I need to act. Now.
My vision fractures. The world tilts at an angle that shouldn’t exist. My body feels like it’s being pulled in every direction at once.
Cassian grabs my arm, his grip tightening. “Skye.” His voice is sharp now, edged with alarm. He feels it too—that terrifying distortion. And that’s what scares me most. Cassian is the one whocausespanic, not the one who gets caught in it. But right now? He’s definitely caught in it.
“I know, I know,” I hiss, muscles trembling. “I just… I’m not sure where to—” And then I see it. The empty ambulance. And my body, apparently running on pure instinct and terrible ideas, says:Screw it. That’s it.
Everything snaps.
Not flickers. Not warps.
Snaps.
I don’t know if it’s instinct or dumb luck, but I do the only thing that makes sense in the moment: I teleport us into that empty ambulance. Which is idiotic, because it’s barely feet away from the wreck. And it’s going to be the first place the paramedics enter once they realize there’s no patient.
The moment we land inside, we collapse into an awkward heap of murderers, regret, and a plastic-wrapped corpse. Cassian crashes against the opposite wall with a thud. Talon sprawls across the floor. And Nathaniel, poor, suffering Nathaniel, somehow ends up half-sitting on the goddamn corpse. He lifts his hands. Stares at them. Then lets out a slow, deeply pained sigh.
“It worked,” he says.
“For now,” Cassian mutters. He’s already moving, slamming the rear doors shut so hard the whole vehicle rattles.
Talon stands, casually brushing blood from the sleeve of his shirt. “Well, that was dramatic,” he says. “I’d give it a solid seven out of ten. Points for effort, but the landing—”
I kick him in the shin.
God, that felt good.
He jerks back, startled, whatever he was about to say cut off with a sharp inhale.
“What the hell…” he mutters.
“Bet that didn’t feel like a warm mist, huh?” I snap.
He gawks at me for half a beat, then grins, slow and delighted.
“Oh,” he murmurs, rubbing his shin. “You really are solid, aren’t you?”
The implication hangs in the air for anyone to hear. And well… what can I say? Heat blooms under my skin, a flush creeping up my neck. Not from embarrassment, more from the way his eyes linger, sharp and assessing, like he’s fully realizing all the things he can do to me now that he couldn’t before.
“I guess so,” I say, aiming for nonchalant.
Then—
“Where the hell are the patients?” a medic yells, just outside. “There’s blood all over!”
Shit.
Cassian’s eyes lock on mine.
“Can you flicker us out of here?”
I squint. The static is still humming in my bones.
But I’m drained. Bone-deep, soul-wrecked tired. I don’t think I can do it again.
The door handle rattles.
We all freeze.
