bypassing Meredith in a shortcut to reach Julia. Instead of running, she stayed put.
She’d figured out how to shoot a fire bolt, but she needed to make sure she took Thierry out. When she’d killed Samyaza, she’d sent her energy out like tossing a metal chain; this time she imagined a fire ball…made of her energy. And when Thierry stretched out his arms, ready to poof her to The Three, Julia tossed it at his legs.
She took no pleasure in seeing him go down, but she breathed a big sigh of relief when Meredith reached her, tossing her arms around Julia.
“I think Adam is dead, and Dizzy got dropped on her head by one of the Authorities!”
“Are you serious?”
Meredith grabbed her arm, pulling Julia through snow-stacked bushes and trees. They ducked to miss a flying fireball and Julia threw one at a Swosen woman who was moving toward them with a harsh look on her face.
“Drew got hurt and some cops came but the Authorities bewitched them and Nathan disappeared, and did they try to hurt you? Jacquie hurt you?!”
Julia nodded.
“Oh my God, Julia, we have to go! Get out of here! But Julia…” Mer’s lips trembled “I can’t find Carlin!”