“This is my fault,” Jonas whispered.
“Yeah, it is. Tell me one thing, though.” Chase took his eyes off their captors. His exterior stayed strong, but Alex could feel something cracking. She reached out her hand, as though to hold him up, to keep him from crumbling. “You thought you were leading me here. Do you really hate me that much?”
Time seemed to stop. There was no danger of attack, only the danger of betrayal. Alex couldn’t bear to look at Jonas, who had no response for his brother.
Chase turned away from Jonas. “We aren’t giving them what they want.”
“Ten to three,” Jonas said. “There’s no guarantee. And I’m sure there are more of them waiting somewhere. We’re outnumbered.”
Alex didn't want Jonas to speak. She hated his voice, hated that he'd put them in this situation. But her hatred didn't change their predicament. She considered the newburies standing above them and knew someone was missing. Jack wouldn’t go anywhere without Calla. She had to be waiting somewhere, and Alex doubted she was alone.
“We can take it,” Chase insisted.
“What if Jonas tells everyone what he saw here?” a girl said in a low voice. “Or his brother, what if he tells?”
“We can’t go back. We can protect each other,” Hecker said. “Isn’t that what this is all about? Maybe that’s our test. There are plenty of other cities.”
Reuben shifted from foot to foot nervously. “I don’t know.”
Joey glared at Reuben disdainfully.
“It’s her choice to come with us willingly or not.” Hecker began to push at the air around him.
Alex could feel it like a gentle wave in the ocean, preceding the more vicious one looming. She watched in the horror while the others mimicked him.
Chase’s voice was confident in her mind. Blast ’em.
Alex had enough enmity bottled inside her to take out an entire town. She could feel the energy gearing, and she cringed in discomfort. Jack saw her face and there was a split second of panic in his eyes, but it was too late. The pressure in her head became too much. She couldn’t hold on any longer. Her hands flew to her head, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think she could actually grab hold of it. The force of her fury escaped and crashed to the ground.
She was liberated, no longer stifled by the fear of harming someone. The effect of the energy was an earthquake shaking the world.
The ground rippled, and spirits flew in various directions, but those who managed to remain on their feet shot blasts back. Before Alex knew it, she was knocked face down by the force of the blow. There was a pain shooting into her neck like she’d been hit with a fifty pound dumbbell.
She rolled onto her back and shoved against the air in another burst of energy, though much weaker than the first. The attackers scattered like ants, making a break for it.
Chase grabbed Alex’s hand and yanked her to her feet, dragging her from the wreckage. Jonas followed, blocking several blows.
“Skye,” Alex reminded them.
“She’ll be better off where she is,” Chase said, sprinting across the yard. “We’re leading them away from her.” He skidded to a stop.
A perimeter of attackers appeared, encircling the yard. Alex’s heart dropped. She was right. A second wave had been waiting, Calla among them.
Chase had a firm grasp on Alex’s hand, and he used his other arm to shove fiercely at the air. He threw the remnants of blackened furniture, which whizzed across the yard, knocking into the attackers. Jonas and Alex followed his lead.
Alex concentrated her energy into each object, holding her hand steady before flicking her wrist like she was tossing a Frisbee. The debris obeyed and shot toward her targets with the velocity of a bullet leaving a gun.
Each time a desk or a bed took out one of their fighters, two more seemed to reappear in their place. Alex felt a blast to arm, a smack to her head, a shot to the leg. Too many hits came at once, and the circle was closing in on them. Alex centered her anger into her core, ready to explode again.
Suddenly, a wind yanked her feet from under her and fell forward. “Oomph,” Alex groaned, landing flat on her face in the dirt. Before she could move, she was jerked backwards across the overgrown weeds, bouncing off the rocks and stray bricks mercilessly. She zigzagged feet first through the bodies of the attackers, screaming in protest. She was leaving Chase and Jonas to fight alone. She clawed at the grass and flailed her arms, but it was useless.
When she finally came to a rest, she was slumped, belly down, on the outskirts of the fray, and Calla was at her side. Calla’s hands opened over Alex’s face, pushing pressure against her. Why wasn’t she fighting? Why was she trying to save Alex?
Then she noticed Jack there, too. “We can’t let her back in,” he ordered.
Alex tried to stand up, but she couldn’t. It was the strangest and most agonizing feeling she’d ever encountered. She knew what she wanted to do, but she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t numb, but she had no control over her movements. It felt like a vise held her in place.
“Just concentrate on keeping her between us. She won’t be able to move,” Jack told his sister icily.
They weren’t trying to protect Alex. They were trying to contain her. She was helpless, useless. Calla and Jack had paralyzed her; how? She could only listen to the sounds of battle. The wind whistled erratically through the air and collided with its targets louder than claps of thunder. If she had closed her eyes, she would have believed she was listening to a hurricane.
“Al-ex?” Chase’s horrified voice climbed above the chaos followed by a muffled groan of pain. “Alex!” he bellowed again.
Alex’s heart began to crumble into a million pieces. She wanted to curse at Calla, scream at her. If she was strong enough to have a gift like this, whether she needed Jack to make it work or not, Calla didn’t need to be a part of a group. The city would have kept her in Brigitta anyway. Then again, maybe that was Calla’s fear. That she’d be forced to stay in a town that ridiculed her.
Chase, Alex gasped inside her head.
Where are you? Even in his thoughts, his voice was choked. Strained.
The Bonds are holding me out here.
Blast through them and run!
I can’t. They’re stronger than me. She couldn’t believe the words even as she thought them.
He growled in fury. You’re not hurt?
Not physically. Alex willed Calla to break her focus, but she didn’t falter, not even when the crowd began to shift toward them. Alex could see Chase and Jonas back to back, holding their own against so many spirits, kicking, shoving, punching at the air, attempting to beat them to death. Thankfully, none of the attackers seemed brave enough to get too close. Instead, they fought equally, waiting for someone else to strike the hardest.
It was Reuben who marched formidably on the outskirts of the group. He side-stepped around the fighters, his doughy face etched in concentration, waiting. And then a crash erupted above Chase and Jonas. They ducked to avoid the impact. When they stood up, whoosh! The blast of the force propelled Chase away from his brother and Alex could only watch in horror. Chase gyrated through the air before crumpling at the crowd’s feet.
Before Chase could recover, Reuben lifted his arms, pausing for only a moment to glance defiantly at the others who had underestimated him. Chase rose like a marionette only to be smashed into the ground again.
Alex screamed silently in her head, trying to thrash, bite, kick, scream, anything, but her body refused to move. It was like crying at the top of her lungs in a soundproof bubble. Chase rose and fell, and rose and fell, flopping around like a lifeless rag doll. The mob scurried to Chase, and Alex could only watch in revulsion. Seeing his disadvantage, they all began to take hits at the body Reuben continued to control.