LOGINAnd every single person was walking.Everyone. The men from my truck, from all the trucks, and beyond them more, spilling out of side streets and doorways, hundreds, then more than I could count, every one of them moving the same way at the same slow even pace toward the blue light, and not one of t
SofiaThe thing nobody tells you about stowing away in the back of a wolf's supply truck is that wolves do not believe in shock absorbers.I'd been folded between a crate that smelled like gun oil and a stack of canvas duffels for going on four hours, knees up under my chin, one hand knotted around
AvaI came back into my own body the way you come up from under cold water. All at once, lungs grabbing, except the water was me, and I'd been drowning in myself longer than I knew.For a second there was no up. Too much arrived at once. After the white nothing of the place with Catherine, the world
"Alexander."My name, in the low voice, gone thin at the edges now. A command. Come. Hold the vessel. Put your hands on it and hold it still.The wall in my chest told my feet to move. A year of habit told them to move. I took one step up toward the seat. My body did it the way my body did everythin
AlexanderI had spent my whole life learning to read the exact moment a thing breaks, and the goddess wearing my bride was beginning to break, and I could not turn my head to look at her.That was the cruelty of the wall she'd built in me. It let me see everything and touch nothing. I stood where sh
"Ava." I said it out loud, to a concrete wall, and it came apart in my mouth. "I've got you. I'm here. I've got you, baby. I've got you."She couldn't hear the words. She never could. But she could feel a hand close around her in the dark, the way I'd once felt hers close around me from a hundred mi
I tried to move toward them but my legs buckled and I dropped to my knees in the dirt."What did you do to me?"Falco didn't answer, just looked at me with an expression I couldn't read—something between guilt and resignation and determination all at once.The engines were right outside the clearing
Hilda Gar spoke up for the first time, his accent thick. "Ten minutes of chaos we can do. Getting out after is the problem.” "Vehicles are staged two miles back the way we came. Soon as you blow your charges, you fall back to the rally point. Don't wait for me, don't wait for anyone. If I'm not th
She watched me for a long moment. "Okay." "Thank you." She went back to her room. I heard her close the door, softer this time. I cooked dinner. We ate in near silence. Mira did homework at the table while I cleaned up. Normal night. Normal routine. Except I kept seeing Garrett on our couch. Kep
AvaThey collided hard enough that I heard the air leave Falco's lungs.Levi hit him high, shoulder into chest, drove him back into the car. The door panel buckled. Falco got his hands up but Levi was already swinging. First punch caught him in the jaw, snapped his head sideways. Second one landed i







