“Stay away,” she snapped, lifting one hand like the gesture alone could keep him back. Audrey reached for the fire again, but nothing came. Only tremors and a hollow, scraped-out feeling went through her. The immense thing had answered her once, but now it seemed to be listening to see what she would do next.
“My turn,” he said. His voice cleaved through her panic, like the snap of a whip.
“Please. Just stop,” she begged, afraid of what she knew was coming next—fire. Like the night of the murders. A feeling she never wanted to relive.
He ignored her plea as if it were nothing and turned his hand palm-up. Flame blossomed above it, not red but an odd, unnatural blue. At the same time, the dropped gun rose from the pavement and floated obediently beside him, held in place by nothing she could see. The sight of both powers at once—fireand telekinesis, effortless and controlled—hit her harder than the strike to her face had.
“No,” she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. “Stop.”
The fire from the night at her house swamped her memory.
“Look at me.” His shout snapped through the alley as he snapped his hand toward the trash cans. Blue flames burst. Heat rolled across the alley in a violent wave. The brick behind Audrey cracked with a pop.
He was trying to pull the monster out of her again.
“Now I understand why you fought so hard to keep her from us, Sophia,” he said, almost lovingly. His grin turned vicious as he shoved the gun into the back of his waistband. He switched to their native tongue for a rapid string of words, then back to English, his eyes glittering. “Another gold triad...rare.”
Sophia had gotten one arm free now, rope wrapped around her palms, knuckles white with strain. Audrey wanted her to lunge, to choke him out, to end this, but her mother advanced slowly and carefully, like someone edging toward a bomb that might go off in her face.
“Take her to him, and everything burns,” Sophia said. “You have no idea what she is.” She’d switched to English on purpose. A warning clearly meant for Audrey as much as for Mihail.
Mihail’s eyes widened, his eyebrows kicking upward. “That’s what you think he wants?” he barked, incredulous. He jabbed a finger at Audrey like a brand. “After all these years, you could not be more wrong about Ryker’s plans.”
Sophia screamed, the sound full of fury and something close to fear. Audrey whipped her hands up over her ears again, trying to shut it all out, but she couldn’t look away. Sophia looked less afraid of Mihail than she did of Audrey.
The flame above Mihail’s palm blazed back to life, but this time he didn’t send it around Audrey.
The fire struck the building behind him, and the roof went up in an instant. Blue flames devoured tar and old wood with obscene speed, racing over the structure like something sentient.
Audrey reeled back from the heat.
The alley turned into a furnace.
Mihail dragged his hand in a slow arc overhead. Blue fire rose around him in a ring, a crown from hell.
Sophia didn’t even look at the flames. In one quick motion, her fingers bent into a fist.
The fire was sucked out of existence.
Everything went silent.
One moment, flames had been towering around him; the next, there was nothing at all, as if Sophia had inhaled them straight out of the world.
The fire hadn’t gone out—her mother had taken it.
Audrey’s chest sawed in and out, every breath full of phantom smoke. She stared at Sophia, stunned.
“Try that again,” Sophia said quietly. “And I’ll have us both burn ourselves to ash.”
“Such a unique talent,” Mihail said, almost reverent. “To siphon power. That comes from your telepathy—a rare variation.” He paused, his hand rubbing his mouth in thought.
Audrey finally found her voice. “Why don’t you crawl back to whatever shithole spat you out and leave us alone?” she snapped.
“The same shithole you’re from?” he asked. “Don’t worry. You’ll be going home soon.”
“What do you want?” Audrey shouted. Her mind felt like it was ripping at the edges.
His eyes thinned to slits, hunger raw and unmasked. “You’ll see. But rest assured, no one will ever lock your family in a cage again...except mine.”
