LOGIN###Chapter 513SHAWNI used a small blast.I keep thinking about that. In the middle of everything, the fight, the cages, Ollie gone, I keep coming back to it.For two years, I only had one setting. Everything or nothing. That's why I turned thirty men to ash at the academy. Because I couldn't do less. The plasma came up like a wave, and once it started, there was no stopping it halfway. Lyn spent months with me in the training yard at Silver Ridge, making me light a single candle. Just one. I burned down forty-three candles, two tables, and part of a fence before I gave up.Tonight, at the door of that ranger station, I did less. I aimed. I held back. Two rogues went flying and they'll wake up with a headache and nothing worse.I didn't even know I could do that.I don't know what changed. Maybe it was standing at Harlan's border for an hour, listening to him call me the one who turned thirty men to ash, and thinking, *I am not going to be what he says I am.* Maybe it was Xenois putt
###Chapter 512OLLIEIt worked. I can't believe it worked.Pip's sparks got hot. Really hot. Hotter than she knew. She pushed her hands through the bars of her cage and held them on my lock, and she cried while she did it, because it hurt her. Her fingers went red. Then her palms. She bit her lip so hard it bled. But she didn't stop.The metal went red, then orange, then soft. Then I kicked it open.Then I did hers. I used a nail from the floor to poke the soft metal until the lock fell off. Then Wren's. Then the werewitch boy's. Wren called him Toby, but when I opened his cage he looked up at me for the first time and whispered, "It's Eli. My name is Eli." Like he'd been waiting days to say it to someone.Pip had to stop after the fourth lock. Her hands were all blistered. She held them against her chest and shook.The little one in the corner wouldn't wake up. We tried. Wren reached through the bars and shook her shoulder. I called her through the bars. She just made a little sound
###Chapter 511XENOISI didn't trade the vote.I want that clear. I was standing at Harlan's border with the words in my mouth, ready to say them, when Lyn called with Riley's vision. And then my mother called, from somewhere inside Harlan's territory, breathless and laughing.I'd spent an hour at that gate. An hour with Harlan's voice coming out of a speaker, slow and pleased, while his young captain sweated behind the barrier. Shawn sat on the bumper of the truck with Captain in his lap and didn't say a word. Every so often he looked at me. Just looked. He didn't ask me not to do it. He'd never ask. That was the worst part.I had the phone in my hand. I had Harlan on the line. I'd just said, "Alpha Harlan, about the vote next month—"And my phone buzzed with Lyn's name."We're in," my mother said, when she called five minutes later. "Old trail. Your father nearly fell in a river. Where do we go?"I heard my father in the background, wheezing. "I did *not* nearly fall. I chose to get
###Chapter 510RILEYI tried again. With a healer in the room this time, like Dad promised. Mom held one of my hands. Lyn held the other, because he'd driven over from Silver Ridge as soon as he heard.He came in the door with his silver rings and his bag of herbs and Zyn's sticky handprint still on his shirt, and he knelt on the floor of Ollie's room in front of me and looked into my eyes for a long time."You've been pushing too hard," he said. "I can see it. Your magic's all bruised.""I don't care.""I know you don't. That's why I'm here." He put a little bowl of something green and steaming on the carpet. It smelled like mint and rain. "Breathe that in. It'll help with the pain after."Mom sat on the bed behind me. Her hand was shaking in mine."Gently," Lyn said. "Like dipping a toe in water. Not diving."I didn't dip. I dove.It hurt. It hurt so much. Like falling into ice water. Like my head was splitting down the middle. The static came first, loud and scratchy, like a radio
###Chapter 509OLLIEThe ranger station was old and falling apart. Broken windows. Moss on the roof. A rusty sign that said PARK RANGER — EMERGENCY ONLY.We got there in the morning. I knew because the light coming through the crack in the van doors went from black to grey to a tired kind of yellow. The van stopped. The doors opened. The cold came in all at once.The scar man pulled the tape off my mouth. It hurt so much my eyes watered. He didn't say sorry.Della didn't look at me. She hadn't looked at me since the flowers. After she asked if anyone smelled them, the scar man told her to shut up, and the red-beard man laughed nervously, and Della sat in the corner of the van all night with her arms wrapped around herself, sniffing the air every few minutes like she was scared of it.The smell went away before morning. So did the humming. I lay on the floor and tried to call it back, the way I tried with the clip in Grandma's guest room. Gently. Slowly.Nothing came. But I wasn't as s
###Chapter 508SOPHIAAndy called at six in the morning.I was already awake. I don't think I'd slept at all. I'd sat at the kitchen table all night in my robe with a cold cup of tea, listening to the radios crackle in the yard. *Sector nine, nothing. Highway patrol, nothing. Border team in position.* Xenois had left at four. He kissed my forehead on the way out and didn't look at me.My phone buzzed. Unknown number. International code."I'm landing early," she said. "Today. In three hours. I couldn't wait, Soph. Not with Ollie missing."I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. I'd been holding it in for two days, being strong for Riley and Lake, being calm for the council, being fine for everyone."Thank you," I said. "Thank you, thank you.""Shh. Of course. I'm your sister." Her voice was soft. Then, almost casually: "Where was he last seen? Do they know?""A clearing near the river. Rogues took him. The trackers think they went north.""North." A pause. "Toward Harlan's land?""How
A/N: There is an entire essay of Author note, filled at the bottom of the chapter, I apologize. I just need to say some things, and the given word count were small,150 words. I want to go on a rant. I will separate it using this symbol ******. You do not need to read, just skip to the next chapter,
Chapter 211: Nothing But A ToolLAKETime had lost all meaning in this concrete hell. Hours or days could have passed since Andy had brought me the healer to work on - I couldn't tell anymore. The fluorescent lights overhead never changed, casting the same harsh glare that made everything look sick
Chapter 197: VoicemailsXENOISI pulled out my phone to check on Lumina before we left for what could very well be a suicide mission. The boys would be at their therapy appointment by now, and I wanted to hear her voice one more time, just in case things went wrong in Shadow City.The phone rang on
Chapter 195: Hired KillersRILEYI sat in the therapist's chair, my fingers were silently drumming against my leg as Dr. Sloane continued asking questions that felt like they were coming from very far away, like I was in a haze, and nothing seemed real to me. My mind wasn't really in the room anymo







