Jeff Whettlock smoothed out his coat with trembling hands and tried to step forward, palms raised as if he were innocent. “I know you think we’re trapped, and we can see that you’ve put some magic ward around our facility, but did you know I designed this facility with a failsafe? If we’re compromised, which we are, all levels flood with tourmalyke gas. Enough to knock out an army of supernaturals. Enough to keep you from hurting my family.”
I snorted, glancing at what used to be his wife. “That seems to have worked out well for you so far. Surely you heard how poorly your gas worked at our formal. You don’treallythink that’ll work this time, do you?”
He flinched. “That was a prototype. This is refined. From our reports, it still affected everyone but you. This time we’ve improved it, making it more potent.” He glanced up at the vent. “That’s why you’re alone right now.”
Dimitri pushed up from the ground just as Jesper, Zuko, and Koa pushed to their feet and used the wall to stand on two legs. Through the bond, their anger burned steady but strained.
“Not alone,” Jesper muttered.
Allison’s face scrunched up with rage as she looked at my mates.
“Tourmalyke might not work on you,” she hissed at me. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t kill you.” She yanked something fromher belt. It was a slender rod with metallic prongs at the end, humming with electrical energy.
It was a shock prod that had beenheavilymodified.
“Careful,” Slater shouted in my ear, clearly hearing the whine. “That thing’s frequency is off the charts. Don’t let?—”
Allison launched herself at me with a scream.
I dodged the first swipe of the prod by an inch. The second nearly grazed my ribs; I twisted, dodging it again.
Her imp magic flared, trying to tangle my footing, twist perception, and make me misjudge distance.
It did none of that.
“Stop dodging!” she shrieked, her hair whipping around her face.
“Um, no?” I chuckled as Jeff circled behind me. I let him. I waited until I felt his hand snag my arm.
“Get off her,” Jesper snarled, but I felt how weak my mates were through the matebonds.
“Tourmalyke gas has been deactivated on all levels,” Slater updated us.
I bucked up, using his grip as leverage. My body kicked up, legs swinging over him and out of the way of Allison’s next thrust toward me.
The prod drove straight into Jeff’s chest as I landed behind him gracefully.
He convulsed, making a Fates-awful sound as the device unleashed the full force of its charge. The prod was designed to knock out a supernatural, not a human. He dropped like a rock, smoke curling faintly from his jacket.
“Dad!”Allison screamed, flinging the prod away as if it had struck her and not him. “No! No, no, no, I didn’t—” Her hands fluttered helplessly over his chest, imp magic sparking uselessly around her fingers.
“Damn,” I muttered. “Nice hit.”
“This is your fault,” she spat at me, tears spilling over.“All your fault!”
“That’s a big accusation for a human who electrocuted her own father,” I said flatly, taking a step toward her. I tilted my head. “Aw, look what you’ve done. You’ve killed him.”
She scrambled backward, away from the bodies of both her father and mother, chest heaving, hair wild, and eyes spilling over with tears.
“Why?”I asked roughly, venom dripping from my fangs and fingertips. “Why did you become our friend? Why pretend to care? To comfort me when I vented to you about Darian, when all you were doing was collecting ammunition to use against us later? Why the drude? Why send someone into my dreams to force me to relive the shit he did to me?”
Allison let out a bitter, broken laugh. “As if you supernaturals can feel actual emotion,” she laughed painfully. “You think crying over him makes you human? Makes you avictim?”
Allison didn’t look at either of her dead parents; her gaze pinned on me. “You’re monsters! All of you, but you put a pretty face on it. You pretend your pain matters more than ours.”
“Funny, because from where I’m standing, this entire facility is built on the pain of supernaturals being tortured to death!”
“You killed my mate,” she whispered. “Darian…he ended up being my mate. I found out in year two.”
