67. Chapter 67
Arwen
Atticus and I both snap our heads north as a deafening boom rolls across the battlefield, rattling the dumpster.
For a second, all I see is smoke, thick and black, billowing up from the northern edge of the courtyard.
Then the smoke shifts and there they are—engines, an entire line of them, headlights cutting through the haze, tires grinding over rubble as they roll onto the field one after another. A wave of relief hits me.
“They’re here.” Atticus’s voice comes out like a prayer.
The northern edge of the estate erupts into motion in the distance. A massive wall of energy slams into place, stretching across the battlefield like a glowing barrier. Gunfire suddenly hammers against something bright and translucent. Bullets ricochet harmlessly away from it.
I recognize the shield from the Iron Gut Quarter. Duval.
The moment it appears; dozens of armed figures pour from the vehicles that just tore through the perimeter walls.
Our reinforcements.
“Thank you, universe. We might all get out of this alive,” I breathe. Hope is a strange sensation after so many hours of pure panic.
I turn to Atticus. His hand is clamped around mine, knuckles white, and he’s staring at me with the wide, shaken look of a man who almost lost everything.
Around me, gang members who were pushing towards us seconds ago are checking their flanks, their momentum gone as they realize they are being pressed in from behind. The entire flow of the fight shifts.
In the chaos, they move to regroup. Some run straight towards the new fight, some look at each other in confusion. Our people surge forward. It looks like Amaya has disappeared as well. The northern breach must have pulled her attention. This is our chance.
“We need to find Maddox,” I yell to Atticus over the commotion. He looks torn, like he wants to hide me behind this dumpster forever, but he nods.
“He was leading the front.”
We move north, sprinting between the cover of overturned vehicles and shattered stone fencing as the gunfire cracks around us. My pulse hammers in my ears. I scan every shadow, every gap between bodies and burning wreckage for threats.
We reach the bullet-scarred facade of Vex’s mansion, preparing to work our way around the perimeter, when a flicker of motion on a second-floor balcony snags my attention.
Councilor West stands there, untouched by the chaos below.
His suit is immaculate, as if he just stepped out of a boardroom instead of a war zone.
A crystal tumbler dangles from his fingers, half-full of amber liquid catching the low sun.
He isn’t just calm—he’s amused. A faint, condescending smile plays on his lips as he looks over the battlefield like a man watching a play.
My stomach clenches into a cold, hard knot. This is fun for him.
This is exactly what he wanted.
His entertainment.
People are bleeding. Dying. In a war he fostered. All for his own amusement.
A fighter goes down near the fountain closest to him, crumpling against the stone basin, and Councilor West tilts his crystal tumbler toward the body. A small, private gesture. The kind you’d make at a dinner party when someone says something clever.
Rage floods through me. He may be worse than Councilor Blaise. Gluttony sees his children as extensions of his power, but he just uses them like game pieces. His rot corrupting those he should be protecting.
We push along the perimeter, and the sheer scale of the chaos hits me like a physical blow. The courtyard is a sea of gunfire and screams. We move in a low crouch at its edge, picking off enemy stragglers as we go.
We finally reach the shield to find Duval standing firm, palms raised, sweat beading at his temples as he maintains the barrier. Our people huddle behind it—some slamming fresh magazines into rifles, others dragging the wounded into temporary safety.
“Duval, is Maddox here?” I yell over the commotion.
He shakes his head. “He was going after Kael.”
I’m already moving, pushing through bodies, searching for Maddox, when a scream splits the air and every nerve in my body locks up at once.
“Holly!” Sly screams in desperation.
My head whips around. Holly is on her knees in the dirt, her whole body shaking.
Fire tears out of her in ragged, uneven bursts—not the controlled burn I’ve seen from her before, but something wrong, excessive, flames ripping from her arms and shoulders like they’re trying to escape her.
She screams again, and the sound isn’t battle noise. It’s pain.
“Arwen, wait—” Atticus’s voice cuts off behind me. My legs are already moving. The crowd is a wall of bodies, and I hit it hard, driving small bursts of my power into the air in front of me. It creates a small jolting force, pushing people aside.
Holly screams again, and the sound rewires something in my chest.
What is happening?
Then I spot him… Teeth. Standing several yards away with a smile on his face. One hand raised toward Holly. But instead of sucking her power away, it’s like he’s pressing it into her. Like how he re-energizes his men. But it’s too much. He’s trying to fill her to bursting!
