Nova stretches her arms over her head. “Of course, you’ll have to let me out to kill me.” She taps the barrier lightly, sending a painful shiver across my skin. “No power in or out.”
Disparate facts click into place in my head.No power in or out.That’s why I couldn’t claim Beecher. My power smashed into the barrier and rebounded right back into me. Like accidentally biting into an unpopped popcorn kernel.
Except…
I shake my head. “But you can reach through the barrier. You have. That’s how you were feeding.”
“I can. But I’m special, don’t you know? The first.” Nova smiles up at me, her mouth curving with bitterness. “He left me here with nothing but time and unfettered determination. But you, on the other hand, baby sis, I’m beginning to think that you are a whole lot of untapped potential wrapped in the sad little shell of a human wannabe.” She reaches out and places her hands on the floor, on either side of the typewriter. “And that’s just too bad. For you, I mean.”
I start to step back but find I can’t move. My feet are pinned tothe floor, and then slowly, like invisible tentacles wrapping around my calves, her power rises and begins to pull.
“Devon,” I say.
“I know. I feel it,” he answers, voice taut.
Through the ground.She’s somehow sending her power through the ground. What the hell? That shouldn’t be possible. Should it?
“Daddy really thought he had me,” she says conversationally, “pinning me in here, but he never took enough time to consider what innovation my desperation might lead to. I can’t leave, I can’t break the barrier, but learning to tunnel under it?” The look of cold triumph on her face sends a chill over my skin.
That’s what happened to the ripped-up road, to the Foreign Language House, to Izzy. Nova sent those tentacles of power out underneath the barrier, to anyone close enough to feed on.
“Of course, I nearly starved first. And then I barely had enough sustenance to keep myself alive.”
This is nothing like the rippling, tickling sensation of Devon’s magic against my skin. This is the marrow of my bones being sucked dry while they’re still in my body. A scream presses itself up into my throat, but there’s no air to let it out.
“But you?” She makes an obscene smacking noise with her mouth. “You are just delicious, all ripe and full of other people’s life. You are exactly what I need.”
I gasp, forcing oxygen into my resistant lungs, and try to lift my hand. I can push back against her power, follow it back under the barrier to reach her.
Except anything I manage to push in her direction just gets absorbed into the flow she’s already pulling from me.
“I really would have helped you,” she says, almost sounding sorrowful.
My knees wobble and then give out, the tentacles of power wrapping tighter around my legs and crawling up my body. They squeeze tight, a burning sensation, leaving a tingling numbness in its wake, as though all my blood is being drained. Which is not far from accurate. She’s pulling the life from me, in a rising tide.
I just need to find a way to break free of her long enough to get my head above the water.
The back of Devon’s hand brushes against mine, and out of desperation, I grab at his power, his life, the lone branch hanging over the Nova rapids.
For a second, it feels like we reach some kind of equilibrium, a perfect balance with the two of us on one side and Nova weighing down the other.
But then, then, she stands, without breaking her hold, and I watch, in horror, as those stacked clogs slip right past the edge of the barrier.
“No.” It’s more of a gurgling sound from my throat than an actual word.
Nova steps out, free of her prison. “Hush,” she scolds, twisting her hand in a familiar gesture, like she’s scooping dice up from a table or wrapping fabric around her closed fist. Of course. Because we had the same teacher.
Devon’s life and mine flow past, an invisible warmth, a jet stream of existence, and I can’t stop it. I can’t even move to grab her and hold her back physically.
The pull of her power digs in deeper, like her teeth are scraping against the inside of me. Devon drops to the ground next to me, his face pale.
She hums in satisfaction. “There, that’s the good stuff.”
Tears leave hot streaks down my face. This is how it’s going to end, how it was always going to end.
Her head jerks up, just a second before I hear the sound of someone approaching through the roaring in my ears.
I catch a flash of movement and dark fabric from the corner of my eye, before Carter appears at my side. He’s empty-handed, without the shovel or even the stupid keychain of pepper spray, not that either of those would do any good now.
