The bullets hailed. One flew past my head and another tore across my right arm as we ducked for cover behind the van. Effigies healed fast, but right now the stinging pain was hard to bear. Belle was breathing heavily, holding her stomach, still reeling from the explosion. Eveline and Lock, still alive, dragged themselves out of the van’s window to take cover with us. But that woman remained inside the van. It was bulletproof, Sect-grade protection. With us occupied, she had plenty of time to take what she needed.
“This is insane.” Rhys already had his knife in hand; the other held his head in pain. “Unit Six!” He’d yelled it instead, not bothering with his comm. “We need back—”
He couldn’t finish, because he finally saw them through their windshield. They were dead, their heads rolled over at odd angles, blood dripping from the single bullet holes in their foreheads, shot through the window.
“Rachel!” Lock screamed in anguish as his hand dove into his holster.
Their murderer hopped down from the roof of Unit 6 onto the hood, crushing it a little. He had to be at least a foot taller than the woman and a hundred pounds heavier. Maybe more. He was huge, a bodybuilder on steroids. The man was armored from limb to limb, his head covered with the same sleek, robotic white helmet. But Big Guy’s movements were strange, almost alien. His body seemed to convulse with each clunky step. It didn’t stop him from raising his gun at us.
Lock charged past us, gun in hand.
“Wait!” Eveline cried, but Lock’s sleeve slipped out of her grip. She ran after him.
Lock shot a hail of bullets, and every one of them found Big Guy’s chest only to bounce off his armor with a loud clink. But did this thing even need armor? One of Lock’s bullets shot through Big Guy’s gloved hand as he raised it. He didn’t even flinch. No blood oozed out of the hole.
One of the agent’s bullets from the railings caught Lock’s arm, and he cried out in pain. That distracted him long enough for the mysterious enemy to lurch forward and grab his neck. Eveline wasn’t fast enough to reach him before the snap. Her hands weren’t nimble enough to take her gun before Lock’s murderer pointed his at her head. But Belle launched forward, wincing in pain, and with a swing of her hand, froze the gun in his hands before his bullet could leave the barrel. But something told me this guy didn’t need a gun.
First, I had to get rid of the treacherous Sect agents. There was no other way. With a yell, I stretched my arm forward and a wall of a fire exploded from below the walkway, sending the agents into the air, shards of railing with it.
“Get back!” I told Rhys, and I tried the trick again, this time blowing our delivery van toward the wall and hopefully that woman with it. Better no ring than the ring being stolen by a couple of murderous cyborgs.
I was too late. While the van was sailing in the air, the woman jumped out through the busted back doors just as the van hit the wall. I had barely registered the crash when she rushed at me. Belle’s sword was out before I could react, but the woman expertly dodged her swings.
Rhys grabbed his knife.
“Wait!” I said, clutching his shirt instinctively. “Are you okay? You’re still injured.”
“I’ll be okay,” he told me, though he couldn’t hide his sudden wince. A fresh wave of fear shot through me as I watched him.
“But—”
With a gentle hand, Rhys wiped the blood staining my cheek. I fell silent at his touch. “Help Eveline,” Rhys told me before tightening his grip on his knife and joining Belle’s fight.
He was right. With great effort, I tore my eyes from him and followed the order. The other enemy was built like a fridge and moved like one. He didn’t bother to dodge Eveline’s gunshots, even when one bullet cracked his helmet. But that was good. It made him an easier target for me.
You can do this, Maia, I told myself. Well, it was either I did it or I died.
“Move back,” I told Eveline, and, biting my lip, I forced my breath to calm. Fire erupted at my feet, the smooth pole forming in my hands. With the familiar weight balanced across my palms, I ran forward, flipping it around like I’d done so many times in training, bringing my blade down on him.
He didn’t dodge. He didn’t even try. I buried the sickled edge into the crook of his neck.
And yet he was still coming for me. Fear seized me. I let go of the handle and stepped back as he lumbered forward, undisturbed by the blade still in his muscle. With my mouth gaping, I did the only thing I could think of. A wall of fire, tall enough to keep him in place. Eveline jumped back from the flickering flames as it circled him.
“Is this thing human?” Eveline screamed, reaching into her pocket for new rounds, reloading her gun.
It couldn’t have been. But his partner was. I could hear her laughing—a high-pitched voice, joyful and murderous as she dodged Rhys’s and Belle’s attacks. Still struggling against the aftereffects of the attack, neither fought at their full potential, but this girl’s speed and agility would have been hard to guard against regardless. Blocking the swing of Belle’s sword with her armored biceps, she ran for Rhys, dipping to the side to dodge his gunshot.
“What’s wrong, Aidan? Nah, that’s no good. You used to be a better shot, sweetie.”
Rhys froze to the spot at the sound of her Australian voice, and in that one second, she was behind him, grabbing his hand, pointing his gun at Belle.
“Let me help you!”
The shot tore through Belle’s leg, but it was Rhys I ran for, trying to make it before the woman, using Rhys’s own hand to point his gun at his head, could fire the shot. Rhys overcame her himself, stretching his arm up just as the shot rang out into the air. She quickly snapped his wrist before maneuvering out of the way. Rhys doubled backward in pain.
“Rhys!” I said as he tripped on a spare wheel. I caught him before he could fall. “Rhys.”
“Jessie . . . ,” he whispered, his face pale. He couldn’t see her face. But her voice was enough. “It’s Jessie.”
The woman he’d called Jessie was fast. Too fast. She dodged Eveline’s shots until the agent’s gun clicked empty, but she was already on Belle, whose sluggish ice attack couldn’t land its target. As the ice spread across the ground a few feet away from us, Jessie grabbed Belle’s wrist with one gloved hand and slammed her other hand into her neck. I didn’t understand what had happened until I saw the frost forming at Belle’s fingertips fizzle and die.
There must have been some device inside Jessie’s glove. I could see a red spot of blood where Belle’s neck had been pricked. And her powers . . . her powers were gone.
Jessie took advantage of Belle’s shock to knock her out with a well-placed elbow to the temple. Next she came for me. Fast. Smoke sputtered from my hand erratically as I tried to control my equally erratic heartbeat. Calm down. I had to calm down. Jessie had already caught my wrist. A small circular metal device in the palm of her glove seized my attention, the tiny needle in the center of it glinting as she reached for my neck.
We heard the soft clink at the same time. My neck-band. I could almost picture Jessie’s surprised expression behind her helmet as she paused, looking from her glove to my neck.