Chapter Seventy-Eight Here Today, Jean Tomorrow
She reaches up and grabs the thumb holding the knife and bends it straight back until a loud cracking sound fills the air.
Jean-Luc’s corresponding scream is high-pitched and childish as he jerks back and immediately drops the knife. Which Izzy catches in midair, spins around in her hand, and then plunges directly into the center of his chest.
She twists it—several times—before pulling it out.
Jean-Luc is dead before he hits the floor.
Izzy doesn’t even bother to step out of the way. Just kicks him once he falls, then brings the knife to her mouth and licks the blade from hilt to tip.
When she’s done, she looks up to find all of us staring at her, eyes wide and mouths agape. But she just shrugs and says, “What? Everyone else got a snack.”
I have no idea what I’m supposed to say to that. I don’t think anyone else does, either.
Except for Remy, who steps forward to press gentle fingers to Izzy’s throat. “It doesn’t look too bad, but we should probably bandage it up.”
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “I got worse than this from dear old Dad on nights he was actually pleased with me.”
She leaves the rest unsaid, but considering she just killed a person and is completely unfazed, I figure it wasn’t good.
Jude turns to Jean-Jacques, who is currently staring down at Jean-Luc’s body in shock, and yanks the tapestry out of his hands. “Get out of here,” he snarls.
Jean-Jacques nods as he stumbles backward, but before he can actually move away, Jean-Paul flies straight toward us, with Jean-Claude right behind him. Their wings are working double time, and their faces are twisted in rage as Jean-Paul screams, “You fucking bitch!” at Izzy.
Her brows go up and a dangerous smile plays around her lips, one that hints that Jean-Jacques might be the only Jean-Jerk left alive. If he’s lucky. Which is why, when her hand tightens on the hilt of the knife, I all but throw myself in front of her.
“You guys need to go—”
Jean-Jacques kicks me in the head, hard, and I reel back, seeing stars. Jude bounds forward and snatches the fae out of the air and plows a huge fist straight into the middle of his face. That’s all it takes for Jean-Jacques to go out.
Moments later, Jude does the same to Jean-Paul before dumping both unconscious fae next to Jean-Luc’s body. Then he turns to Jean-Claude, both brows raised—which is all it takes to have the other fae stumbling over his own feet to get away.
Once he’s gone, the rest of us take a moment to let everything that just happened sink in.
I know it was justified—or as justified as killing ever could be.
But Jean-Luc is dead. And Izzy killed him like it was the easiest thing in the world.
I don’t know how to deal with that even though I’m surrounded by so much death. All I can do is look at the singular past version of Jean-Luc standing over his still-bleeding present body, somehow, a smug look still on his face.
“Are you okay?” Jude asks, voice low and urgent as he searches my face.
“Yeah, of course,” I tell him, because I am even though my head is now throbbing.
He doesn’t look convinced, and neither does Remy, who comes up right behind him.
“You need to open up,” Jude tells me in a voice so gentle I barely recognize it.
“Wow, you really do have all the best lines.”
“She’s coherent enough to give you shit,” Remy says dryly. “I figure that’s got to be a good sign.”
“For someone else, maybe. But she could give me shit in her sleep.”
But Jude must decide I really am okay after all because he lets it drop.
It’s still chaos. The wind and rain whipping through the room ensure that. Despite Danson getting the room under partial control, the low growls and dominance challenges continue.
There are several unconscious—and worse—bodies scattered around the room that my friends and I aren’t responsible for.
I ignore my churning stomach, swallow down the bile attempting to crawl back up my esophagus, and try to figure out where we’re supposed to go from here.
Danson is currently climbing on top of a table in the middle of the room, a bullhorn in his hands—which I’m hoping means he has a plan, because I am fresh out of ideas.
Ms. Aguilar is right below him, as she shushes students and tries to get them to pay attention. None of them pay any attention to her at all, but they do at least quiet down when Danson calls for attention through the megaphone.
“First of all, I want to start by saying that what just happened here can never happen again.” He pauses for effect and takes his time looking from group to group. “If you believe nothing else that I tell you today, believe this. This storm is going to get worse before it gets better.”
His words ring through the room, and though some people scoff, the majority of students quickly grow serious. “The eye of the hurricane hasn’t even reached us yet, which means that whatever rainbands come through next are going to be worse than what we’re already experiencing. They will have harder rains, faster winds, and more than likely worse lightning and thunder.”
