Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

“Can you take down a building this big?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t actually tried it. And even better, I’m only going to get one shot.”

An idea bloomed. I reached out my hand toward Scout. “Then we make that one shot count. Give me your hand.”

“You want to help me trigger it?”

“It worked last time.”

“It hurt last time.”

“And it’s probably going to hurt this time, too. But if that’s what we need to do, it’s what we need to do. And we’re in this together.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know. But mostly I want to get out of here. Preferably in one piece.”

She nodded, then walked into the room and put the tiny house on one of the tables. When she made it back to me, we let the door close in front of us. Scout offered her hand. I gripped it tightly in mine.

Before we could begin, Michael ran back around the corner. “What are you doing? We need to go.”

“Michael,” I said. “Run. Tell Jason to get out of the building, and tell everyone to huddle down at the other end of the corridor. We’ll be right behind you. We promise. But for now, we’ve got to take care of the sanctuary. Go now.”

I saw the hitch—he wasn’t sure if he should leave us.

Scout looked back at him. “Do you trust me?”

His face fell. “Scout—”

She shook her head. “I have to do this, Michael. And I need you to trust me. Okay?”

He ran to her and whispered something in her ear. She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce hug, then pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Run,” she said, and Michael took off. I trusted Scout just like he did, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still cross my fingers for luck.

Scout moved back, took my hand, and closed her eyes. “Your cue is ‘night.’ When I hit that, fill me up.”

“Let’s do this,” I agreed, and then she began.

“We are bringers of light.”

I closed my eyes. Instead of pulling in power from the world around us—power that I’d had trouble controlling the last time—I imagined a spark blooming of its own accord. Bright and green, shaped like a dandelion.

“We are fighters of right.”

I opened my eyes. There, in front of me, hovered a tiny green spark. Small, but condensed. A lot of power in one tiny ember.

“We must pull this place in, and make safe the night.”

I pulled the spark into both of us. It bloomed and blossomed and spilled outward. I opened my eyes, and through the window in the door saw the tiny house explode into shards of light.

And then it began.

Like a tornado had suddenly kicked up in the Chicago underground, all the stuff in the building—doors, walls, tables, medical implements—was sucked behind us.

Scout and I yanked our hands away from each other. It definitely hurt—my fingers burning like I’d stuck them into a roaring fire—but we were still on our feet.

And then we ran like the rats were still after us.

We hurdled spinning lamps and dodged computer gear, pushing ourselves against walls to avoid the doors that came hurtling toward us. Scout stumbled over an office chair, and I grabbed and pulled her along until she was on her feet again. And the sound—it was like a freight train roaring toward us.

The walls began to evaporate, drywall and wiring sucking back toward the center of the spell. Finally, we turned a corner, and there were Jason and Michael, holding open the double doors that led out of the sanctuary.

It was getting even harder to run, like we were swimming through molasses. The nightmare flashed through my mind, the door I hadn’t been able to reach.

But this was real life, and I wasn’t about to go down in a sanctuary in some nasty tunnel. I pushed forward like I was racing for the finish line. We made it through the doors just as they were pulled off their hinges and into the current.

We ran to the other end of the corridor and hunkered down in the threshold of the tunnel with Jason, Michael, Paul, and Detroit, and then we watched it happen.

All of the stuff—everything but the concrete support columns—was sucked backward into an ever-tightening spiral. It swirled around and closed in, becoming a sphere of stuff. And then, with a pop and a burst of light, it was gone.

There was silence for a moment as we stared at the husk of the sanctuary—a place the Reapers could no longer use to hurt anyone, or try to further their own magic.

“Now that,” Scout said, “was a good spell.”

18

Maybe needless to say, we slept in Saturday morning. There was something about working serious magical mojo that pulled the energy right out of you.

After checking in with Scout and reading a message from Daniel (Detroit was doing fine, and Veronica’s memories of the capture had been ixnayed by Katie, who had manipulation power), I finally managed to pull on jeans and a hoodie so I could scrounge through the cafeteria for some breakfast. I nabbed a tray and loaded it with energy: juice, yogurt, and muffins for me, and a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast for Scout. I ignored the stares as I carried the tray back through the Great Hall. They thought I was weird, and I might have been. But I’d also worked my tail off keeping them safe, and I deserved a little weirdness now and again.

When I got back, I went directly to Scout’s room. We chowed down without speaking, finally mumbling something about being tired when we’d cleared the tray of pretty much every crumb. Although I was still contemplating a trip over to Mrs. M’s for a postbreakfast.

And that was pretty much how the rest of the morning went, at least until we made the transition to my room.

After all, it was Saturday, and I had a date.

With a werewolf.

I know, I know. I play the unique, totally hip, magic-having, brilliant, always-together teenager.

Of course, the “teenager” bit is the most important part of that sentence. That was the part that made me change clothes four times, flipping through skirts and jeans and tops and scarves until the floor was pretty much covered in fabric. Scout read a magazine on my bed, generally not helping.

She’d suggested I wear a “potato sack.”

What did that even mean?

The sun was out, so I settled on skinny jeans, a tank, and a half-cardigan. I shooed Scout out of my room and locked the door behind us, then settled the key around my neck. I was getting used to wearing it, and there was something about the weight of it that was kind of familiar.

Outside my door, Scout yawned again, back of her hand at her mouth. “You wanna go to dinner when you get back?”