Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Iwant to scream. I want to tear my hair out. I want to cry. But instead, I just linger there as if the flat isn’t burning and we aren’t in the middle of a war zone. It feels like the wind has gone out of me, like I can’t catch my breath, and it’s not just due to the thick haze of smoke that’s filling the apartment. I stare down at Mollie. Her eyes are wide and staring now, and her hand has dropped from my arm, frozen in a clawing gesture that makes me want to explode when I look at it.

The closest thing I ever had to a parent, and she’s lying dead on the floor in front of me. Because we brought them here.

There’s a low moaning sound, and it takes me a moment to realise that I’m the one making it. I slump onto the floor in spite of the voice in my head that’s crying out for me to leave, leave now or I’m going to die. The fight has gone out of me. My eyes close for a moment, and when I feel a hand gripping my shoulder, I try desperately to shake it off. “No!” I yell, lashing out with my hands at what I can only assume is another one of the Academy representatives. “Let me go!”

“Millie, Millie, it’s me!” I recognise Hunter’s voice. Isn’t that just dandy -- the man who broke my heart is now trying to pry me away from my dead foster mother. “Come on, we have to get out of here!”

“Get off me!” I shout, leaning forward over Mollie’s body as if that will somehow change the outcome.

“Millie, please.” He’s imploring now, that same voice he used when he tried to talk to me last night, and god, it hurts. Everything hurts, from my pounding head to my heart, and I’ve never been so tempted to just curl up on the floor and let death come to me as I am in that moment. I’ve not only managed to drag a bunch of innocent people into my mess; I’ve also gotten one of them killed. “Come on!” He leans into me, using his vampiric strength to haul me to my feet. I struggle futilely against him, but I don’t have the energy to fight him off, my eyes still lingering on the corpse on the floor.

“We can’t just leave her,” I protest, tears streaming down my face and leaving clean trails in the soot on my cheeks. “We can’t -- we have to do something, we have to…”

“Boots.” Hunter takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look at him. “She’s gone.” His normally blue eyes have gone red with his transformation, making him look borderline inhuman, and I want to scream at the injustice of it all.

Still, something in the way he’s looking at me pierces through the cloud of grief that’s surrounded me, and somehow I’m able to make my legs work. Nodding curtly to him and wiping my streaming eyes, I allow him to lead me to the door, guided by his superior vision. One by one, we rush out of the apartment, Hunter and I in the lead, and the guys following behind. Xander and Hazel are already outside, and it’s not until I hear an explosive roar from behind me that I realise Ruby has been singlehandedly holding the rest of them off. She unleashes a last burst of flame from her powerful jaws to cover us while we make our exit, but moments later I hear a different roar. They have a dragon of their own.

Ruby goes flying out the front door, thrown like a ragdoll and suddenly back in her human form. “Ruby!” Xander yells, letting Hazel go to run to his sister and help her to her feet.

“Too many of them,” she pants. “Where did they come from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies. “We have to -”

But the sound of a telekinetic burst -- Edith’s doing, I’d bet a fiver -- makes it impossible to hear the rest of what she says. Except instead of sending us flying away, it drags Ruby and Xander back into the apartment. Hazel yells something, but I can’t hear it over the commotion, and before I know what’s happening, she’s shifted back and is charging headlong back into the flat. “No!” Silas protests, lunging for her. “We have to stay together!”

“Go!” Hazel yells over her shoulder, barely audible in the chaos. “I’ll cover you!” Silas hesitates, but then she repeats her command, louder, in her siren’s voice. “Go!”

That gets him moving. The big dragon shifter takes me by the hand and pulls me toward the stairs. I try to argue, but Hazel knew what she was doing -- the other guys are hopeless to ignore her command. We forgo the lift and race down the stairs. By the time we emerge back out onto the street, I’m bracing myself, half-expecting another pack of shifters to be waiting for us in ambush. Instead, all I see is a crowd of humans rubbernecking, trying to get a good look at the disaster happening on the top floor. In the distance, I can hear the sounds of police sirens and fire engines, and lights are coming on all over the neighborhood. Worse yet, the spectators all have their phones out to record the scene which makes using our powers a problem.