Sly is trying to get to Holly along with several other members of our team, but no one can even get close as the flames shoot out of her body, getting brighter and growing.
Think.
Think.
My gaze locks onto Teeth. Then Duval.
The answer slams into me. “Duval!”
My voice cracks across the battlefield. His head snaps toward me.
“Shield him!”
No explanation.
For one terrifying second, I wonder if he’ll question me, but he doesn’t.
“Shield’s coming down!” He yells to warn the people behind him, and a few moments later a glowing sphere erupts around Teeth.
The smugness drains out of his face all at once. His eyes go wide and wild, darting around the inside of the sphere as he turns a full circle. Both fists slam against the barrier, but it’s too late.
The men flanking him look at the shield in confusion, and Atticus uses the distraction to pick them off with headshots.
I run towards the shield, power vibrating beneath my skin, every instinct screaming certainty.
Teeth’s jaw drops. A plea or a threat, I don’t care which, as I look him dead in the eyes.
“Continue.” The command leaves my mouth with the force of my new pride power.
Teeth freezes and his entire face goes blank. The tendons in his neck pull taut as he realizes what is happening. His whole body shakes with the effort of resistance, but his arm rises slowly, following my command.
My power has him. “Continue.” I say again, keeping the command live.
The energy that had been pouring into Holly reverses. It has nowhere to go but to pound back into his body as Duval’s shield holds around him.
Light erupts from within him, a network of bright veins burning beneath his skin as the power compounds inside him. His arms splinter with light, fissures of raw power crawling up to his shoulders. The smug hate in his eyes shatters into pure, animal panic.
“No—”The denial is a mouthed whisper, swallowed by the detonation that follows. The ground heaves. Duval’s shield flares like a bursting star, shuddering under the force but holding.
When the light fades, there is nothing left of Teeth. A fitting end for a man who constantly drained others for power.
Duval’s shield snaps back into place in front of him as I run towards Holly. I make it to her on my knees as Atticus and Sly surround us, shooting any enemy who comes our way.
Everything fades around me as my hands tremble to push the hair out of my best friend’s face. Her skin still smoldering hot.
Then Holly sucks in a sharp breath. She’s alive.
Tears fall down my face as I wrap my arms around her.
“Sly, we need to get her behind the shield,” I say urgently. He picks her up as I cover him, and together we get Holly behind the protective barrier.
***
With Teeth gone, the gang fractures. His people scatter in every direction, bleeding into the wider fight.
When Holly is stable and handed off to the medical teams, we head back into the chaos to find Maddox.
I’m right on Atticus’s heels, cutting across the thinning grounds when gunfire erupts from the trees along the estate wall and we’re caught in the open.
We scatter for cover. Someone seizes my arm from behind—then the barrel of a gun finds my temple, hard and cold. I’m wrenched backward behind a shed before I can make a sound. Atticus is nowhere to be seen, invisible on the other side of the ambush.
“Angel.” The voice is a slow, wet scrape against the back of my neck. “What are you doing out of your room?”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid at the sound of Vex’s voice.
Before I can react, he spins me hard into the wooden wall, his body filling the space in front of me.
“Of course you’d be at the center of this mess,” he breathes, the words poison against my ear. “A little chaos to match my own. You belong with me.”
He licks up the side of my face and I buck against him, trying to push him away.
“I’d rather die,” I spit out. I hold my mental shields tightly as I feel him forcing against them.
“You’ll break, eventually.” His smile widens. “I always get what I want.”
I look up into his eyes as my power hums to life beneath my skin.
“Kneel.”
He laughs.
Then his body folds. One knee slams into the ground. The second follows. Shock and pure disbelief explode across his face.
His hands claw at the earth. Struggling.
“Stay.”
I step around him and pull the gun from his grip, pressing it into the bloody tattoo on his face.
“It isn’t fun when someone’s in your mind, is it?”
Hatred twists his face as everything he has inflicted on others reflects at him, just like what happened with Teeth.
A large rumble, sounding like a stampede, moves closer as people scream and yell over the gunfire.
“Run! Kael’s dead.”
Another shout, “He killed him! I saw it.”
The words snag my attention, and I look towards the commotion to see a large swath of fighters running toward the tree line edging the property.