I only just hit the ground when the gunfire erupts from the whole city horizon.
We walked right into a fucking ambush.
FOURTEEN
Against the backdrop of flames and black blood and fae faces twisting with war cries that arch over the gunfire, the guard with lilac eyes turns on us.
Those eyes, familiar before the crack of his backhand on my cheek weeks ago, flare just like they did then, an unnatural gleam of rage.
A blur, he turns his back on the siege of gunfire and drops into a crouch. His fist comes down on the road—and snow lifts up around his distorted face, a face warped with fury.
I’m curled up on the ground, arms curved over my head, as though that’ll save me from the sporadic landing of bullets, hitting the road, the arms and legs and shoulders of the fae, the doors of cars and wheels of toppled bikes.
But those lilac eyes hold every ounce of my attention—because they are aimed right at me.
The way this guard stares at me… it’s like I’m the source of the gunfire, the human in the city shooting at him, at his fellow warriors.
It’s misaimed hatred, misdirected blame.
All that rage in him, the urge to turn his back on his duty of guarding the captives and run into the fight, it bottles up—and for some reason, aims at me.
I shut my eyes, tight, like that’ll take me away from this bridge, steal me away to a safe place.
But the sounds follow me.
The song of war.
Battles I’ve been in before, I hear them in the blasts of gunfire, a never-ending siege, and so I think, distantly, this is organised.
This is planned.
The humans firing from the city have talked about this, schemed, ‘you go first, when you reload, team two takes over, we’ll cover you.’
Everything about it is orchestrated.
And I’m reminded, like a cold echo, of the road in the town we wandered into, before Emily was snared by the net; a trap designed for us.
But this time, the trap is a symphony of bullets raining down on asphalt, on the metal of cars—and right into the mangled scream behind me.
My eyes snap open.
I crane my neck and throw my wide stare as far back as I can—and I find the crimson-slicked face of a captive.
The one who reminds me of Erin.
Her scream curdles the air.
I cringe against it, teeth bared in a grimace, before I even notice the fucking hole in her face.
Burrowed right into her shattered cheekbone—a bullet is struck.
A guttural moan crawls through me.
I tug away from her, the trashing of her limbs as she struggles between cocooning herself against more bullets and grabbing her shattered face to stop the flow of blood.
The bullets are stretching too far.
We’re at the back, away from the bulk of the unit that’s charging into the city, but bullets are still reaching us.
