Red Queen
Page 129

Bullets dig into the dome, sparking and splintering against the electric shield, but it holds firm. It was supposed to protect them, but it is electric, it is lightning, it is mine, and the shield protects me now.
The crowd gasps, not believing their eyes. Red blood drips from my wounds and lightning trembles in my skin, declaring what I am for everyone. Overhead, the video screens go dark. But I’ve already been seen. They can’t stop what’s already happened.
Rhambos takes a quivering step back, his breath catching in his throat. I don’t give him a chance to take another.
Silver and Red, and stronger than both.
My lightning streaks through him, boiling his blood, frying his nerves, until he collapses in a twitching pile of meat.
Osanos drops next as my sparks run over him. The liquid orb splashes to the ground and Cal collapses to the sand, spitting up water with hacking coughs.
Despite the jagged metal spikes punching up through the sand, trying to run me through, I break into a sprint, dodging and vaulting over every obstacle. They trained me for this. It’s their own fault. They helped make their own doom.
Evangeline waves a hand, sending a steel beam flying at my head. I slide beneath it, knees skimming across the ground, before coming up beside her, daggered bolts of lightning in my hands.
She calls up a sword from the swirling metal, forging a blade. My lightning breaks against it, shocking through the iron, but still she duels. The metal shifts and splits all around us, trying to fight me. Even her spiders return to tear me down, but they aren’t enough. She isn’t enough.
Another blast of lightning knocks her blades away and sends her sprawling, trying to escape my wrath. She won’t.
“Not a trick,” she breathes, taken off guard. Her eyes fly between my hands as she backs away, bits of metal floating between us in a hasty shield. “Not a lie.”
I can taste red blood in my mouth, sharp and metallic and strangely wonderful. I spit it out for all to see. Overhead, the blue sky darkens through the shielded dome. Black clouds gather, heavy and full with rain. The storm is coming.
“You said you’d kill me if I ever got in your way.” It feels so good to throw her words back in her face. “Here’s your chance.”
Her chest rises and falls, heaving with each breath. She’s tired. She’s wounded. And the steel behind her eyes is almost gone, giving way to fear.
She lunges and I move to block her attack, but it never comes. Instead, she runs. She runs from me, sprinting at the closest gate she can find. I pound after her, running to hunt her down, but Cal’s roar of frustration stops me in my tracks.
Osanos is on his feet again, dueling with renewed strength, while Ptolemus dances around them, looking for his opening. Cal is no good against nymphs, not with his fire. I remember how easily bested Maven was in his own training so long ago.
My hand closes around the nymph’s wrist, shocking him through his skin, forcing him to turn his anger on me. The water feels like a hammer, knocking me backward into the sand. It crashes and crashes, making it impossible to breathe. For the first time since I entered the arena, the cold hand of fear clenches around my heart. Now that we have a chance of winning, of living, I’m so afraid to lose. My lungs scream for air and I can’t help but open my mouth, letting the water choke me. It stings like fire, like death.
The tiniest spark runs through me, and it’s enough, shocking through the water and up into Osanos. He yelps, jumping back long enough to let me scramble free, slipping through the wet sand. Air sears my lungs as I gasp for breath, but there’s no time to enjoy it. Osanos is on me again; this time his hands are around my neck, holding me under the swirling foot of water.
But I’m ready for him. The fool is stupid enough to touch me, to put his skin against mine. When I let the lightning go, shocking through flesh and water, he screams like a boiling teakettle and flops backward. As the water falls away, draining into the sand, I know he’s truly dead.
When I rise, soaking wet, shaking with adrenaline, fear, strength, my eyes fly to Cal. He’s slashed and bruised, bleeding all over, but his arms rage with bright red fire and Ptolemus cowers at his feet. He raises his hands in defeat, begging for mercy.
“Kill him, Cal,” I snarl, wanting to see him bleed. Above us, the lightning shield pulses again, surging with my anger. If only it was Evangeline. If only I could do it myself. “He tried to kill us. Kill him.”
Cal doesn’t move, breathing hard through his teeth. He looks so torn, eager for vengeance, consumed by the thrill of battle, but also steadily fading back to the calm, thoughtful man he used to be. The man he can’t be anymore.