I can’t melt down in the middle of a battle. My friends, my colleagues—everyone needs me.
What they need me to do, my scrambling mind can’t quite identify. I hurl a more focused command directly at the bull, and it actually trots backward a few steps before its glowing eyes flarewith renewed rage. Which does at least give Hail time to freeze its legs out from under it.
I kick aside a rattish creature, sending it skidding across the asphalt. A giant newt roars at me, and I fling myself around the other side of the pole.
My breath is coming in short bursts now. Even with my eyes open, images that have nothing to do with the scene in front of me flash through my vision.
Shadowy forms lunging from the corners of a room. My mother’s body falling—blood spilling everywhere. Snarls and cackles—my body flung through the air and raked by claws?—
I clutch the post even harder and try to focus on the ground beneath my feet the way my therapist back when I was a preteen used to teach me. Staying physically grounded can help keep my mind grounded too.
I’m not in the past. I’m right here.
Right here in the middle of a torrent of violent shadowkind.
Mirage pops up next to me, and my hand flings out automatically. I catch the shove just before my hand smacks his chest.
The fox shifter blinks at me and cocks his head. “Do you need help? You look sick, maybe. This doesn’t seem like a good place to take a rest.”
No. No, it’s not. And somehow just looking at him, taking in the ruddy conical ears poking from his hair and the glint of fangs in his mouth makes my pulse pound harder.
Somewhere deep inside my body is the knowledge that he’s one ofthem. One of the monsters.
Somewhere deep down, I don’t quite trust even him.
The shame of that recognition twists around my throat. I force out an answer. “I think I should go back to the camp. I’m not helping much here. Don’t worry about me. The rest of you… You should keep pushing the warped creatures back.”
Mirage’s forehead furrows. He reaches for my arm as if to help support me and freezes when I flinch away.
“They need you,” I say hastily to cover my reaction, and jab my hand toward the fray up ahead.
The combined efforts of the army and the gathered higher beings has started to push the warped creatures’ assault backward. And I’m really not any use if I’m distracting my allies from the job they need to be doing.
I turn and fix my gaze on the next lamp post down the street. When I reach it, I aim for the next one after that. My pulse keeps thundering through my veins. The ground feels as if it’s teetering beneath my feet.
The wail of sirens brings a weird mix of relief and apprehension. As I sway onward, three ambulances careen into view up ahead.
A couple park farther down near the tents. One zooms until it screeches to a halt just a few paces away from me.
A team of paramedics emerges from the back doors. A couple of them grab my arms and haul me toward the ambulance. “Hey, we’ve got you now. Where are you injured?”
My words hitch on the way out. “No injuries. Just—just something like a—panic attack.”
They don’t appear to believe me. One tuts to himself while the other bustles around pulling equipment out of boxes. She nudges me down to sit at the back of the ambulance.
“The reports coming in from here are crazy,” the man says as he checks my pulse. “Panicking seems like a normal reaction. Your breathing’s erratic. You haven’t inhaled anything toxic?”
I shake my head, and the world sways. “Nothing—nothing like that. I’m really okay.” Or I will be, once I get a hold of myself. “There are other people you should be helping.”
“Everyone matters.” The woman shudders. “They’re saying there aremonstersout there? What the hell is going on? Here, lie down for a minute.”
I don’t know how to argue with her. They are monsters, in one way or another.
I sink down on the ambulance floor and stare up at the white ceiling. Fainter visions of the past flit past my eyes.
The ones who killed my family, who ripped me from our little village and terrorized me while they decided how to use me—they were monsters in every sense of the word.
They’re gone now. They can’t hurt anyone anymore. Rollick and Quinn and the rest of them made sure of it, nearly twenty-five years ago.
