Josephine’s eyes filled with tears, and Mr. Hansen’s mouth opened. “But… shesaid—”
“I know what she said. Now get the hell out of here and take care of Jer! He can end this,” Damiengrowled.
Mr. Hansen swallowed hard and nodded, giving Damien a quick hug. Josephine did the same, and Damien smoothed his little brother’shair.
“Go!” he said a final time, his voicecracking.
I had one eye on the advancing army and the other on Damien. Why was he doing this? Didn’t he trust me with the cuff? Or did he not want the guilt of losing a fourthteam?
“Kit!” Tatum cried out as Ronnie pulled her deeper into the trees. I had already become emotionally numb, a skill I’d mastered to stayalive.
“It’ll be okay, Tate! Go with them,” I shouted to her retreating back. She cried my name one more time, and then I spun onDamien.
“Damien, I can handle wearing a freaking cuff. Go with your family. Help protect Tatum and Jeremy,” Ishouted.
Maxine was rocking on her heels. I knew she was being flooded with adrenaline right now, and was two seconds from running at the army and committingsuicide.
Damien just looked at me. Lookedthroughme. “I’m where I want tobe.”
I didn’t have time to argue with him. Maxine took one step forward and I reached out, grabbing the strap of her pack. “Easy there, soldier. That’s a deathsentence.”
Maxine spat on the ground. “Screw them. I welcome death.” She popped off a small burst of fire into the air and I sighed. She was in beastmode.
“All right, listen, we have new developments. The Galadrias are fighting with us now. They used to be warriors or something,” I shared with thegroup.
Two Galadrias and our handful of humans. We were all going to die. We were good, like badass elite Seal team good, but we weren’t gods. We couldn’t take out two hundred ghouls andsentries.
Ronnie was back and had started setting up a mobile triageunit.
“They’re fighters?” Maxine askeddoubtfully.
The ghouls were nearly to us. We needed a plan. Could we all fit on two Galadrias? Could they fly us away? I’d ridden Dawn once when I was a young teen. She’d saved me from some deep shit I’d been in—trapped in an abandoned building with twosentries.
‘How many humans can you carry?’I askedDawn.
‘Two adults or three children,’ she answered immediately, like she’d done it before. She probably had. Dawn had the biggest heart, but the Galadrias were not thick-muscled beasts, more light andfluttery.
“The Galadrias will fly four of you away. Damien attracts them and needs to test his cuff, so he can’t go. I’ll stay back with him. The rest of you go,now!”
I was running out of ideas and had officially started to panic, something Master Aki told me never to do. I refused to stand around while my family was slaughtered before my eyes. At least if they could fly to safety, I could die inpeace.
Nox came up behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Nice try, Kit. We’re blood-bound though,remember?”
I groaned. Damn Nox and his perfect memory. “We were fourteen, Nox. Thank God one of us didn’t have AIDS or something. Now,go!” That time my voice cracked. I loved these bastards and I didn’t want them to die. The memory of carving our initials into our hands and smooshing them together felt like a lifetimeago.
“We’re not leaving you and you know it, so what do we do?” Brisk asked off to myleft.
The ghouls would be on top of us in two minutes or less. We were sittingducks.
For the first time in my military career, I froze. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. Everyone here was precious to me, and I didn’t want to issue a suicidalorder.
It was Maxine who took the lead, walking over to the blue Galadria, and petting his head a little awkwardly. Then she swung one leg over him and pointed to the advancing ghouls. “You fly, I shoot.” She gripped her guntightly.
He bopped his head up and down a few times, and then his ginormous wings snapped out. They were like a cage of bones covered in a scaly fur. Frighteninglybeautiful.
Maxine’s idea to ride the Galadrias over top of the army and shoot down over them was quite brilliant. It’s what the sentries had done to us a few nights ago. I snapped out of my panic-ridden state and started barkingorders.
“Nox, start throwing bombs. Brisk, you ride Dawn and watch Maxine’s ass. If she does anything stupid, fly off withher.”
