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I wasn’t sure what happened. I just knew we were in the stairwell and then we were outside. I could hear the fighting, but I blocked it out. If someone got hurt, if another life was lost, I didn’t want to hear it.
Alijah and Elliot stayed at my side. Ami disappeared. I wanted to disappear too.
“You can do it,” Alijah said.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice empty even to my ears.
“Lombardi is keeping the fight up here the best he can. But the pressure is taking a toll. They’re a lot stronger than we expected.”
I nodded. Despite understanding that they were strong, we still managed to underestimate the baddies. Henzie paid the price.
My body jerked, and I had to shove that thought away.
Alijah and Elliot were right. Now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t sure how they did it, how they kept moving forward when friends and coworkers around them were hurt and dying. My body didn’t want to listen to me. Even when I told it exactly what I needed.
“We’re about seven feet from the ward,” Elliot said.
“This is close enough,” Alijah said and put me down on my feet. “Honey, I need you to do what you need to do to get that ward down. Can you do that?”
I nodded. I didn’t have a choice. Not unless I wanted more Henzies killed. More dead bodies. Elliot passed over the red ball, and I stared down at it, at the way the sunlight reflected off the red, making it look like a glob of blood in my hand. Henzie’s blood. There was a smear of something wet blending into it, and when I ran my thumb over it, staring at the red that covered it, a small sob broke out. I bit down on my cheek.
“Focus,” Alijah said, drawing out the word. “Focus on what you need to do.”
I nodded and wrapped my magic around the orb. I looked up at the ward, noting the people on the other side. We were in front of the gate again. Davies and Rhett were standing at the front, surrounded by men in gear ready to storm Biomystic.
They just needed me to do my job, and then we could end this. Alijah supported my weight as I drew my arm back and used as much strength as I could to throw it. My limbs were lead and barely did what I wanted. I was surprised I made the throw. I watched as the sun glinted off the orb as it spun through the air. Once it hit the ward, it embedded itself and lavender tendrils whipped out before silvery energy joined with it and then the entire ward shimmered.
I held my breath, entranced, wondering if those who could see what I saw, saw the beauty in it. The orb fought with the ward, and once my magic opened a big enough pathway, energy exploded outward. The entire ward collapsed and there was a massive whirling breeze. I expected to hear screaming. A ward this size was sure to flatten the people who had created it. When none came, I knew Ami was right. The ward had been tied to an item.
The others didn’t wait as they stormed through to finish off the fight. I collapsed to my knees, my hands digging into the earth. I needed the connection. The earth responded, reacting to my emotions and magic rose to comfort me.
“What happened?” Rhett’s familiar voice was a comfort to the chaos in my head. His hand touched the top of my head and drew down to cup my cheek. His energy soaked into my skin just enough to calm the storm brewing in my thoughts. “Laila, what happened?”
“Help them,” I whispered, finally able to create a full thought. “Don’t let anyone else die.”
“Stay with her,” Rhett snapped out, and he was gone a moment later. My skin missed the touch of his energy.
My body jerked, and I moaned, leaning forward as I grabbed my stomach. It was like someone punched me in the stomach.
“Laila?” Alijah asked.
“They’re there,” I whispered and squeezed my eyes shut. “My lab. They’re in.”
Panic clawed me up inside, and I pushed away what them being in my lab truly meant.
“Laila?”
I drew what I could from the earth as I shook my head. “No. No. They’re in. No!” With that last word, I yanked out as much magic as I could, thought about my lab, about my project, about the implications of them being in my lab.
I landed on the other side of the lab, facing the door. Two figures were there. Fury whipped out of me as I glared at Reese and the big baddie who I figured hired them.
“Get out!” I snapped at them.
“You must be Dr. Porter,” the older man said with a smile. He was almost fatherly, like he was amused at his daughter’s ridiculousness. He did not have the right to look at me like that.
“Get out!”
The old man nodded at Reese, who moved toward the cabinet where my MBG was stored. I drew up even more magic, aware of the dangers of doing so, and as Reese made his move for it, I teleported to the cabinet, threw it open, and grabbed the device. The moment my fingers wrapped around it, steel arms were around my waist, jerking me away.
I screamed and shoved even more magic into the device with one thought in mind: Destroy.
As we landed on the ground, me on top of the shadowsmith, the device disintegrated, my hand on fire as pieces exploded outward.
