Chapter 39
The sun is bleeding out by the time we reach the Institute. Orange and gold dull slowly into blue-black across the horizon, the last light catching against Bellrose’s glass exterior and turning the entire building into something cold and reflective. A monument or a tomb.
Beside me, Cason rolls his shoulders once like he’s trying to shake the tension loose before we walk through the front doors.
I don’t think it works. I can feel it on him anyway.
On all of us.
Sebastian checks the magazine in his gun one last time before sliding it back into place.
Mia cracks her neck and mutters something under her breath that sounds vaguely homicidal.
Behind them, two of our newer Ascended recruits, Rory and Delilah, along with a couple of others from the nearest safehouse, spread out slightly, already preparing for things to go wrong.
Not if. When.
The doors slide open automatically, and there they are.
Waiting. Malcolm’s soldiers stand scattered across the lobby like chess pieces, calm and ready beneath the sterile fluorescent glow of the lighting that only kicks on when the sun has vanished.
Reflections fracture across the towering glass walls behind them, turning bodies into splintered shapes.
The kinetic installation still turns slowly overhead, a depiction of emergent systems and self-correcting chaos.
I fucking hate this building.
“Well,” Samantha says from the center of the lobby, arms crossed, hip jutted out, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. “This feels dramatic.”
The second we cross the threshold, my shadows disappear, snuffed out instantly. Beside me, Cason’s electricity flickers once across his fingertips before fading too.
Samantha smiles. “Sorry. Occupational hazard.”
“Yeah,” Mia mutters. “You continue to suck.”
Samantha ignores her, eyes settling on me instead. “Reese.” Her tone softens, almost imperceptibly. “You really should’ve listened.”
“I get that a lot.”
“You could’ve stopped this.”
I glance around the lobby, at the armed guards, the Ascended. Malcolm nowhere in sight.
“We were invited,” I say as I move my gaze back to Samantha. “Would’ve been rude not to show up.”
“You know, this doesn’t actually have to end violen—”
I pull my gun and shoot her between the fucking eyes. The crack of the gunshot detonates through the atrium, and Samantha drops instantly. Dead before she hits the floor.
Then, suddenly, my shadows explode back into existence.
Darkness surges back through my veins as shadows spill across the marble floor in violent ribbons. Around me, powers ignite like someone cut loose a live wire. Blue-white electricity snaps across Cason’s skin, illuminating the sharp line of his grin for half a second.
Holding my arms out to my sides, I ask, “Did any of us really have time for a monologue?”
Then chaos erupts.
Gravity slams sideways, the entire lobby tilting viciously as Ethan Kade throws out his hand, increasing localized pressure hard enough to crack marble beneath our feet. Delilah gets ripped off balance and crashes shoulder-first into one of the decorative stone structures.
Mia retaliates instantly.
The air around Ethan warps, and his expression goes unfocused, then alarmed, as her disorientation hits. He stumbles backward, suddenly unable to tell up from down.
“Good luck figuring out where the floor went, asshole!” Mia shouts.
Sebastian fires twice while Ethan’s distracted.
One bullet hits him in the arm. The other stops midair.
A woman near the elevator twists her fingers, freezing the projectile in space before hurling it back.
Sebastian catches it out of the air. Literally.
In his fist. The force of those powers transfers into him instead of tearing straight through his palm.
Then he throws the energy back, along with the bullet.
The woman launches clear across the lobby like she got hit by a fucking train, smashing through part of the kinetic installation overhead. Metal filaments snap. Glass panels shatter. The entire sculpture groans as pieces rain down into the atrium below.
The fight gets uglier after that. And fast.
Cason ducks a strike from one of Malcolm’s soldiers before driving his fist into the guy’s throat hard enough for him to stagger backward.
Someone lunges for me, and shadows spear upward instinctively, wrapping around their wrist and snapping it sideways with a sickening crack.
Gunfire erupts.
Shouts echo.
Glass breaks.
The artificial stream explodes upward as another Ascended manipulates water into razor thin blades that slash through the lobby. Rory takes one across the arm and screams, cursing loudly.
Then Cason yells. “Baz!”
Sebastian turns, and Cason throws electricity directly at him. For half a second, even Sebastian looks confused.
Then understanding hits.
The current rips across the lobby in branching arcs of white and blue and green, striking Sebastian square in the chest hard enough that the air cracks around him. The electricity doesn’t dissipate. It absorbs, crawling over his body, racing beneath his skin in flickering veins of light.
A feral grin stretches across Sebastian’s face. “Oh, that’s fun!”
Then he redirects the entire blast into one of Malcolm’s men charging across the lobby. It hits the guy like a bolt of lightning, and he convulses violently before crashing through the glass elevator, shattering it into glittering pieces.
Cason laughs. “Holy shit! Teamwork!”
Something in my chest stutters, some place inside that I didn’t even realize was empty finally feeling full.
He’s one of us now.
And somehow, despite everything…
He fits perfectly.
But then a man with a long scar down one side of his face who’s standing across the lobby jerks his hand upward, catching my attention.
Every shard of broken glass scattered across the atrium rises with it.
Hundreds of shimmering pieces hang suspended in the air for one terrible second before launching straight toward Cason like a storm of knives.
My shadows move before I can barely think the command.
They surge upward in a dense black wave, swallowing the space between them. Glass vanishes into the darkness, piercing through, and when it all comes out the other side, it’s nothing but glittering dust, showering over Cason like sparkling rain.
Then my shadows go flying, twisting through the air like a horde of bats.
They aim for the man with the scar, swallowing him in a cloud of black.
His screams echoing off all the glass and stone in the atrium is fucking satisfying.
If I had the time, I’d make him suffer even worse for attacking Cason. But his screams die out quickly.
Grabbing Cason’s arm, I yank him backward against my chest.
“Hey!” he protests.
“Listen to me.”
I ease my grip on him enough so he can turn and face me.
Around us, the lobby is falling apart. Malcolm’s people are regrouping. Mine are still fighting. I don’t know how much time we have left, and I think Cason might be safer anywhere but here.
“You need to find where that demonstration is,” I tell him. “Stop it before it starts.”
His brow furrows, and his jaw tightens. “What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Another gravity pulse rocks the floor. Mia screams something deeply offensive in the distance. Sebastian fires another shot.
Cason grabs the front of my shirt, bunching the fabric in his fist and forcing my attention back to him. “Reese—”
“Go!”
My shadows briefly curl around his wrist, protective and possessive. And terrified.
But now that I know that Malcolm planned so much of this, right down to Cason’s Ascension, I don’t think Malcolm wants his nephew dead. I don’t know what the fuck he wants, but right now, my priority is getting all of my people out of here alive. Cason first. But everyone else too.
“You stop whatever the fuck he’s doing,” I say. “I’ll keep anyone from following you, then I’ll be right behind you.”
Cason stares at me for one long second.
Another explosion rattles the lobby.
He hauls me closer by the front of my shirt, his eyes wild and electric. “I swear to fuck, Reese,” he growls, “you better not fucking die again.”
Then he shoves away from me and runs.