She changes clips, and I realize the tips of my fingers are nearly numb, swap to the rifle on my back with a huff as I swing it around on its strap.
“Where are they?”
“We sent them home with another pack for protection.” She sounds like a leader, someone calling shots. And I can’t help but wonder if that’s because of her connection with Rodrigo. “We came here to help you guys because we were pretty sure the truth coming out was going to make things difficult on you. And we were right.”
That must be why the alarm sounded before we even infiltrated the facility. The GBE was panicking over the information distribution.
Lowe puffs away and back again, this time with more filled clips in her grasp instead of a severed head.
I have no idea where she got them from.
“We were afraid of what they’d do to the prisoners if you hadn’t gotten here yet. And look at you! You got here, freed the prisoners, and we arrived in time to help with reinforcements. I call that a win.”
That Lowe is seemingly back to her snarky, smartass self after months of moping around and crying—I don’t know what tomake of it. Her scent hasn’t changed at all, so I know she hasn’t mated with anyone.
In my peripheral, I see her Alphas fighting yet always keeping an eye on her, like my pack is doing to me.
Zephyr rushes up beside us, far more chipper than he’d been in the basement. “How are we doing, darlin’?”
“Okay, I think.” I fire a single shot into the forehead of an incoming soldier, part of my brain questioning why death doesn’t bother me the way it had only months earlier.
Maybe having a pack to fight for freedom with has changed my outlook on the future, and what I’m willing to do unapologetically in order to achieve happiness.
Or, maybe Arlowe is rubbing off on me.
“Laurant told me Lucas has been escorting the injured prisoners outside. They have pilots at the ready to commandeer choppers the GBE reinforcements brought in.”
Arlowe shouts over a growing commotion, “They’ll be brought to a local safe location for treatment and recovery before being transported any further away.”
She really is in on all the details.
Something changes in the air, like the mayhem surrounding us grows muted, and a heaviness begins to suffocate me. A strange, loud pounding grows closer, something big and mechanical. When the floor begins to move along with the pounding, everyone starts to look around, Cursed and GBE alike, all of us seeking the source, wondering if it’s friend or foe to us.
When I swing around to my right, I know the answer.
Breaking straight through the double glass doors at the front of the building is an enormous mech unit, bathed in black and red, the GBE’s colors. This thing is manned, a soldier seated inside of it, encased in metal from head to foot, rising up as it walks to reach seven feet or more in height.
The words “What the fuck?” slip past my lips the moment one of those mechanical arms rises, pointing straight at me, and begins to glow.
Erich
Asound draws my attention just feet to my left.
A flash of bright white light that blinds me.
A blood-curdling scream.
When my vision begins to return, I can’t make out the scene before me; shapes don’t form, colors have no meaning. It isn’t until Laurant breathes a single word from beside me that everything comes into focus again.
“No…”
Nyx is on her knees, hunched forward. Beneath her, Zephyr lies on the ground, not moving. Not breathing.
She’s screaming a sound I’ve never heard come from a person as my heart shatters in my chest.
When Nyx’s scream turns to an enraged roar, her entire body is enveloped by her power, blue and bright, thicker than usual, as she rises off the ground and hovers in the air, bolts of electricity shooting to the ground from her feet like they’re holding her up. She screams again, wails, throws her arms out to her sides, and streaks of blue shoot from her body, connecting her shell of energy to every single non-Cursed in the building, even some I can’t see, those beams going straight through walls. Every one of the GBE members begins to violently convulse, foam at the mouth, smoke billowing from the tops of their heads or out from under helmets until Nyx drops back to the ground, shell dissipated, and every soldier and scientist around us collapses dead, skin charred, blood seeping from mouths, noses, and eyes.
When Nyx lifts Zephyr’s body to cradle him in her arms, Laurant and I rush over to them.
