I spun, Damien throwing the sleeping bag over me as I started to calm my breathing and open a portal. I’d never felt so much pressure in my life. The high pitched sounds of the little younglings screaming in pain was tearing into my soul.
“Do not panic!” Ronnie yelled.
‘Don’t panic…’I filtered through to Dawn, where she was and knew that with the hive mind they would all get it.
“Kit will open a portal to our world and you will escape there for a short time while we figure this out,” Ronnie called out to everyone running or flying frantically.
Again, I relayed. I wasn’t sure all Galadrias could understand spoken English, but when I used the telepathic link it seemed to be alright, transcending all language.
I wish the Dream Wars never happened, but if there was one bright spot, it was the Galadrias. These gentle beasts didn’t deserve this.
Please open somewhere remote, I prayed as I threw the portal wide open, feeling for the edges of this world and Earth, tossing it forty feet wide in one big burst.
A blur of pink crossed into my field of vision and then Dawn was before me.
‘Kit. Ride.’
Her pink feathers were covered in blisters and singed fur and it broke my heart. I shook my head.
‘I need to hold the portal open. I’ll jump through and you can catch me,’I promised her, trying to keep my concentration. I’d just opened up a huge portal in the middle of the sky and Galadrias were fleeing into it with my team on their backs. Some of the younglings that were too small to fly were being carried by their neck skin, like a mother cat would a kitten. Damien was huddled underneath the thickly-padded sleeping bag with me, but I knew the acid would bleed through soon, and I was trying not to panic.
“We’ll meet you down!” Maxine cried out as she flew by me on Roger’s back. Was I dropping them over New York City or farmland in Idaho? I had no idea.
Oh my God, the Galadrias were fleeing to Earth! This was crazy. It was a massive evacuation; the ground rumbled as the feathered creatures stomped past me and flew blindly into the blue sky of Earth. Poor Skyhome. The blue acid rain was eating the plants, infecting the water—everything was being destroyed.
“Concentrate,” Master Aki’s voice came from beside me, and I steeled myself. He was right. My fear had caused the opening to shrink.
I glanced sideways. My mentor was standing under a scrap of sheet metal, his arms covered in blisters from the rain.
Those fucking breeders.
Anger flared within me and I felt a tug on my mind. It was the breeders trying to get in.
“Stay calm,” Master Aki echoed.
Keeping this large of a portal open was draining me. My arms burned, my legs quivered, and my mind felt… exposed. It was hard to explain.
“Go, Master! We will meet you,” I growled.
I was hoping the stampede was almost done, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold it.
“Very well.” He bowed slightly and tossed the metal scrap on the floor before taking off at a run. He leapt onto the back of a passing Galadria and immediately started to pet her neck and whisper in her ear. Then she kicked off the ground and disappeared into the opening.
“Almost fully evacuated,” Damien told me, looking over my shoulder.
‘Kit Steele will die!’A breeder broke through my mental defenses as a headache crashed into me.
No!
“Where is Jeremy? Did he get out?” Panic gripped me; I didn’t think I could hold it much longer. I hadn’t been paying attention to how many of our group had flown by, but I heard the whirring of helicopter blades as Jack maneuvered the chopper behind me and into the shrinking portal.
“He’s safe! That was the last of our group. Let’s go!” Damien shouted.
I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked over my shoulder, and when I saw the unconscious green and blue youngling Galadria being eaten alive by the acid, the portal snapped shut in my anger. The headache tightened and I had to work on my breathing. I needed to gain control of this before I killed Damien and myself.
“We can’t leave the Galadria—I won’t,” I told Damien as a drop of acid ate through the sleeping bag and landed on my shoulder.
Damien growled. “I thought you might say that.”
