40

Captured

JAQ

“Well, that sucked,” I muttered, wiping blood from my nose. “These people have gone ape-shit. Is everyone on the surface insane?”

“Most of them,” Henry grunted to my right. “There’s a reason our rebellion exists.”

Octavius stepped over a snoring civilian splayed on the cobblestones. The mate’s hat had fallen off, and Octavius swooped down to grab it, sliding it over his black hair. That was probably a good idea, since these Everlanders apparently didn’t like Grimlings, and Octavius looked more like one than I did.

“That was really bad though.” Tavius adjusted the bill of his new cap. “I mean, I’ve been beaten up before, but not by so many people at once.”

I spat venom off to the side. My fangs were still leaking, even though I had them folded. I guessed I was still tense, the adrenaline hadn’t faded yet.

“It looked like Lilli got the worst of it, though,” Tavius mumbled. “They really wanted to hang her… She didn’t actually kill anyone, did she?”

“I don’t Bloody know,” I snorted. “Looked to me like she was traumatized from whatever happened. Probably watched ‘em die, is my guess.”

Henry rubbed at his beard thoughtfully. “Why was she in prison at all?”

“Beats me,” I said. “Guess ya can ask her later.”

A series of Wanted posters hung on the brick wall next to me, showing four masked faces of bird shifters. They were labeled, The Carter Siblings: Dalen, Carrie, Herrin, and Rolen Carter.

“So,” Octavius began, pulling my attention away from the posters. “Did you hear stuff about Lilli from the twins at all? Before all this. She came in out of nowhere and started acting real familiar around them quick. No one mentioned her to me before, but I’m new. Even you looked surprised.”

“I was,” I admitted. “This is the first time I’m meetin’ her. Void, I never even heard of her till now.”

“They never mentioned her?”

I shrugged. “They might’ve, once or twice… I can’t ‘member too well. But Xavier forgot everything from the palace, and Alex doesn’t talk about those times, anyway.”

Tavius frowned. “Why not?”

“It…” I sighed, staring at my feet. “It’s just too painful. I stopped asking a long time ago—”

“—huah!”

I snapped back to Tavius. He was gone. Thinking he tripped, I spun around to look. “What in Death?”

Henry jabbed a hand upward and shouted. “Up there!”

Octavius had been snagged by a winged shifter, flying him higher and higher—

I flinched when someone tried to grab me from behind. I instinctively dropped down and elbowed them in the gut before they could get a good hold of me.

“Just leave those two!” A voice said overhead.

What the Void is going on? There were three winged shifters, two teenage boys and one woman, flying over my head. The woman was struggling to grab Shade from the sky and put him in a netted bag, and one of the teenagers had Octavius.

I’d hit the other boy, who gave a small groan and glared at me behind a mask. They all wore masks. They looked… really familiar. Kind of like those people from the Wanted post—

Death.

“Help me with this one,” the boy who held Octavius called to the other one. “He’s heavy enough as it is!”

Tavius flailed as they flapped him upward, out of my reach.

I unwound the chain from my wrist and drew out my scythe, but Henry pushed my arm down.

“Don’t,” he warned, his rabbit ears folding back furiously. “You might snag Tavius.”

Venom seeped out of my fangs, and after a cursing minute, I wound back my chain.

The bird-shifters flew over the rooftops and out of sight as I pulled out my com and jammed the buttons to call the others.