“I’ll follow.” Then Washington ducked and ran back down into his laboratory. The helicopter blades were getting louder. And she was stuck with a fucking cooler full of the cure for vampirism, without her brother or the love of her life.
She vacillated forward and back, forward and back. Brian or the cure. Brian or the cure. She cursed this fucking war and then rushed ahead with the cure in her arms. She wouldnotleave without her last charge.
“Brian!” she cried again, almost to the bedroom stairs.
Genevieve rushed down the stairs then, helping Brian out of his room. “I have him.”
“We’ll never make it,” Reyna said. “You’re going to have to take him yourself, Genevieve.”
“What about you?”
“Save my brother. I’ll follow behind you.”
Genevieve gave her a sad smile and then lifted Brian into her arms. She dashed out of the house then. Reyna sighed with relief. She hadn’t seen Beckham. Washington was still downstairs. The helicopter was too close. She had no choice. She had to get out of there. She had the cure. If she didn’t leave now, they’d have a problem.
Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She cleared the back door as an SUV tore out of the garage and barreled down the driveway. Reyna kept moving. Her feet couldn’t carry her fast enough. She glanced once over her shoulder and saw the chopper was nearly upon them.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She was to the garage when Beckham whizzed toward her.
“Beckham!” She reached her hand out toward him. Tried to grab on to him, but he wasn’t close enough.
“Reyna!” he cried.
“Please,” she gasped, stretching her hand out farther toward him.I don’t want to die.
It was the last thought she had before the first bomb dropped.
…
Silence.
The moment before it shattered was almost worse than what came after.
It was like standing in a bubble.
And then the bubble burst.
The bomb dropped on the mansion that stood as a beacon on the hill for more than two centuries.
Boom.
Sound rushed back in, louder than anything Reyna had ever heard before. Stone blasted apart, fire flew like a volcano from the top, and the world as she knew it stopped.
The blast rushed outward. A sonic roar crashing against her skin. She felt it in every inch of her body. Top to bottom. Inside and out. She was lifted off of her feet. The force of the eruption kicking her high into the air. Her hands released the blood cure on instinct.
She tried to gasp around the pain, but she could do nothing. Nothing but flail midair as pain lanced through her and she descended into freefall.
Everything kicked into slow motion and all she could think was this was the end.
She was going to die.
After all of this, she was going to die from a fucking bomb.
She tried to save the world. Tried to right the wrongs. She wasn’t the best leader, but she was at least trying.
And Beckham…
