Page 67 of The Shade of Things
“Help.” I grabbed Emmett under the armpits.
The van slowed down enough for Eli to jump out and grab the golem’s feet, but we had to run alongside until we were able to get back in.
Daw slammed the door.
Isla gunned it, and we flew out onto the street.
In all the chaos, only a few pursuers came after us, but she shook them off.
Teresa was in the front passenger seat next to Isla. She gave me a wan smile and then faced forward.
Daw sat in the first row next to Okeyo, who had his head in his hands, leaving Eli squished against the far end of the middle row with Emmett’s legs on him.
After checking that the golem was breathing steadily, I maneuvered myself out from under him and moved to the back next to Laurent, still in wolf form, who was hogging most of the back row.
He had a deep scratch down the side of his neck, and his eyes were closed.
“Laurent?” I whispered, scared he was unconscious.
He thumped his tail weakly, then lifted his head just enough to drop it in my lap.
I leaned back against the seat, my legs extended, stroking the bristly fur to get my own heartbeat under control.
We’d lost three people: Mateo, a good man who hadn’t deserved his fate, and two others who’d betrayed my team.
Staring out at the darkness with no landmarks to break it up didn’t help my headspace. Sighing, I sifted through Laurent’s fur, flicking away dirt. Had those two players deserved to die?
Rahm and Felix tried to save their own skins under horrific and unimaginable circumstances. The game dictated that there could only be one person left standing, and my team’s desire to save everyone directly contradicted that. Not only that, the game had specifically promised death to anyone assisting Emmett, Eli, Laurent, and me.
I wished with all my heart that the survivors had faith in our ability to do as we promised because they might still be alive. I bit my lower lip.
Who was to say I wouldn’t have done the same in their shoes?
My ears rang with the sounds of fangs tearing into flesh, and I stuffed my shaking fists into my armpits, swallowing down the sour taste of bile.
Who was to say I hadn’t?
Something had shifted in me back in that garage. I’d maimed Rahm, making him easy prey, instead of proving I’d come to protect him. I curled my fingers into Laurent’s fur, seeking warmth.
Would Rahm have died regardless of my actions? Perhaps, but I’d severely reduced his chances of surviving that bloodbath, and I couldn’t claim self-defense. There had been so much chaos and bloodshed that I couldn’t stop to think and find a rational way out. I’d existed in the moment as pure violent impulse, desperate to stop Eli from being murdered. Regret was too simple an emotion to feel or not feel. I shivered, my body icy and a vise squeezing my head, the throb pulsing down through my jaw.
Even with the vamps, I’d been savage, driven by a primal brutality. I’d killed them before, but those had been clean kills. I’d tortured that female bloodsucker in the elevator for answers. And the one I’d bitten? I drank some water to scrub my mouth of the sensation of vamp tendon.
What was I becoming? Who was I becoming?
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Hiding my magic all those years, that vital part of myself, had diminished me until I was living on the sidelines of my own life. Coupled with the invisibility I felt as a woman in her forties, “underling” didn’t begin to cover it. Then I’d reclaimed my magic, feeling more and more powerful and empowered.
Had I gone too far in how I used my powers? Or had I simply adapted to my environment?
I looked around the van at the exhausted and silent group. Was the fact that we sat here together a sign that we had each other’s backs or was there a snake hidden among us, coiled up and biding its time to strike? Adapting to its environment?
Under the wolf’s body heat, I felt my lids grow heavy.
I reached into my magic coursing through my veins, weighing my sense of self. I was powerful. I was a survivor. One with some extreme tendencies, admittedly, but I now lived in an extreme world.
Emmett puffed out a loud snore and I relaxed. Thankfully, some things remained blissfully mundane.
