As quickly as the energy appeared, it leaves. We lose our grip on each other and topple to the floor. Breath rushes from my lungs. When I recover, I sit up, and the others do the same.
Someone laughs. A second later we’re all laughing.
“How did that happen?” Ali asks.
“No idea,” Gavin says. “But let’s do it again.”
“Better than an entire bottle of vodka,” River says, and the laughter starts up again.
Frosty moves in front of me to cup my cheeks, his features serious. “Are you okay?”
“Hundred percent. You?”
“Better than.” He hugs me, and I cling to him. He’s safe. I’m safe. The vision came true, but we both survived. The war is over. Finally. Blessedly.
Now...now we live.
“I’m sorry I made you think I was going to betray the group,” I say. “Even for a little while.”
“I never thought you would.” He stands and offers me a hand.
I take it and he pulls me to my feet. “You trusted me.”
“I did.”
No wonder I love him. From the beginning, I’d chemistried him. The more time I spent with him, the more I got to know him, and the more I liked him. Sometime during our acquaintance, love clicked into place, a decision made by the very heart of me.
“I did. I do. Milla, I—”
Pop! Pop!
Two shots slam into my back, burning and stinging, throwing me against him.
He catches me before I fall and swings me around to shield me from any further shots.
“What the hell?” River shouts.
“Milla!” Ali calls.
“Rebecca,” Gavin growls.
Rebecca is alive?
My view is blocked as every slayer rallies around us.
I catch my breath quickly and say, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Flames might not crackle over me, but my body is already healing.”
The horror fades from Frosty’s features. He presses a fingertip into the hole in the sheet one of the bullets caused. His eyes go wide.
“She’s a zombie,” Jaclyn says on a gasp.
Rebecca? Together Frosty and I step to the front of the crowd.
Rebecca is alive. Her hair is tangled around her blood-smeared face, her skin a hideous shade of gray...her eyes glowing neon red.
She’s in bodily form, but she is a zombie.
Confused, she looks at me, then her gun, then me. With a screech, she shoots me three more times. When the same thing happens—Frosty catches me, I heal—she stumbles back, radiating fear.
“How do you want to handle this?” Cole asks me.
“I know!” Kat appears at my side, proclaiming, “We won our case. Join hands and light up. Hurry.”
“Do it,” I say.
Everyone leaps into action...and just like before, a great wave of energy bursts from us. Maybe it happens because the witnesses won their case. Maybe we’ve always possessed the ability and just didn’t know it. Or maybe the faith still humming inside us is responsible. Whatever the reason, I sure do like the results.
Like us, Rebecca is cast into the air, where she hovers just below the ceiling, flailing for an anchor but finding none.
“Stop. Stop!” The gun falls from her grip, clinks on the ground. “Let me down! Let me—” Her back bows. She screams as her body goes up in flames—without being touched by any of us. She shakes and shakes and shakes...finally, she explodes.
The energy leaves us and we drop, our circle broken. Frosty wraps his arms around me as ash the color of ink rains upon us.
Dark can always be chased away by light.
“It’s over now,” he says and kisses my temple. “She can’t come back from that.”
“Now, all we have to do is...live.”
The drive home is a celebratory affair. The war is finally over—ding dong the witch is dead—and all of my friends are alive.
“Let Rebecca be a cautionary tale for all of us,” Milla says. “Act like a hooker, get screwed.”
I chuckle softly, but sober quickly. “River. Chance.” The two sit across from me in the van. “You guys need to hack into Rebecca’s accounts and drain her money. She’s dead, yeah, but we can’t allow anyone else to use her resources and keep the company afloat.”
“I’ll do it,” River replies. “Then, I recover from battle, Marks-style.”
Cole parks in our underground garage. Couples begin to dart upstairs, one after the other. I understand their urgency. I want Milla in my arms. I need her in my arms. I’m going to show her how much I love her.
She’s my world.
The moment she put herself in front of me, taking the bullets meant for me, I knew. I could deny the truth no longer. I love her, and I’m never letting her go.
Before we make to the first step, River moves to block our path. “Is now a bad time to mention you guys have to do my laundry for a month?”
Milla flips him off.
He slaps her finger aside. “Is that any way to treat your favorite person on earth?”
“Currently you hold the exalted position of least favorite.”
“Even though I promise not to stand in your way if you decide to live here?”