66. Chapter 66
Arwen
I’ve lost all sense of time, but I cling to my clarity to ensure my shields stay in place.
I roll my shoulders against the restraints, not because it helps, but because I need to feel something physical to keep my mind active. The metal bites into my wrists and ankles, but even that sensation feels distant.
Despite the new environment, I find myself in a familiar place.
A cage.
Again.
I tilt my head back and close my eyes, focusing inward.
The shields are there, layered and deliberate. I press against them now to feel their strength. They hold like steel. Separating my mind from everything that tries to reach in and take from me.
I can feel Vex’s power when I test the edges of my mind. It’s still out there, probing to get inside. But now it’s different. What was once a battering ram now feels like a light tap.
I open my eyes again and stare at the ceiling.
Every one of them was a cage. The academy. The designation. The boxes that the Councilors and everyone around me kept trying to fold me into.
Different bars. Different locks. Same purpose.
Invisibility was a fantasy I clung to. The ache to dissolve back into the wallpaper, to be so unremarkable no one would look twice. After my power woke, I’d lie awake craving the before—the girl who was nobody’s business, nobody’s weapon.
That girl was gone. She believed that staying small meant staying safe. That if I didn’t take up space, the people I loved wouldn’t become targets.
Was she right? Is that why I’ve let them catalogue me? Wrath. Gluttony. Sinless. Obedient and unseen—a ghost who follows orders and doesn’t ask questions. All to keep the few I have left from paying for what I am.
I shift my wrists again; the metal scrapes against my skin. I think about all of it. Every version of me. Every cage. Every time I’ve been told who I should be and what I should believe.
Was I better off before?
No.
That thinking is a cage of my own making.
The thought of shrinking back into that quiet, unseen girl makes my stomach clench. To be so small my voice can’t make a difference. So silent that I become an accessory to other people’s plans. A cold, clear certainty spreads through my ribs. This is it.
I am not a consequence. I am a cause. The power to shape what comes next has always been mine. I will not hide in the shadows and hope to be overlooked.
My fingers curl, tugging against the restraints.
If I’m afraid to own who I am, I will stay in a cage built by other people’s intentions. The cage will always be my story.
I inhale deeply, letting the air settle into steady resolve. A feeling flows through me. A tingle, barely noticeable.
Something changes in the air. Vibration runs through my bones like my insides have been asleep and are stretching awake. The static under my skin surges as my powers flood me.
They’re here.
My bonded.
Relief flashes through me, knocking the breath from my lungs. Followed immediately by concern.
If my bonded are here, that means they are in danger, and I am not sitting here waiting to be found like a damsel in distress.
My gaze moves to the handcuffs above my head. The chains clink. I focus on the metal links between the two cuffs. I’ve never felt more of my power or my control.
The chaos inside me surges forward, hungry, and I send it directly over the links. The metal disappears with a clean snap as my wrists drop free.
I breathe through the sensation of blood filling my arms as I shake them out. Then I remove each cuff with a thought. Another pulse of power and the restraints fall away one by one with a snap.
The last one releases my ankle, and I step forward, stumbling into the table. My shoulders roll as I test the tension, while my eyes scan the room.
I take a carving knife from the counter and slide it into my boot, then pull a gun off the wall. At the door, I pause, listen, and ease it open an inch. The hall is empty.
I slip out and move along the wall, stopping at each corner before rounding it. Deeper into the building, then up a set of stairs. The noise climbs with me—gunfire, shouts, explosions.
Fear rises, and I push it down. My bonded aren’t fragile. They can take care of themselves. I know that in my bones, even here in the middle of all this violence.
I keep moving through the empty hallways until I come up on a small group of Vex’s gang. I pull back before they see me and peer around the edge. Three men are clustered at the end of the hall, distracted. My power stirs beneath my skin. I could take them out…
One shifts. “Wait, did you hear—”
I push my chaos power under their feet instead of at them.
