Page 122 of Angel Lost

It’s the real Kai. There’s something about the way he tilts his head, the gleam in his eye, the frenetic pacing. Yup. Kai.

I give him a half wave and peer beyond him at myself, lying on the floor, my eyes glazed. This is trippy.

I nod at the supine figure. “Zephyr?”

Kai nods, kicking at Zephyr’s foot. I squeeze in beside him in the narrow corridor, placing a hand on Zephyr’s forehead. Hot. Like he’s overheating. Suddenly he stands bolt upright; from lying flat out to standing in one fluid movement. I jerk back, nearly falling on my ass.

His head swivels unnaturally. “She’s through. Davina’s through the ley lines.”

Shit. I thought it would hold her far longer. Kai licks his lips nervously.

“Keep moving,” Farrell instructs.

Just as we round the next corner, Kai leading, an angel appears, striding toward us. His glasses perched on the end of his nose, he’s peering at a clipboard. The angel looks up, catching sight of Kai and me, and several more copies of us. Without hesitating, Farrell lifts a hand and, almost lazily, blasts fire straight at the angel—a weird bright white, almost blue flame that consumes him instantly.

Zephyr shrinks into me. His arm, as it snakes around my shoulders, is trembling. And I’m not sure who’s comforting who.

Kai steps around the pile of smoking ash. “Shame, I quite liked him. He had more compassion than most. Still.” He scuffs his foot through the embers, stamping until they’re entirely extinguished.

Zephyr swallows. “Sometimes,” he mutters, “I wonder if I’m on the right fucking side.”

I squeeze his hand as we step around the angel’s ashes together. I watch Kai and Farrell as they move forward, neither of them remotely disturbed. That angel wasn’t even after us, dammit. We could have…I don’t know…tied him up and stuffed him in a cupboard?

But he saw us. He saw my face, he saw Kai’s face. This plan of ours relies on no one seeing us, or…on no one being left alive to rat us out.

No one being left alive…Nyx. Shit.

“She’s here,” Kai shouts. “Undergoing correction, but here.”

We slip into the room beside Reye’s inert figure, and he studies the machine. I check her pulse. It pounds against my fingers. We might actually do this. Both sisters. The Maverik runaways. We might pull this off.

Kai prods the machine. “Nearly finished. It’s about to go into standby. I can turn it off.”

Reye slowly comes around. Her body twitches erratically. Then her eyes open. Kai quickly undoes the straps holding her down, peering every few seconds into her face. Nothing. No recognition.

“Regina?” he asks cautiously. “Gina, talk to me.”

He hauls her to her feet, and she sways back and forth like a tree in the wind. She shudders, a long, slow, painful looking thing. She looks from Kai to me.

“You interfering bitch,” she shouts, launching herself across the room.

Her nails scrape down my face, and I catch a punch in the gut before I can react. Within seconds the boys have her pinned between them.

I clutch my face. “What the flying fuck, Reye?”

She bares her teeth. Gone is the polite, well brought up girl. Right here, this is pure feral supe.

Kai catches her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Let’s get you out of here, sis.”

“Are you insane, brother mine? They’ll put you in jail.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, chipmunk?”

She scowls. “I agreed to all this. To the aether, to studying here, to marrying the king. I did it for you!”

He looks confused, but of course Davina played them off against each other. As soon as I realized Reye was his sister I knew it. Knew she’d used their love against them. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Not when Reye was still in danger.

“Mom said…” Reye wrenches herself out of Kai’s grip. “Mom said she’d keep you out of jail so long as I agreed.”

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