“Lie low,” Shade suggests, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up.

“Hey!” shouts one of the people watching, a woman trying to herd two young kids. “What happened up there? Do you guys need help?”

“No,” I call back to her breathlessly. “I don’t know. Please let us go…” In a single file line, the five of us snake past the rest of the bystanders, doing our best to keep a low profile despite the fact that we’re all a mess. I steal one last glance over my shoulder: the top floor of the building has caught fire by now, and there’s no sign of the others. It’s too late to go back up for them, and all I can hope now is that between the three of them, they’ll be able to escape. The odds aren’t in their favour.

Silas takes my hand and pulls me gently away. I realise I’m crying again as we round a corner onto a side street, this one less hectic and more out of the way. Before I even notice that I’m shaking, my knees give out on me and I slump to the curb. Putting my head in my hands, I let out a harsh sob.

The guys turn around, exchanging worried glances. “Hey.” Hunter tentatively rests a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“Don’t touch me,” I snap, but there’s no fire in it.

Hunter, to his credit, doesn’t let up. Instead, he pulls me into an embrace that feels like it’s my last lifeline. One by one, the other guys approach me the same way, putting their arms around me and surrounding me protectively. I let the tears fall freely, clinging to them like a drowning person clings to a life raft. If they weren’t here, I would truly have nothing left.

After what feels like an eternity, Landon is the first to pull away. “I hate to do this,” he says quietly, “but we’d better get out of this neighbourhood. If there are any more hunters around, they’re going to be sweeping this whole area.”

“Where do we go?” I protest.

“Anywhere,” the siren shifter replies. “Anywhere that’s far away from here.”

Silas gives a stiff nod. “He’s right. Soon this place will be crawling with humans -- bystanders, if not hunters. Better we move now.”

I let out a long breath, but I know he’s right. Shakily I begin to walk again, the guys forming a protective circle around me the same way they did earlier. Everything has fallen apart in the space of a few minutes. Some part of me wonders if I’m going into shock from it all. My normal life has never felt so far away.

For all our precautions, though, none of us are listening to our surroundings very closely, and by the time I’m aware of footsteps behind us, the paralysis spell has already taken hold. My muscles seize up, spasming uncontrollably, just as the guys are blasted back by a wave of magic. Straining against the magic, I look over my shoulder to see Edith approaching, flanked by two of the Academy hunters. She’s looking a little worse for wear, but her green eyes are just as piercing as ever, and they flash with hatred as she stares me down.

“You treacherous bitch,” gasps Shade. He’s had the wind knocked out of him, but just as he starts to get to his feet, Edith flicks her hand and moves him back another few steps. The others are struggling against her magic too, and although I can sense that she’s flagging, she’s powerful enough to keep us all at bay.

“Why?” I croak out. It’s the only word I’m able to say.

“Things must come so easily to you, don’t they?” Edith hisses, slowly walking towards me. “The school. The shapeshifting. Them.” She nods in the direction of the guys, and I suddenly see something on her face, something that’s been here this whole time without my noticing it: jealousy. “It must be nice, having a harem of guys following you around, being able to shift into any form, having the whole world watching what you do.” Her mouth twists with contempt. “You can’t blame me for wanting to shake things up a little.”

As she speaks, I close my eyes, drawing on my reserves and reaching for my witch magic. If I can just shift my hands, that will be enough. Slowly, red begins to creep up my arms, and with a hoarse yell, I let out my own bolt of magic. It’s not much, but it’s enough to temporarily pierce the entrapment spell and get the guys moving again. “Get out of here!” I yell at them.

“Millie -” Shade shouts, but upon seeing the look in my eyes, he trails off.

“Don’t let them get away,” Edith yells to one of the hunters, who takes off after the guys as they disappear around a corner.

I feel a pang of regret, but I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of me. Especially not them. At least this way, they’ll have a chance.

That’s the last coherent thought I have before the rest of the hunters are on me.