A violent rupture opens under them as my power devours the floor, and all three of them drop with startled shouts swallowed by the sudden collapse.
No time to waste.
I vault over the broken floor without looking down again and push forward, the sound of distant combat pulling me like a current. The next set of stairs is just ahead, and I take them two at a time, my hand skimming the wall for balance.
By the time I reach the top, my breathing is a little ragged.
I see more jogging in your future, Arwen.
The hallway opens into a large, windowed overlook, and for a split second I just stand there, frozen by what I see outside.
The violence stretches across the grounds like something out of a nightmare.
And the person at the center of it—
Maddox.
My heart stutters at the sight of him fighting.
He takes cover behind the column of a gazebo, avoiding the gunfire. My breath catches as someone rips a massive tree trunk from the ground and throws the heavy stump through the air toward him.
I almost scream, but Maddox turns just in time.
And catches it.
Both hands snap around it mid-flight, stopping it dead. The impact should have shattered bone. It should have thrown him backward.
Instead, the force of it becomes a visible thing.
It coils around him like a dust devil, wrapping and compressing before he pulls it inward, absorbing it.
Then he runs toward the attacker, using the trunk as a shield as he drives his fist into the man with enough force that the body launches backward several feet before slamming into the side of the building and collapsing.
I need to be out there.
My power hits the window in a clean, focused strike, and the glass disappears. I climb through without hesitation and drop the short distance to the ground, landing on my feet with a soft impact.
The noise of battle swallows everything again the moment I’m outside.
I move, staying low, slipping into the edges of the courtyard where the fighting is less direct but still close.
Shrubs. Broken stonework. Ornamental vases half-toppled. Fountains spilling water across cracked marble. I use all of it, weaving through cover as I move deeper into the chaos, staying hidden from view.
No plan. I need to reach our team.
I’m already calculating my next move when movement to my left catches my attention.
Brix.
What the hell?! He shouldn’t be here?
He’s in the middle of a brutal struggle, wrestling a gun from an enemy.
He gets a grip on the weapon’s handle, twists sharply, and uses the man’s own momentum against him.
Brix pulls the attacker’s arm over his shoulder in a controlled arc before he drives an elbow into his ribs and snaps the man’s arm with clean, sickening precision.
None of them should be here.
A sharp voice cuts through my confusion. “You’ve finally joined the party.”
My head snaps left to find Amaya.
She’s already aiming. The gun is steady in her hand, her expression bored more than angry, like I’m just another inconvenience she has to deal with. The trigger clicks.
I move on instinct.
The bullet whips through the air exactly where I was standing, punching into stone. I don’t stop running.
“Hm,” she calls after me. “Guess that means you aren’t Vex’s little love puppet after all.”
Another shot fires. Then another. I weave between cover to break her line of sight, forcing my body low as debris rains down on me from her shots.
“Arwen!”
A hand catches my arm and pulls me hard behind a toppled dumpster just as another bullet strikes metal.
I look up to find Atticus, and my next breath comes out as a shudder, relief hitting me so hard it almost knocks the fight from me.
He’s alive. My eyes drag over him, checking for injuries, and I catch him doing the same. I drag him to me in a quick embrace.
“I’m fine,” I manage, my pulse still racing. “But what’s the plan here? It feels like we’re severely outnumbered.”
His grip stays firm on my arm as he leans out just enough to scan the chaos beyond the dumpster.
“Are the other siblings here?” I ask, voice tight.
“I think so,” Atticus replies, eyes flicking across the battlefield. “Wicka’s been taken out momentarily, and you should know Paris is on our side.”
That surprises me, but there’s no time to process it.
“I’ve only seen Amaya and Vex,” he continues, jaw tightening, “but I’ve seen signs that lead me to believe the others are here too. But backup is coming. Duval and Val are leading teams from the north. They should be here any minute.”
His gaze finally meets mine again, steady despite everything happening around us.
“We just need to hold the ground until then.”