Page 69 of The World Undone

I’d drive myself into a fit of rage if I let myself linger on what could have been. What our lives might’ve looked like if we’d grown up outside of The Guild’s grip. If we’d known the truth sooner.

“This is amazing,” Bishop sat down, arms propped on his knees as he watched us pass the fire from person to person, like hot potato—a quick training drill Wade came up with. For once, when his eyes landed on Darius, there wasn’t even the suggestion of a repressed scowl. “I’ve never seen anything like what you can do, Max.” He shook his head. “What you can all do now, I guess.”

“Well good,” Darius said with a fangy grin. “Job security, I guess. For taking on The Guild.”

The awe on Bishop’s face turned into something else, something like…hope, maybe—sharp and useful. I could see his mind working a mile a minute as he watched us.

I understood why. If we could master these powers—and do so quickly—it would change things for us dramatically.

Even though we could only use the powers one at a time, having six of us with the capability would give us a huge leg up when we took on the council.

When I siphoned the flames from where they were with a bleary-eyed focus—from exhaustion, one beer was hardly enough to have an effect—Bishop stiffened.

“What’s wrong?” As if sensing my changed focus, the fire snapped into air, until I held just my empty hand in front of my face.

He sat up taller, a light in his eyes as they caught mine. He shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. Maybe something is right.” He stood up, collected the empty bottles in a hurry. “I need to think, need to mull some things over. Can you all meet me at the restaurant in the morning? I might have an idea. A wildly reckless one, but it might just be unpredictable enough to work, to give us the edge we’ve been needing.”

“What idea?” Atlas asked, tracking Bishop’s every suddenly-stilted move with the steady patience of a predator.

He shook his head. “Tomorrow. I need to think this through, if it’s going to work. Don’t want to get our hopes up if it’s nothing.” He climbed back towards the main cabins, before turning around and calling back, “and don’t mention the beers to anyone. With Vincent and the shade, getting resources in is going to be more of a project than it already was. I’m supposed to save non-necessities like this for emergencies and celebratory toasts and shit. Charlie and Mer will have my head if they see the supplies dwindling before there’s a proper plan in place to regenerate them.”

Without another word, he was gone.

“Is he really going to leave us on that cliffhanger?” Darius asked with a snort. “What a dick.”

“Yeah,” Wade sighed, stood up, grabbed Max’s hand, and pulled her up into a hug, “I think he is.”

I stood too, suddenly feeling the effects of using Max’s magic weigh on my body. Exhaustion flooded me.

“Sleep,” I said, my voice practically a whimper now. “Sleep sounds very?—”

A soft rustle in the nearby bush erased my sentence into air.

All of us froze, waiting to see whether this was a threat or stray animal searching for food.

Twigs cracked and icy snow crunched, alerting us to an animal far larger than a deer or a wolf.

My fingers twitched along the handle of my blade, and I saw the others reach for their own weapons from the corner of my eyes.

A tall, dark shadow loomed in the clearing about forty feet away, winding around the curve of the lake.

For a brief second, breath clogged in my throat—but then it released into a laugh.

“Ralph!” Max’s voice was filled with as much lightness as I suddenly felt, as she took off towards the familiar hellhound.

“How the hell did he get here?” I asked no one in particular. Despite myself, I couldn’t keep the smile from stretching across my face as I ran to greet our friendly hound.

15

MAX

Isprang awake, my breath coming out in ragged gasps as the door sprang open.

Izzy burst into Darius’s room, muttering something I couldn’t hear, tears streaming down her bloodshot eyes. It looked like she hadn’t slept in two weeks.

“What’s wrong?” I swallowed, blinking a few times as my body fought to wake up, to catch onto the urgent energy springing from Izzy in thick waves.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. She was breathless and tear-streaked, her hair a mess of tangles that were falling from a precariously-perched messy bun that had shifted to just above her right ear and was holding on for dear life. “I panicked and ran here. I— I need coffee. And sleep. But right now, coffee. We need to figure out how to fix this.”

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