Page 59 of Fearsome Dream

Metal screeches within the hoods of the closest vehicles. Flames shoot up beneath their tires, hot enough to meld the rubber to the asphalt.

As Zian slams his fist into the hood of the van that’s at the front of the line, hard enough to crack the steel and dent it down toward the components inside, our opponents burst out the backs of their cars. Some are simply fleeing toward the farther vehicles we haven’t touched yet, but others are launching their retaliation.

Streaks of painfully bright light rake through the air. The pavement lurches beneath our feet. With a bellow, all the lamps and headlights nearby shatter, casting the road in total darkness.

Grunts and thumps reach my ears from all sides. And then, with a shine in a few windows along the sides of the street, jabs of fear lance through the chaos of emotion I’m drowning in.

Fear—from the residents waking up at the clamor of the battle, having no idea what madness is going on just beyond their doors. If the rogue shadowbloods decide to take out their anger on those innocent people as well…

The thought hasn’t even fully formed in my mind before I spot a tall, muscle-bound man heaving away from the road onto one of the dimly lit lawns. The scar scraping across his brow makes his harsh features look even more threatening in the hazy light.

I’ve got no weapons, no talent that’s much good against brawn. I don’t want to steal any of my friends’ talents in case they need them right now. But panic shoves me toward the running man with the vague idea that I’ve got to protect the people who have no part in this fight from whatever he intends.

Maybe he wouldn’t have done anything to the residents at all. Even as I sprint toward the scarred man, he veers along the edge of the lawn, racing as if to charge past our blockade rather than to head to the houses.

“Griffin!”

My brother’s voice tears through the night. And the man’s knee buckles.

He falls to the ground with a groan and a hissed curse when his broken leg smacks the lawn. I stall in my tracks just a few feet from where he fell.

His head jerks up so he can glare at me, and a blast of cold air freezes the grass around my feet hard enough to grip my shoes.

“You have to let me at those fucking hunters,” he growls, his gaze darting past me to the darkness beyond our car. “Those assholes, you don’t even know—I saw what that one prick did to the kids at our halfway house. Death is too fucking kind for—”

Another form dashes toward us so fast I can’t make out whether it’s male or female. Male, by the hoarse voice that rasps out, “Omar, I’ve got you!”

The man with the scarred forehead rolls, and the supernaturally swift figure hefts him right off the ground. They disappear into the fray farther down the road, leaving me with an ache in my gut.

It wasn’t just anger I sensed from that man—Omar?—when he talked about the hunters they’d wanted to attack, about the one man he knew… He was full of enough anguish to knock the breath out of me.

Did he grow up around here? He recognized one of the hunters from the news footage?

It isn’t difficult to believe.

Fire streaks through the air. The ground shakes with a monstrous roar—and a different kind of roar reaches my ears from behind.

Engines. Several vehicles are racing toward us from the opposite direction. Are there more shadowbloods who split off from the first bunch?

No. As the vehicles screech to a halt and their doors fly open, the figures that charge out are holding weaponsIrecognize from the newscasts—crossbows and odd guns and eerily glinting knives.

We caught the rogue shadowbloods by tracking them to where they were looking for the hunters. And now the monster hunters have found us. Shit.

With shouts that sound a little panicky, the hunters hurtle into the fray. Bullets and crossbow bolts zing through the air.

A few shadowkind who were focusing their attention on rounding up the rogue shadowbloods cry out when the weapons puncture their conjured flesh. As they spin around to face the new threat, streams of smoky essence trickle up toward the sky.

My gut lurches. Somewhere to my left, Jacob lets out an epic string of curses.

Supernatural light blazes across the street, hazing my vision. I stagger, and my brother catches my arm.

“Those idiots are ruining everything.” He swipes at his eyes, which must be just as spotty as mine are right now. “Damn it.”

More yells and yelps cut through the night. I stumble toward the SUV, knowing I’m a liability out in the open rather than a help.

Then Zian’s holler cuts through the rest of the chaos. “I hear sirens coming! Someone called the cops.”

At the urgency in his voice, I hustle faster toward the car.

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