Page 92 of Misfit Monsters
If she runs away, she might be able to stay free here in the mortal world, feeding on the emotions she needs.
I rub the wound on my arm that’s already sealing, just a thin wisp of essence still drifting up. It only hurt for a moment—she’d already yanked her brutal energy away from me before Jonah intervened.
She really did get control over it.
I scowl at Hail. “She wasn’t trying to break anything.”
“But she did, didn’t she?” He turns toward Jonah. “You should have told the administration the whole story in the first place. Let them decide how significant a threat she is instead of letting her cutesy exterior distract you. Now we’ve got a huge mess and nothing to do but go back empty-handed—andwe’rethe ones who’ll pay, not you, oh great sorcerer.”
Jonah winces. “I’ll make sure they know none of you did anything wrong. She wasn’t even interacting with us when it happened.”
Raze starts to pace. Uneasiness wafts off his hulking body, potent enough that I can feel it without any special emotion-sensing awareness. “She said she wastryingto send out her power. Why would she do that? She hates it.”
Hail scoffs. “She got caught up in her delusions aboutthis sorcerer she tangled with before. We never should have brought a wimp like her along in the first place.”
All five of my tails swish out of me with a furious swipe through the air. “She isn’t weak. Anyone would be bothered by getting captured and mistreated.”
I should know.
Hail aims his glower at me. “What does it matter if she’s too unstable to hold herself together?”
Jonah drags in a breath. “We don’t know if that’s the case. If she’s getting better at deciding when and where she lets out her destructive impulses, that’s a good sign.”
Hail shakes his head. “Only if we can trust her to point them in a reasonable direction.”
My gaze falls on the broken equipment, the data on their displays fragmented into distorted light. The first wave of searing darkness washed over them and me and our other teammates—behind Peri.
She didn’t mean to do that part. After the power had already burst out, she pushed it somewhere else.
“What if the sorcererwashere?” I ask abruptly. “The one she knew before or whichever one’s messed with the shadowkind up here? You’re just assuming she’s delusional.”
The fae man grimaces. “Because she’s been set off by ridiculous things every time before.”
“But before, after her outburst, she knew she’d just gotten scared. This time she was still worried about us.” The image of her standing before us, pale and trembling, flits through my mind. “She looked in the same direction where she sent most of her power, like she was worried about what’s over there.”
I don’t wait to see if the others will agree. I just wiggle my feet free from the melting frost and lope between the trees.
The bark on some of the trunks looks as if it’s beenscraped like my arm was. Some of the leaves scattering the ground have shriveled and grayed.
My skin creeps, but I hurry onward, lifting my nose to make use of my fox senses.
Raze hustles over beside me, his muscles flexing through his brawny body. “We need to know what provoked her that badly.”
Somewhere behind us, Hail grumbles words I can’t make out. The crunch of footsteps through the brush tells me both he and Jonah are following us.
All at once, Raze stiffens. He pushes forward twice as fast as before, his tongue forking into its lizard shape as it flicks over his lips.
He comes to a stop at a small clear spot between the trees and throws out his arms to block me. “Wait!”
As Hail and Jonah catch up with us, the basilisk shifter tastes the air again and again. His hands ball at his sides.
“Someonewashere. It’s the same human smell I picked up near the cabin the other day.”
My pulse skips a beat. I duck closer to the ground to peer at it. “I see the impression of shoes. The dirt looks stirred up, like he was having trouble on his feet.”
Jonah inhales sharply. “If Peri’s energy hit him hard, it would have injured him at least a little.”
When I glance at Hail, his pale face has gone completely taut. I draw myself up to my full height, nearly meeting his eyes on the same level. “Shedidnotice someone dangerous in the woods. She wasn’t messing things up—she was protecting us.”
