Kade reaches us a few seconds later, without slowing she turns toward the burning wreckage and raises one hand, palm flat, pushing it forward. Her blue eyes flare bright, the blue bleeding into the smoke around her. The flames lean away from her fingers, thin and pull back, and then go out, leaving nothing but the shell of the helicopter and a low gray smoke rolling. She drops her hand and glares at my mate.
“Well,” Kade says. “You are stubborn as shit.” She glances at me. “Oh, Kojo, you have your work cut out for you.”
“Alemayehu,” Zaki says.
She raises both hands. “Alright, Zaki.”
She turns and surveys the freeway, the bodies, the scattered hardware, the burning wreckage of the helicopter still lit against the snow. Her gaze lands on the trophy in Zaki’s hand and she smiles.
She straightens up, still catching her breath, and looks at me. Her eyes move over my face, my arms, checking. “Are you alright?”
“I am fine.”
She nods. Then her eyes drift to Zaki and drop to what she is holding, and her mouth opens, and then closes again very carefully. She takes one step to the side, then another, until she is behind me. Her fingers find the back of my shirt and close around it.
She trusts us to protect her, Alemayehu.My Bouda’s satisfaction is thorough.We are making progress.
“Let’s get these vehicles moved so we can go home,” Kade tells us.
“My queen.” Zaki does not raise her voice. “Do not do that again.”
Kendra looks at my sister. Her mouth stays shut. Then her grip on my shirt tightens.
Zaki sets the trophy on the ground and walks to the nearest SUV. She gets her grip under the frame, lifts it off the concrete like it weighs nothing, pivots, and heaves it. The vehicle clears the guardrail and comes down on the far side of the freeway with an impact that shakes the road surface beneath our feet. She is already moving to the next one before the sound finishes rolling back to us.
Kendra jumps at the crash. She watches the second SUV go over the rail and squeaks at the impact, her hand still bunched in my shirt. By the third she has stopped jumping but has not let go.
“Well,” she says, when the last one lands, “one thing I know for sure. The Bouda have absolutely no appreciation for human transportation.”
“They throw cars around like Legos,” Kade calls back, already heading for the truck.
I look at Kade. “What is a Lego?”
Kendra’s grip on my shirt loosens. She tilts her head back and looks up at me, and for a moment the smoke and the cold and all of it fall away and it is just her face.
Then she shakes her head and starts walking, and I fall into step behind her, which is exactly where I am supposed to be.
