Page 135 of Once a Villain
One of the members of the Court raised a hand, and a huge blast of power shook the room. Chairs and tables splintered; mirrors shattered. Stuck to the floor, Joan and the others could only cry out as the lethal force of it rippled toward them.
Joan threw her own hand up. Maybe it was terror, or a pure desperate need to protect the people she loved, but power roared out of her as it never had before, sweeping across the room and unmaking the blast.
She stumbled back, and realized her feet were unglued. She hadn’t just unmade the attack; she’d freed herself. She darted a quick look back. Ruth, Jamie, Tom, and Aaron were moving again too. They seemedmostly uninjured, except for cuts from flying wood and glass.
For a second, Joan could only hear her own shuddering breaths. And then she shouted at the others, “Stay behind me!”
She was vaguely aware of Nick fighting at the destroyed wall—trying to keep the attackers from coming any closer. There were shouts of pain as his blades dug in and out of flesh. Two or three monsters had already fallen to him, but Joan was terrified for him—for all his skill, he was human. It would only take one hand on his neck to kill him.
For a long minute, there was only panic and chaos as power shook the room, cracking walls and smashing furniture. Joan countered the blasts as best she could, stopping them in their tracks as Nick continued to fight.
The others cowered behind her, Jamie and Ruth protecting Frankie and Sylvie in their little fort; Tom in front of them like a wall. Aaron, though, scrambled to Joan, one arm protecting his head from flying wood and glass.
“Keep back!” Joan said to him urgently.
But Aaron joined her side, his face set and serious. He lowered his voice beneath the shaking and rattling of the house. “Youhaveto break that bond.”
Joan risked a glance at Eleanor and found her near the wall where Nick had pinned her earlier. In the chaos, Eleanor had let herself slump slightly, and Joan had the feeling she was still in some pain. Eleanor had said that she and the timeline were a single being now, but Joan still had the impression of two separate entities. If she concentrated, she could faintly see a ghostly ribbon of light wrapped around Eleanor’s body as she paced. The bond.
“I see it,” Joan said shakily. She pictured herself tearing that ribbon off. Could she do that? She’d torn holes in the timelinebefore. Just never on purpose.
She felt the pressure of another incoming blast and turned back fast. But her focus on the bond had made her a moment too slow to react. The windows of the sunroom exploded behind her, and Ruth screamed. Fury and fear ripped through Joan, and her power roared out again. She threw a shield over the others—just in time. Sharp shards of flying glass melted to sand as they hit the barrier she’d made.
There was a distinctivepingthen. A bullet zoomed past, through the now-gaping window onto the gardens beyond.
“No!” Joan gasped. Her power couldn’t stop bullets—an unmade bullet was still a lethal projectile of rock. She couldn’t shield the others from that. And Nick couldn’t stop bullets either. He was immune to monster powers, but not guns. And he was still fighting to hold the line with just a dagger and a sword. “They’re going to kill us!” Joan blurted to Aaron.
There was anotherping. But before Joan could even flinch away, the bullet vanished midair.
Joan gasped as Ruth sprinted into place beside her, a hand outstretched. She felt her mouth drop open. “Did you...?” Had Ruth just used the Hunt power on that bullet? Had she pushed it into another moment in time?
“Who knew Icould? Not me.” There was a shaky smile in Ruth’s voice. Her hair had fallen out of its pretty braid, her curls in tendrils around her face. There was a streak of blood on her cheek—a cut from flying glass. “Wait till I tell the rest of the family.” The smile fell away, and Joan knew why.
Even with Ruth stopping bullets and Joan and Nick holdingback this attack, it wasn’t likely they’d ever see the Hunts again. They weren’t going to be able to keep this up.
More blasts followed then—one after the other, and for a long moment, Joan couldn’t concentrate on anything but stopping them. She felt a wave of despair. Maybe Aaron was right—maybe shecouldunmake the bond between Eleanor and the timeline. But she couldn’t do thatandcounter the attacks. “Aaron, I—I can’t break that bond. I can’t do thatandprotect us.”
“Then unmake everything you can. All at once,” Aaron said. He saw the doubt in her face. “You can do this. Don’t hold back.Feelit.”
There’s an emotional component, he’d told Joan in the van. And Joan had known for some time that her power came out in moments of strong emotion. She’d torn holes in the timeline when she’d unmade Nick, and again when she’d thought that Nick had died.
“Feel it,” Aaron said again. “Just feel it.”
Joan had a bad habit of suppressing difficult emotions. Even now, she could feel her body trying to push down her true fear and anger.
A memory came to her—of Aaron looking at her in the bathroom mirror, pressing a hand to her chest, easing the pressure. That pressure was still there right now, behind her breastbone—bottled-up feelings trying to be felt.
Aaron was right. If she was going to break the bond, she needed to tear a hole in the timeline. And to do that, she needed to feel all the terrible things she’d been suppressing.
She drew a deep breath and let her mind turn to how much shemissed Dad and her ordinary life. Let herself think of the unfairness of growing up without Mum. Of Mum, here in this timeline, losing both her children. And Nick’s and Aaron’s counterparts and their painful lives. All her family and friends here. Nick’s family. She thought of the glimpse she’d had of the true timeline. Of what their lives would have been—shouldhave been.
She took another breath, raising her hands. And then she let her feelings consume her.
Power roared from her in an unbroken blaze, and the effect was instant. The attacking blasts halted as Joan’s power stopped them at the source. She could vaguely hear murmurs of confusion and consternation—maybe even fear—from the members of the Court.
Eleanor’s eyes flew to her. “How did you do that?” She seemed shocked. Joan couldn’t answer.Shebarely knew how she’d done it. “Are your old powers coming back?” Eleanor murmured. She answered herself before Joan could. “It doesn’t matter if they are. You’d still be no match for me.”
Joan swallowed. The ribbon around Eleanor’s body hadn’t budged. She needed to dig deeper, she knew.
