Page 109 of Amethyst Flame
At least I still had the dragons.
CHAPTERTWENTY
I slid,trip-running as I careened through Dead Man’s Lobby on my way to the front doors.
Dane was right behind me, speaking into his earpiece. Something about the mission having been changed from contain to “minimize and negate.” Yikes.
But the task ahead was straightforward—Will was now jacked on his bugs; I needed a dragon-sized boost for my itty-bitty butterflies, and I needed it STAT.
I ran past the BantaMatrix security guys helping disoriented and floppy Ruskin into one of their SUVs. Will’s father stood outside the building yelling at someone on a phone while two of his white coats’ heads were bent together in urgent discussion.
Dane shouted something to them about evacuating the area.
With an ear-assaulting zapping crackle—the hair on my arms lifted—ziggety electric blue lines leaped from the building to dance along the hoods of the vehicles in the lot.
Through the Kidnapper’s windshield, Jacob’s mouth opened in the O before “shit.” I wrenched open the passenger front door as Dane went for the driver’s side.
“Gimme the case, Jacob!” I shouted. “Will’s gone full monster. I’ve got to drink the scary mystery potion and see if it kills me or gives me extra powers.”
“—shit!” Jacob finished, fumbling through the mess of tech in the back seat. The silver case had become a table for one of his laptops, which flipped and went flying into the footwell.
“No!” Dane said as he slammed his door. “No drinking any potions! We’re getting you to a safe location, Imogen.”
“What?” I said at the same time as Jacob.
Dane threw the Kidnapper in reverse. “We must consider what Will—or rather Hive Will—wants now. What is his first priority?”
“Oh!” I raised my hand like a kid in class while bracing myself with my other as the SUV swung around. “To take over the world?”
Dane flicked an alarmed gaze at me as he accelerated out of the lot. “No. He’ll want to neutralize his only threat while he can. It’s what his hive wanted to do in the desert, and now that they have control of Will’s body, killing you—burning you out once and for all—will be its priority. Hive Will also realizes that you’ll find a way to increase your power, and he must stop you before you do. We need to get you out of here.”
But…but… “Then who will stop him?”
Not the guys—including Will’s father!—speeding out of the lot and peeling off in different directions behind us.
“My team is on its way,” Dane said. “Until then, first responders.”
First…first responders?
He sounded like my mom. Did I have to spell it out for him too? “None of them have a chance, Dane. They don’t even know what they’re up against.”
He turned onto the frontage road as an explosion sent a shockwave to rattle the car, my teeth, and my nerves. Behind us—ho-lee fuck!—part of the Teller building was enveloped in a balloon of smoke and fire, riddled with blue lightning.
I made gimme hands at Jacob. “The case! Give me the case!”
“No!” Dane shouted. “You’re one of a kind, Imogen. We can’t dump some toxic swill down your throat and hope you survive it. And then throw you, unprepared, into the ring with a hive-enhanced adversary!”
Jacob—the dumbass—looked between Dane and me and hugged the case to himself.
I gave him a do-I-have-to-blast-you look.
“You won’t kill me,” Jacob said to me, tightening his arms around the case. “But Dane might.”
Once a jackhole, always a jackhole. Fuming, I turned back around in my seat and faced forward.
“It’s for the best.” Dane nodded at Jacob in the rearview mirror. “Trust me. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war.”
“A lot of people will get killed,” I said. “No first responder is prepared forHive Will.”
