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.“You said you could get in and out without being spotted!”The SUV gunned it, spraying slushy snow in its wake.She snagged Anthony’s hand and dragged him over the median, onto the other side of the freeway, and down an off-ramp.Nathaniel followed.Unfortunately, so did the Union.The SUV smashed into the barrier.Concrete cracked.Anthony didn’t look back to see if they had flipped.He let his momentum carry him down the slope, shoving Nathaniel so that he was running in front.They jumped off of the freeway near a waterpark.The swimming pools were filled with ash and snow.“The truck is back that way!” Anthony tugged on Elise’s arm, but she ignored him.The Union was right behind them, just yards away.Its horn blared as it squealed down the ramp.“Wait,” Nathaniel said, stopping in the middle of the street.He flung the strip of paper into the air and spoke a word of power.Magic erupted through the street beneath their feet and made the air shimmer.Something huge coalesced over the SUV as it approached—a boulder the size of a car.The boulder dropped.It crashed into the hood of the SUV, and the metal crunched under it.Brakes squealed.The back tires lifted off the ground as glass exploded everywhere.Elise stared at him hard, as if the Union had vanished and she was seeing the child for the first time.Her eyes were endless pits, and if she had looked at Anthony like that, he probably would have shit himself.But the boy just started searching through his notebook for another page.Taking out one SUV wasn’t enough.Another vehicle rounded the bend to block the intersection, and Elise stopped short.Anthony ran into her back.A third vehicle appeared around the corner, and a fourth.They were trapped.Anthony edged backward, even though there was nowhere to go.“Elise…”“You’re right,” Elise said as the SUVs closed in.She shifted the box so it was under one arm and addressed Nathaniel.“Hey kid, are you scared of the dark?”“No.Why?”She lifted him under the arms, even though he was barely any shorter than she was, and threw him over her shoulder like he was a much smaller child.Then she grabbed Anthony’s wrist.The contact made his stomach cramp with nausea, and he wanted desperately to shove her away.Maybe the kid wasn’t scared of the dark, but Anthony was—he knew what was waiting inside.Elise erupted into fragments of shadow.Her swarming cloud of night was a few shades darker than the world surrounding them, and it consumed everything until all Anthony could see was blackness.It was as though a huge fist had clamped down on him, smothering his face and chest and jerking him off of the ground.He was buffeted inside a storm.Wind whipped around his ears.There were still sirens, and he could still hear the roaring engine of the SUV, but it quickly grew distant.“Hey!” someone shouted.“Stop them!”Popping noises.Gunfire.It rapidly faded, and was replaced by a roar like a tornado.Anthony couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything, and he felt dizzy with panic—But then it was over.Anthony fell onto the frozen, crunchy grass of a yard where the snow hadn’t stuck, and Nathaniel flopped a few feet away from him.The shadow burst with the fluttering of wings.Oxygen rushed into Anthony’s lungs.The boy immediately scrambled to his feet and spun, as if searching for the freeway.There was no sign of it.They were on a peaceful, suburban street, empty of cars or other life.The landscaping on that block was worse than on the surrounding streets—every single bush, tree, and blade of grass was shriveled and dead.They were in the outer edges of Sparks again, near Vista Boulevard, where James had a house with his girlfriend.Nathaniel’s jaw dropped.“Whoa.”Anthony flopped onto his back.It was the second time that Elise had done that to him, and it didn’t feel any better than the first.It wasn’t less frightening, either.Both times, it had felt like he was going to die.The shadows coalesced into Elise’s form again, and she rolled onto the pavement a few feet away.Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.“Are you okay, Anthony?” she asked.He shook his head, but he said, “Yeah.I think we’re fine.”“Good.”She groaned and gripped her stomach.Her back arched.Her shoulders strained.With a wet heave, something heavy and black splashed out of her mouth, like a slug dragged from her stomach.Another jerk, and a second slippery organ fell from her lips.“What’s going on?” Anthony asked, getting onto his knees.“Oh God,” she moaned, sitting back on her heels.Black fluid marked her bottom lip.She wiped it off and then plucked something from one of the puddles she had vomited—a flattened bullet.She flung it aside, sending the bullet skittering across the icy pavement.Elise swore as she lifted her t-shirt.Her abdomen was riddled with holes that didn’t bleed, and her shirt was destroyed.“Fuck! Those assholes shot me!”“Yeah, and it obviously did a lot of damage,” Anthony said.Elise shot him an angry glare.It was a lot scarier now that it looked like her pupils had dilated to fill the entire iris.“It hurts.Okay?”She dug her fingers into one of the bullet wounds and pulled out another bullet.“Oh my God,” Nathaniel said.“What are you?”Elise discarded two more bullets, and the holes closed as soon as her fingers withdrew, leaving the skin underneath smooth and unmarked.“‘What am I?’” she echoed.“Isn’t that just the question of the day?” She got to her feet and scanned the street.“I guess what matters is that we just saved your life, kid.The Union’s not too careful about who they shoot after curfew.” She glanced at him for an instant.“Not that you’re helpless, apparently.”Her eyes fell on the box she had been carrying down the freeway.It was in a bush down the street.Anthony hung back with Nathaniel when she went to retrieve it.The boy’s mouth hung open [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]