As if to underscore his words, lightning flashes across the sky at the same time a huge gust of wind rips from one end of the room to the other. It topples chairs, sends several students in its path careening into walls and each other, and nearly overturns the table Danson is standing on.
He manages to jump down just before it goes sliding wildly across the room, but the wind catches him and he nearly goes with it.
“What are we going to do?” Ember asks uneasily. “We can’t stay in a building with its windows blown out if things are going to get as bad as he says they are.”
If it really is a category five, half this island is going to get leveled. And we’re stuck here, a bunch of sitting ducks with nowhere to go and nothing to do but to kill each other.
The thought chills me to the bone as I try to figure out where we can go that will be safe. The dungeon in the admin building would be the logical choice…if the place wasn’t filled with nightmare monsters waiting for fresh prey.
The old dance hall has a lower level, too, but no one has been in there in years—not since my mom closed it up after students kept getting caught doing “illicit activities” there.
Other than that, our choices are limited. Maybe the gym, because it’s got no windows or exposed doors. But that also means we’ll all be sitting around in the dark. The library has huge book stacks that can be pushed to cover up windows from the inside. Not sure if that will actually do any good against one-hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds, but it’s a nice thought.
Danson finally gets his bearings and manages to command everyone’s attention.
“We can’t stay here,” he says. “Not with the broken windows and its proximity to the ocean. We’ll be safer inland. Leaving here won’t be easy—it was rough a couple of hours ago, and conditions have only declined since then. But staying here will only get more and more dangerous, and the storm is getting worse with every passing minute.”
“Forget anger management teacher,” Simon says with a roll of his eyes. “This guy should be a motivational speaker.”
“To be fair, I’m feeling very motivated right now,” Mozart tells him with a grimace.
“Aren’t we all?” Remy asks dryly.
“So Ms. Aguilar and I have decided that we’re going to move all of you to the gym,” Danson continues. “It has close proximity to the cafeteria so we can get food moved over right away, plus it has no windows and is surrounded by other buildings to help block the wind. But to get there, we’re going to need every single one of you to cooperate.”
Again, he pauses, and this time he makes a point of looking the room’s biggest troublemakers directly in the eyes. “We need help picking up your remaining personal belongings, supplies, and whatever food we have left so we can take them with us. Meet us by the front doors in five minutes.”
He takes a second to clear his throat before reiterating, “We’re leaving here in five minutes, so there will be absolutely no fighting with one another. We need to get to the gym before the storm gets any worse, and we have no time for any more hostility. Do I make myself clear?”
When no one answers, he narrows his eyes and asks again, “Do I make myself clear?”
A few people grumble out answers that sound affirmative, and I guess that’s good enough for Danson because he doesn’t ask a third time. Instead, he reminds us that we’ve got five minutes to get our shit together and get to the door, and then he dismisses us.
I lost my backpack and phone in the portal, so I don’t have anything but the misappropriated clothes on my back. But I do grab a duffel bag and stuff it full of extra hoodies for all of us while Jude and Remy do the same with snacks and water bottles.
Five minutes pass in what feels like five seconds, and suddenly it’s time to go.
“I’ve got a really shitty feeling about this,” Jude mutters as we line up with everyone else.
“To be fair, it’s not like there’s a whole hell of a lot to have a good feeling about right now,” Simon tells him.
“Right?” Ember blows out a long breath. “We’re stuck on an island with a bunch of assholes who try to kill each other at the slightest provocation. A category-five storm is bearing down on us, and we’re completely cut off from any form of communication—no weather reports, no internet, no phones, no lights.”
“Sounds like any old, regular camping trip to me,” Remy deadpans.
“If by camping trip you mean the Hunger Games, with Mother Nature as one of the participants,” I tell him, “then yes, this is absolutely like camping.”
The others laugh, but only for a second, because Danson weaves his way through the double line of students to the main door. “We’re heading straight for the fence and from there to the north side of the gym. Don’t stop for any reason. Don’t turn back for any reason. And do not, under any circumstances, get in a fight for any reason. Got it?”
But whether we’re ready or not doesn’t matter anymore, because just like that, Danson opens the door, and we all pour outside, two at a time.
Somehow, it’s even worse than I ever imagined.