A wave of nausea runs through me, and just like that, it turns to a fiery furor that I have never felt before.
I take one Fem after another, all the while watching with my peripheral vision as Gage swoops down and wrestles with the new dragon on the scene. And by the looks of the way they’re twisting and locking horns, it’s almost as if that old rusty beast was trying to distract Gage from the work at hand. The lion roars and gets in on the action, taking a bite out the beast’s neck.
It shrieks and bucks before Gage breathes enough fire over the monster to incinerate the entire universe. The chaos around me dies down for a moment as the beast spasms before falling out of the sky and spiraling down in a heap. The ground shakes violently upon its impact, smoke rises despite the driving rain, and what’s left in its wake looks to be the form of a man.
I bolt over. I need to see this shit with my own eyes. My heart races because I have a feeling I know exactly what I’ll see.
Sure enough I find my likeness lying there, limbs splayed out.
His eyes open as he looks my way.
Demetri Edinger morphs back to life, full suit, that obnoxious grin beginning to take over before he lets out a maniacal laugh. The ground around him opens up and fills with what looks to be blood mixed with water as he sinks down beneath it. And just like that, Dudley has a bloody swimming pool on his property courtesy of Demetri’s grand exit.
Thunder growls from above, and I look up to see Dudley warring it out with Skyla by his side as they take on the most grandiose beasts this circus can provide. Logan leaps over to them, devouring the beasts before diving back to Paragon and making quick work of the beasts on the field as well. That haunted crow Holden and his snow-white bride Serena pluck and peck at the Fem Skyla is battling. To my left I spot Natalie and Lexy toughing it out, while slaughtering one of the Valkyrie, and nearby is Liam Oliver doing his best to slaughter the beast in front of him.
And then I see her, standing next to what’s left of the corral, swinging a spirit sword as if it were a baseball bat, knocking down Fems as quickly as they come for her.
Laken.
If I have ever loved her, it doesn’t rival what I feel for her now. I’m about to head her way when I see a Cooper staggering, his left arm hanging by a tendon, his shirt doused in blood as he battles a beast of a Fem who I recognize to be Micah, with his gray skin, lucent black eyes.
“Coop!” I howl, inadvertently garnering Laken’s attention as well.
We fly to him and take on the Fem with everything we’ve got. But it’s Laken who plunges her hands into Micah’s eyes, binding him in a show of celestial force.
Another band of Valkyrie descends upon us, and Laken is quickly thrown to the ground, her face held down in that well of water Demetri left behind. The hell I’m going to let them hurt a hair on her head. I fight, claw, and shout at the monsters until she’s able to get the hell away from their grasp, but it’s me who’s in it now, drowning in the muck and the mire created by my very own father. The irony isn’t lost on me as an arm as strong as steel holds me under in that bloody pool, my lungs struggling for just one breath. My limbs feel weak, my mind grows fuzzy, I can’t muster the anger I need, everything in me is set to panic. It doesn’t end like this for me. It doesn’t end for Laken and me this way.
Something loosens and I’m corked to the surface, plucked out by a bloodied and battered Cooper Flanders. The fury in his eyes is enough to refuel my own as I gasp for a blessed clean breath.
The beasts are charging this way once again. Coop is loose on his feet, his face white as stone, that arm of his flailing like the dead limb it is. Laken lets out a garbled scream as she shouts something to him.
I quickly pluck her off him. “Go find Ezrina,” I bellow as I point to the woods I saw her in last. “He needs help. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
Laken pierces through the sheets of driving rain, bolting to the woods behind us as a blaze of celestial glory ignites in the clearing to my right. It’s an explosion of warfare, a battle of the ages with shimmering creatures that no longer bother to hide their celestial appeal, supernaturally luminescent monsters, Fems, Valkyrie, men, and women.
I see Chloe covered with blood, a cry of anger driving her to take those creatures around her out, and woe to the beasts that step in her path. No one knows her wrath like I do. I see Ellis, Brody, Lexy, Rev the groom. Hell, I see Dr. Oliver in there, Dr. Booth. It’s a who’s who of Paragon’s elite, and no one is above the chaos today. The dragon and the lion battle it out with beasts twice their size as they tumble and rumble with the best of them. No one is immune. Hell has broken loose on the island, and there is no turning back, for any of us.
The Valkyrie head this way, their eyes lit with fire. I count ten of them as they descend on Coop and me at the very same time. We fight, we destroy, we fall victim to their painful punishments. One of the beasts, the one that looks like a rotting clown with razor-sharp metallic teeth, picks me up and I gouge his face right the hell off with my hands. He slams me to the ground so hard, I can’t breathe. I can’t see for a few good seconds.
Cooper takes on three of them, and one by one they dissipate to nothing. The dark clown with his missing face holds up his arm, his hand morphing into a sickle, and I watch as it swings my way, so fast, so very lethal. It’s a thing of horror, and I am certain this will be the death of me.
A body knocks me out of the way. And soon, Cooper is twisting its head off with a one-handed move. The creature shrieks and slices that sickle right at Cooper Flanders’ chest.
Shit.
A righteous roar bucks through me as I jump to my feet and drive my fist right through its body, and in a blaze of nuclear glory it explodes, lighting up the sky like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
The area around us grows strangely calm, and a dull laugh bucks through me.
“We did it,” I shout as I look back to Coop lying on the ground, his body shaking, gyrating out of turn. His eyes look straight into the void above as if he was watching this world recede and paradise appear.
“Hey,” I belt it out, angry. “Get the hell up,” I thunder as I kneel down and pull him to me. His left arm dangles like a raw piece of meat, lifeless by his side. “Cooper,” I bellow over him until his eyes meet with mine.
And I know.
It hits me like a hammer exactly how serious this is for him.
Laken appears with Ezrina and Heathcliff, and right behind them are Skyla and Dudley.