Reese rolled us over so he was on top of us, his face red. “What did you do?” he seethed.
“You lose,” I said, ignoring the twitching in my hand from the wound. My magic had moved too fast, and I hadn’t been able to shield myself against the attack. I could live with that. It was better than living with them having my prototype. I hadn’t been far enough into the project to place all the failsafes yet and they would have been able to easily manipulate it to do what they wanted.
“Not necessarily,” Reese said.
I moved around, trying to get him off me, but he had me pinned. His weight crushed my chest.
“Dr. Laila Porter, it truly is a pleasure meeting you,” the older man said as he loomed over me. “I’ve heard such amazing rumors about you.” He glanced around the lab. “I’m not impressed.”
“Then leave.”
He chuckled. “Not until I get what I want.”
“It’s gone. You won’t get it.”
He kneeled down, and when I tried moving again, Reese wrapped a hand around my throat and squeezed. I stilled.
“I will snap your neck,” he said. I blinked up into those dark eyes and saw nothing but the truth from the shadowsmith.
“Now that you’re a good docile little girl, let’s get started.”
“The device is gone,” I repeated.
The older man folded up his button-up sleeve, the coat gone now. “Is it ever really gone?” he asked and tapped the side of his head.
I frowned, not sure what he was getting at. When he rested his fingers at my temple, my body jerked and only Reese’s grip kept me from curling away from the touch. His touch was cold enough to burn— or was that the feel of his energy? I couldn’t tell.
Realization and terror flooded me as his plan clicked into place. The physical prototype was gone, but the information still existed, and it was all in my head.
“If you’d just relax, this would be a lot less painful,” he said.
“No,” I snapped out. His energy sunk into my skin, finding the synapses in my brain and riding them deeper into my mind. I could feel him in there, digging around. I fought back, throwing everything I had at him. He was ruthless, using everything he had and plowed through all my defenses. He laughed at my memories, pushed aside my thoughts, flicked at my willpower. He took my fears and tossed them at me, made my nightmares a reality.
Time didn’t matter. Just him, digging through my head, tearing through the pages of my mind.
“No!” I screamed, trying to cast him out. He sent a bolt of energy through me, meant to maim, and I nearly lost consciousness.
“Nuh-uh,” I heard him say from the bottom of a sludge-filled well. “I need you awake for this.” Coldness flooded through my body, and I gasped. Chuckles filled my mind as he got enjoyment out of his game. I was his plaything, and I wasn’t sure how to stop it. He was raping my mind of everything it was, and he didn’t mind taking his time doing it.
He fell deeper into my head, searching.
Panic welled up inside of me. I couldn’t let him. He was getting closer, all my blocks useless when he had a direct connection to me, and I was already exhausted.
Warm tears fell down my cheeks as I gritted my teeth.
Forcing my eyes open, I felt his triumph even as it filled his expression.
No. I couldn’t.
Our eyes met as he yanked on the memories, absorbing the knowledge. I fought back, pulled it all back to me, and we played a mean game of tug-of-war as he used my mind against me, dredging up the worst in there to cower and weaken me. I fought tooth and nail to hold onto the information, even as some of it slipped away. I couldn’t let him have this knowledge.
His eagerness added to his determination. Someone called my name as pure desperation clawed through me.
“No,” I said and did what no magic user should ever do. Even as a last resort.
Attack themselves.
His eyes widened when he realized what I was trying to do. He tugged harder, taking what he could.
I gathered my magic and tried to hold onto him as I turned it on myself. I had to fight him, fight my own magic, and fight myself. One had to give.
Unfortunately, it was him as he withdrew from my mind the same time my magic imploded, and I screamed, the memories scrambling themselves into nothing.
He hissed and glared down at me. I blinked past the pain, crying, but still smiling up at him in triumph. He didn’t get out fast enough, and he didn’t get it all. He didn’t get enough.
I fucking won.
“Fucking won!”
Delirious laughter filled the space and so did those words. It took me a moment to realize I was screaming it out.
“Fucking won!”
Arms lifted me up, and I was laughing too hard to know what the hell was going on. My brain was mush, and I won. I won something. I wasn’t sure what. I just fucking won. Winning was good, winning meant I won.
I snorted and broke out into laughter again.
As someone carried me, pressing my head into a shoulder and holding me tight, as we ascended and walked through chaos. I laughed. I cried. And then laughed again.
I couldn’t stop. Wasn’t so sure I ever would.
