Chapter 4
Jax
Immediately, I’m on my feet. Kal’s wearing our Legend jacket, his cloth mask in his hand.
“What’s happening?”
“Faders,” Axl says, coming in right behind Kal. He pulls his hair back before securing his mask.
“Where?” I ask, anger slicing through me.
“Yours.”
Shit.
I glance down at Rylee, a war tearing through me.
“We must go,” Pierce implores, rounding out our group. “If we have a shot at finding . . .”
Her sister.
This is our chance to bring her in alive.
“I can’t leave her here,” I say, hesitation clear in my tone.
“You can’t leave your city unprotected, either,” Mirren chides, storming into the room as if she’s about to don a mask and join us in the fray. “I will stay with her, Jax.”
It’s a little comfort.
“You left before,” she adds.
“They were here,” I say, motioning to my friends. “Maybe one of you should stay behind.”
“If things were normal, of course we would,” Kal says, silently pleading with me. “It’s going to take all of us.”
Without our powers.
Fuck. We’ve all been trained in combat since we could walk. But we’ve leaned on our powers for so long, fighting without them will be a challenge.
“It’s been a week, Jax,” Mirren challenges. “She hasn’t awoken. The odds are she won’t in the few hours you’re gone. I will stay with her. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“We need to go,” Axl says, urgency in his tone.
“Your people, Jax,” Kal adds. “They need you.”
She needs me.
I want to say the words, but I can’t choke them out.
She sleeps, safely in my room in the palace.
Mirren won’t let anything happen to her, not that anyone has made an attempt in the last week, though that could be because one of us has always been with her.
I can’t help but worry whoever tainted the elixir will try to kill her again.
“None of us wants this,” Axl presses. “Trust me. But think of how pissed she’d be if she knew we let a Fader attack go unchecked.”
Fuck, he has a point. My little liar would be livid.
“Go,” Mirren implores before taking my seat at Rylee’s bedside. “She’ll still be asleep when you return.”
That doesn’t offer much hope, either.
But she’s right. They’re all right.
I can’t leave my people unguarded.
Rylee wouldn’t want that.
I growl and grab my jacket off the back of the chair, slipping it on in a hurry before securing my mask. “Let’s make this quick.”