I leave my perch as lightning arcs. A stark white line playing dot-to-dot from wall, to her, to me.
No. To where I was. Splinters scour my heels, tear my trousers. I skid through the sky, the shockwave slamming into me, skewing my trajectory. I strike branches. They crack and snap as I punch a hole through the forest.
I’m only six feet off the ground when I finally hit clear air. I plummet into a low clearing. My head cracks off the floor. Everything spawns a twin.
I roll, clutching my temples. It takes me a minute to realize I’ve come to rest with my head in someone’s lap.
“Seriously?” Aiko says. “Again? Seriously?”
My lips try to smile but even that hurts. “I think I left half my skin up in the trees,” I say. It seems relevant at the moment.
She shakes her head reassuringly. “Quarter of it, tops.”
I push off her, still groggy. Malcolm and Aiko are in the clearing too, crouched low, bristling with weapons. I reach for my gun. Then I remember it’s gone.
“Shit.”
“Malcolm,” Aiko calls. “You got any spare toys on you?”
“Always,” Malcolm says to Aiko and holds out something smooth and black and deadly.
“Safety’s off,” he says as I take it. “One in the chamber.”
I realize that underneath Malcolm West’s long-suffering exterior there is someone who is quite possibly very frightening.
“How did you get these in here?” I ask. Nothing seems to be making sense.
“Not really the relevant question right now, is it?” Aiko says. And she does have a point.
“We’re going to have to move,” I say, even though it seems rather a shame. I think I could grow to like taking cover here. But I nod up at two bookshelves I noticed caught in the trees above us as I made my way down. “They hit those and we run out of space.”
“Where do we go?” Jasmine says, looking eager and excited, which seems rather inappropriate for a life-or-death battle. I blink. Too many blows to the head.
“Clyde,” I say. “We find him. He’s the biggest gun we have.”
“The skinny dude?” Aiko looks uncertain about this plan.
“Trust me.” And from their expressions, I genuinely think they do.
“You know where he is?” Malcolm asks.
And then, conveniently enough, Clyde comes flying through the hole I made in the trees, and lands with a sickening crack on the floor.