Page 10 of Claim the Light
His face blurs above me as I try to clear my head.
He wears a cruel smile as he reaches down for me. “Now you’re on your back where you belong.”
I try to stop the sob of panic filling my throat. Fear won’t help me. I have to trust that I can get myself out of this. I’ve seen Lana fight using her wings to balance herself, even propel herself away from a surface. I’m still getting used to having wings, but I tell myself I can do what she does.
I’m about to release my wings and push myself up and through Tyler’s entire fucking body if I have to when a shout echoes across the rooftop.
“Sophia, stay down!”
The voice is familiar. It’s young, female.
It sounds like Gisela Scorn, who fought beside me today, but I can’t see her to be sure of her identity.
I have no reason to distrust her.
I fight the intense urge to run and plaster myself to the ground instead.
At her shout, Tyler’s head snapped up and now he casts around wildly for her location, but he can’t seem to see her, either.
If it is Gisela, then she’s skilled at concealing herself.
I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, her mother was one of the most cunning assassins.
A second later, multiple softpopssound close by, coming from the direction of the shadowed rooftop next door—the one at Tyler’s back.
He twists toward the sounds and then chaos breaks loose.
CHAPTERFOUR
The air explodes with golden bullets.
They’re as quiet as whispers as they shoot across the space above me, nearly too fast to follow, and cut through the front of Tyler’s chest in a stream of glinting gold.
His eyes fly wide. He inhales a loud breath. For a second, the confident mask on his face remains, but then his back arches.
A second stream of bullets rips through his chest from behind, tearing up his form.
Every golden projectile punches holes in his torso, arms, wings, and upper legs, sending smoke and ash swirling and causing his silhouette to bleed into the air around him.
The shooting isn’t only back and forth. Each bullet carves an impossible curve through the air, circling back at full speed and cutting through him again.
And again and again.
The tornado of bullets circles and whips through his body, each one traveling in a tight arc. So fast that they’re mere golden streaks within the churning ash of Tyler’s form.
He tucks his wings to his sides, attempting to make himself a smaller target, but it doesn’t seem to help.
A maelstrom of ash and soot swirls around his body while the onslaught of bullets drives him to his knees.
The breath has caught in my throat, but within my mind, I’m screaming at myself to get away from him while I can.
If only my arms and legs were functioning. Everywhere that Tyler’s ash remains on my body, my limbs are slowly becoming numb.
Managing to turn onto my stomach, I drag myself across the rooftop and away from Tyler while keeping myself low in case of stray bullets. I can’t move fast enough, progressing inch by painful inch.
The dust on my legs where I kicked Tyler is like a weight I can’t dislodge while the film on my hands and arms is making it difficult to pull myself along.
I convince myself I can make it back to Micah, clawing my fingers and dragging them against the rooftop when my legs refuse to obey me.
