Page 389 of Shadowblood Souls
I don’t know how easy it’d be able to climb that material, not the same construction as the bricks I tackled before. It might give our enemies enough time to hear me coming and shoot me on sight.
There is another way I could get up there, though.
I jerk my gaze across the bodies of our first targets still strewn around the courtyard. One several feet away has a smaller rifle that looks easier to handle.
I touch Jacob’s arm for his attention. “I need you to pull that gun over here. Once I have it, I’m going to circle around until I’m close to the building they’re in. When I run for it, can you throw me through the biggest window on the second floor?”
Jake blinks at me, his stance tensing. “With that much effort, you know I don’t have the best control. I could hurt?—”
“You won’t,” I interrupt, my tone firm. “Just fling me up there, and I can handle the rest. Once I’m ready.”
Zian frowns. “What are you going to do?”
I can’t bear to answer him.
Jacob extends his power to the gun and drags it over to us. I pick it up, backtrack between the buildings, and dart along a dusty street until I can slip through a passage that takes me within ten feet of the front of my goal.
There, braced between two of the neighboring buildings, I fix my gaze on the sheep and open my mouth.
The shriek seeps out, constrained so it’s low but still piercing. I’m hoping the terrorists won’t notice it.
The hunger inside me squirms eagerly. I aim all its reverberating power at the undeserving livestock across the courtyard.
My scream rips through one animal and another even more easily than it cut down the men before. I shatter their windpipes first to cut off any bleats or groans that might have alerted my next targets.
But only to silence them, not to kill them just yet. I need them to live through plenty more agony if their sacrifice is going to mean anything.
Wrench. Snap. Puncture. Crack. Flesh rent and bones smashed.
Pain floods my chest with each four-legged corpse toppling to the ground—and transforms into a nauseating flare of strength. The sense of power flows through my limbs and tingles all the way up to my scalp.
More and more and more. I’ll need every bit if I’m going to have any hope at all.
I can only imagine the guys staring at the carnage from their vantage point. I hate to think what Tegan is making of the slaughter I’m carrying out.
Blood is starting to creep across the ground beneath the pen’s fence. But there are still a few more sheep standing.
I propel the shriek from my lungs, drinking in every drop of anguish. My body vibrates with the unnerving thrill of it, as if I’ve been lit up with an electric current.
Please, let this be enough. Please, let them not have died for nothing.
The last sheep crumples. I tuck the rifle under my arm and race toward the building before one fragment of the power I’ve dragged into myself can dissipate.
My feet fly across the packed ground faster than I’ve ever felt, even with my usual supernatural speed. The wind warbles in my ears.
I stare up at the window I’m hurtling toward—and Jake is there for me. An invisible force whips me off my feet, straight toward the opening.
Between my speed and his shaky control, my shoulder might have glanced off the edge of the frame, but I twist sideways the second I see the danger. Then I’m careening into a crowded room over the heads of dozens of sitting hostages.
All my instincts spark to life with the hum of bottled power within my body. My hands whip out, and a shriek sears from my lungs.
It isn’t even hard to figure out who my targets are now that I can see them—they’re the only figures standing. I ricochet across the room, each spring of my feet adding to my momentum, and carve a path through them.
Bullets from the rifle I grabbed burst open several skulls. The claws of my free hand slash through one throat and another.
And my scream echoes off the walls, gutting the rest of the insurgents from the inside out.
Several of the hostages yelp or add their own shrieks to the mix, but thankfully they only duck lower. One of the terrorists charges at me, raising his gun, and I lance my scream straight through his innards so he crashes to the ground with a spurt of blood over his lips.
