Zeke leaps up from her hiding spot and soars into the sky after the man. The rest of the rebels take flight behind her.
I watch as the dauntless archer pulls arrows from a quiver on his back, picking off two more sorcerers before any of them have even noticed his new location. He’s too far away for me to see his face, but I notice a shock of blond hair that seems vaguely familiar.
Rebels and sorcerers alike descend on the man. He disappears again, bullets and arrows and fireballs landing on the spot where he had just been standing.
He appears again, only ten feet in front of me, crouched outside the line of trees Bishop and I are hidden behind.
Only it’s not a he.
It’s Aunt Penny.
28
She’s got a quiver of arrows strapped across her back, and she heaves for breath, sweat slicking the tendrils of hair that have escaped her ponytail against her face.
Who replaced my bar-star aunt with a freaking superhero? And more important, what is she doing here?
I moan as loudly as I can to get her attention. She glances behind her, and her eyes go as wide as saucers when she sees Bishop and me.
“Indie!” she gasps. She turns to face me. That’s when I notice the fireball hurtling toward her.
I moan frantically, trying to get her to move. Aunt Penny flicks her eyes over her shoulder just in time to put her hands up in front of her face. She’s blasted off her feet, the flames engulfing her. She disappears before her body hits the ground.
I let out a gut-wrenching groan.
No. No, this can’t be happening.
A robed sorcerer lands in front of the flames.
I shrink into myself, praying he doesn’t spot us. He howls with rage and kicks a tree so hard that leaves break free and flutter to the fiery ground. He takes off again. If Aunt Penny isn’t already dead, he’s on his way right now to finish her off.
The flames spread quickly into the trees around us. The heat sears my face, and pinpricks of pain flash all over my skin. For a second I think we’re going to burn and there won’t be a thing we can do about it, but then I realize that this fire is what will free us.
The pinpricks spread along my body as my blood flow is restored. My skin drips water as the icicles melt, and color slowly returns to my blue skin. Bishop curls his outstretched hand into a fist. I try to do the same. My fingers move in slow motion, icicles popping as my joints flex, but they move. My heart rate speeds up. In a few more minutes, I’ll be able to move normally.
The Chief stands atop the stone altar as another teen is pushed toward him. I recognize her instantly. She’s the girl I saw my first day in Los Demonios—Mrs. Hornby’s daughter, Samantha. She shakes so hard I can see it from a half mile away. The Chief hoists her up over his head in offering. I desperately want to do something—anything—but my core is still too cold to summon my magic, my body too sluggish to respond to my commands.
The chanting builds to a wail. Slowly, Samantha’s body goes slack, wilts as if drained of its life force, and as it does, the ball of light glows bigger and brighter. It swirls and pulses like a living thing, giving the air a charge.
Samantha’s dead.
Something flips inside of me. Anger flashes hot in my stomach, my blood turning molten.
These people have taken so much from me. My mom, Cruz, maybe Aunt Penny—the only family I have left. They took Samantha, and they’ll take Paige too, and the rest of these teens who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I stare at the stone formation, at the sorcerers circled around, swaying and chanting in time to the drumbeat. I know in this instant that I could kill them. I could kill every single one of them and not feel a bit of regret for doing it.
The single thought in my mind is death. I can feel the dark part of myself like it’s a separate thing, but instead of feeling shame and embarrassment about it, I give in to it, letting the rage and anger consume me until I’m sure that if I could see myself, I’d look demented. Magic courses hot through my veins.
“Indie,” Bishop says, through his still-tense jaw, “are you okay?”
I clench and curl my hands at my sides, ignoring Bishop as I stare at the Chief. At my dad.
“I will kill him,” I say.
I take a step forward. My joints crack like I’m a hundred years old. But I take another step, and then another, and the more I move, the looser my limbs become. I can feel myself thawing out by the second.
Explosions sound all around me, the chanting and drumbeat rising up in a din of bone-shaking noise. Sorcerers and rebels zigzag through the air, too intent on killing the archer—and now each other—to notice our approach down below.
I give into the black part of myself, letting the darkness unfurl around me like a cloak. My heart pumps with black blood, my breath coming hard and fast as magic pulses scorching hot through my veins. The ground rumbles under my feet. I walk faster and faster.
And then I run.
I’m just twenty feet from the stone formation when the first attack comes.
Two sorcerers leap forward. I hold out my hand, and a violent blast of wind slams them back so hard they land on their backs with a resounding crack. They don’t get up. They don’t move.
Good.
“Holy shit,” Bishop mutters behind me. He’s finally thawed and caught up with me. “Indie, how did you—”
His words are cut short as two more sorcerers challenge me. Scratch that—rebels. Sporty and Zeke land in front of me. I knock them away, barely raising my hand. The power surges through me in palpable waves.
Another sorcerer leaps into my path, bent low and ready for a fight.
“Come on, little girl,” he says. “I look forward to making you scream.”
Terror rips into me at the sound of Ace’s twangy voice. For a split second my concentration is thrown and I’m no longer this powerful force, but a scared girl cornered in the dark. Ace raises his hands, those hands that touched me against my will.