at the edge of the wall to Bianchi’s office. The polarized silicon has been cracked wide. Fragments of glass drift in the air above the pressure-sensitive floor—luckily, whatever else Aurora did, she seems to have killed the power in Bianchi’s office and the alarms along with it.
Whatever else she did?
Call it what it was, Tyler.
Telekinesis.
I touch her cheek, speaking softly. “Auri, can you hear me?”
Cat comes to rest next to me, blood-stained and dirty, looking as shaken as I feel. But as terrifying as what we both just saw might have been, her voice doesn’t shake.
“She okay?”
“I don’t know.” I reply, glancing through the broken glass wall. “But we have to move, security have got to be on their way by now. Look after her for me.”
I leave Cat cradling Aurora and push through the crack into Bianchi’s office. The spotlights are dead, the air filled with floating pieces of sculpture, objets d’art, alien artifacts, all knocked off his shelves by the force of Auri’s blast. A wide desk is ringed by large chairs, glass cases arranged in a widening spiral around the huge room. My heart surges as I see our target—the three-fingered statue wrought in strange metal, floating inside a tall glass case.
The Trigger.
I glance back to Aurora, see her stir again in Cat’s arms. The power she’s displaying—this small, frail girl out of time—is like nothing I’ve ever seen. If I wasn’t a believer before—if Admiral Adams’s and Battle Leader de Stoy’s warnings, what happened on the Bellerophon, Auri’s visions of the future weren’t enough to convince me that we’re caught up in something way bigger than ourselves, seeing her squeeze that ultrasaur like a zit sure would’ve been.
Looking into Cat’s wide eyes, I can finally see it, same as mine.
Belief.
I hope it hasn’t come too late.
Cat pushes herself into the office, floating above the ground with Aurora in her arms. Auri groans and opens her eyes, blinking hard. She takes a long, slow moment to focus, to find me, to remember where she is. But then her mismatched eyes fix on the Trigger, and she tenses, coming suddenly, completely awake. Breathing quicker, jaw clenching. She looks at the sculpture, looks at me. Her voice is hoarse, as if she’s been screaming.
“That’s it,” she whispers.
I draw my disruptor, fire it into another of Bianchi’s display cases. Splintered silicon sprays across the room, the four-headed statue inside goes crashing into the wall. Lowering the setting, I shoot another case, and watch the glass crack but not shatter.
Better.
I turn to the Trigger’s case, fire into the glass. A thousand cracks spread out across the surface like spiderwebs. I lift my disruptor and give it a gentle tap with the butt, and the glass shatters at the precise moment the gravity kicks back in.
We all drop to the ground suddenly, off guard, me on my belly in a hail of glittering splinters. Cat and Auri hit the floor nearby, my Ace grunting as she lands. There’s a long, disgusting splash as the insides of the ultrasaur hit the ground outside, followed by a heavy, wet thump as the rest of its body follows. I push myself onto my knees, shaking the glass fragments from my hair.
Bianchi’s techs must’ve engaged the secondary grav-generators.
We had to run out of time eventually.
I hear a series of electronic beeps at my back. The sound of heavy locks sliding away. My heart lurches at the small, somber hiss of the office door opening.
I already know what I’ll see when I turn around, and still, my gut is full of butterflies as I glance over my shoulder. I let my disruptor fall from my fingers to the polished boards as a bloodcurdling scream of rage fills the air.
So close.
Casseldon Bianchi storms into the room, flanked on all sides by his bodyguards. They’re Chellerian, every one—big as small cars and armed to the teeth. Bianchi’s four eyes are wide with rage, fangs bared in a snarl as he stalks into his office. But it’s not the smashed cases, the scene of chaos, the antiques scattered among the broken glass on the floor that make him raise his fists and scream again. It’s the long slick of gore outside the glass. The sight of his most prized pet—the rarest beast in the galaxy—reduced to the consistency of the soup of the day.
“Skaa taa ve benn!” he roars.
And turning on me, all four of his red eyes narrow to paper cuts.