Chosen - Kiersten White Page 0,5

the wind like a cape. Another shot rings out. There’s a fire-escape ladder fifteen feet up on the side of a brick building. I leap, catch the bottom rung, and climb up, feeling a flash of surprise that I made that jump. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have made it when I first became a Slayer. And I haven’t exactly been training—going to the castle’s gym brings too many painful memories of Leo. But there’s no time to wonder at my skills.

The roof is flat, rusted corrugated metal. At the far end of it, a figure is crouched, holding a rifle. A mercenary. Firing a rifle at my mother and a family.

“Hey!” I shout. Anger burns in me with the same devouring intensity as the black-purple flames that nearly killed me as a child. I can feel them inside, eating away everything else, purifying me, leaving only rage. The mercenary stands and swings the rifle in my direction in the same amount of time it takes me to sprint across the roof and slam into him.

I watch in slow motion as he flies backward into thin air.

3

IN THAT ETERNAL SPLIT SECOND, I consider letting the mercenary fall.

We’re three stories up. It won’t definitely kill him. And he’s been up here, shooting at my mother and a family of werewolves with three small children. Hidden like a coward, sending death down to people who have already suffered and lost more than he can ever imagine.

And a part of me, a dark burning tightness clenching around my heart, snarls that he’s my enemy and deserves whatever end he finds as he connects with the pavement.

He’s human, I think at the snarling, hungry thing.

So what? is the answer.

The spike of fear I feel about that sentiment coming from inside of me is enough to pierce the anger. I reach out and snatch him from the air. The rifle clatters to the ground far beneath us. I hold him dangling as he struggles and swears. A scan of the neighboring rooflines doesn’t reveal the second sniper anywhere.

Which means that this one was probably keeping my mother pinned down while the other one went in.

There’s a jut of metal next to me. I hook him on it by his belt so he’s still dangling but won’t fall unless he struggles too much. Then I jump. I land hard in a crouch that a few months ago would have left me absolutely impressed with myself, and then I sprint for the warehouse. Sure enough, a side door has been pried open, crowbar left abandoned on the ground. I pick it up. The dim warehouse interior reeks with decades of lingering fish scuzz. The cold is a physical presence slamming into me.

Up ahead, next to a concrete pillar, the second mercenary has his rifle lifted. I follow the sight line to my mother, silhouetted against the entrance door, gun raised as she looks outward for the threat. Behind her, sheltered by a huge refrigerator unit, a mother, father, and three children cower.

There’s a soft release of breath as the mercenary gets ready for a kill shot. I throw the crowbar.

It lands with a bone-snapping crack against the mercenary’s right leg. He—she, apparently—screams. I run to her, snatching the rifle and bending it in half. Then I grab her by her black bulletproof vest and drag her behind me as I walk toward my stunned mother and the terrified family.

“Nina,” my mother says.

She turns in my direction. The door behind her opens, and the first mercenary roars inside, holding a pistol I didn’t know he had, gun pointed at me.

The look of absolute terror on my mother’s face reminds me of our phone conversation. Not bulletproof. I hold the woman mercenary in front of myself as a shield. One, two shots slam into her. I feel their concussive force like I would a fly bouncing off me. I toss her to the side and launch myself at the man. He doesn’t have time for another shot before I hit him, knocking him into the door so hard it swings wildly off one hinge.

He’s on the ground. I lift a fist—

“Nina!”

I freeze. He’s unconscious. I don’t need to hit him anymore.

But, gods, I want to.

“Nina, the woman.” My mother’s voice is sharp. Chiding.

Right. The woman. The one I used to shield myself. The one I let get shot. I was so angry, so focused. It felt right at the time. My stomach twists. I’m sick at what I’ve done.