Page 91 of Another Damned Storm
Maybe it didn’t have the same effect on him?
The radio started beeping again. Three short, one long, then nothing. That nothing sent my already racing pulse through the roof. I wanted to stay and help Hook, but the whole point of our attack was to distract Thrain long enough to destroy his churches. The first wave of fighters had to be getting close.
Hook rained more punches down before he rolled Thrainonto his stomach, shoved his knee in his low back, and looped his arm around the old god’s neck and wrenched backward.
Then he turned, glanced at the silent radio, and shot me a look. “Go!”
I focused my thoughts on what I could remember of Salus and tried to flash.
Nothing happened.
The radio crackled and whined, the sound barely audible over the storm.
I closed my eyes and tried again, this time envisioning the power inside me welling up, filling me to the brim. The howling wind gave way to a silent breeze. The sweet scent of rain was replaced with a metallic tang. And when I opened my eyes, I forgot how to breathe.
30
NEVER
It was a bloodbath.
Bodies littered the ground outside the main building at Salus. Men and women. Human and shifter. It didn’t matter. The demons responsible for the attack were indiscriminate in their killing.
And merciless.
I swallowed down the acid that seared my throat when I stumbled over the body of a majestic red wolf that looked like it had been sliced in two. My heart, my pulse, and my thoughts were all tangled up in knots.
Please tell me Lily and Angie weren’t here.I threw the thought out into the universe knowing damn well how pointless it was. They were there. Lily, because Salus was her stronghold—her pack. And Angie, because it was farther away from the churches.
It was supposed to be safer.
With every body I stepped over or around, anger prowled up my back and shoulders. “Lily!” I called out.
Nothing.
“Angie!” I yelled, my voice cracking.
Silence.
My heart was pounding so hard it battered my ribcage, the vibrations from each blow reverberating out to my fingertips. I closed my eyes, sucking in heavy breaths through my nose, and pictured Lily’s face. Her smile. Her familiar brown eyes.
The warm wind tugging at my hair fell away and suddenly the world around me, was filled with a fresh kind of horror.
Moans and wails rent the air as the overwhelming stench of antiseptic stung my nose. Dozens of people were laid out on the polished wood floor of the gymnasium. Some obviously dead, others clinging to life, and a precious few who might actually make it if an infection didn’t set in and take them before they’d had a chance to heal.
My abrupt arrival startled those closest to me, but I didn’t care. I needed to find?—
“Never!” Angie barreled into me and wrapped her scrawny arms around my waist.
I hugged her back, trying to ignore the buckets of blood staining her hands and clothes. She was okay. Maybe not entirely unscathed, but alive and well enough to squeeze me tight.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whispered. That just made her hug me tighter, so I returned the favor, being careful not to accidentally crush her.
The relief that poured into me was a very real thing, nearly tangible, but it wasn’t until I spotted Lily kneeling beside a frightened boy that I was able to draw my first decent breath.
Thank fuck.
“Have you heard from your dad?” I asked into Angie’s hair.
