“Do it.”
I resheathed my sword, then clenched my jaw as I ripped the blade from his wing.
Spittle flew from his mouth.
I held up the foreign sword.
Alexei tensed, digging his fingers into MJ’s shoulder.
I looked away from the emotion rimming his eyes and blinked back my own as I sliced through the muscle connecting the wings to his back.
He screamed, collapsing against MJ.
His dappled wings dropped into the mud.
“Lex, let Ronen numb your pain as I cauterize them,” MJ said softly. “Please.”
He nodded, head bowed, and I held him as MJ stopped the bleeding, his cries and gasps breaking me.
MJ burned his wings before the next wave of infected storming us could trample them.
We fought through them while targeting the Spinewalkers.
MJ and I cleared our surroundings, guarding Alexei as he flooded their area with rain and zapped them.
Three of the twenty went up in flames, their dark bark burning as infected Damned came running out like human torches.
Despite Alexei’s wishes, I kept numbing his pain. It didn’t cost much energy, and it was worth it if it allowed him to better defend us.
We repeated the process over and over.
But I felt a creeping heaviness in my body, a subtle signal that I couldn’t do this forever.
Still, more came.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
I could only hope that wherever the Hellion was, her plan worked.
Lucille
“Melanie!” I screamed, shooting my powers at her infected. Cluster after cluster dropped, their goopy bodies turning to dust once my powers had their fill of torture. A heavy weight pulled at my chest and feet, but I wasn’t sure if it was the start of a drain or something else entirely.
Aspen and my squad fought alongside me as Melanie, inside my father’s body, led us farther away from the main fight. Her infected thinned under our efforts, and we almost had her outnumbered.
Then we broke through the line of trees.
There were two large groups.
One in front of the gates and one shouting and slamming against the bars on the other side.
“Lucille!” Aspen shouted while he fought, a question in my name.
“I have a plan!” I assured him as I shoved an icicle into an infected’s chest, then burned them.
My squad efficiently downed every infected that came in range, giving the final kills to me and Aspen. We thinned the horde surrounding Melanie and pushed her back toward my trap.
It felt too easy.
