I’m groaning into my oatmeal about how I’m not ready for finals, which are looming on the horizon, and Cam’s complaining about his Monday night seminar when a scream goes up from somewhere near the front of the room.
My heart lurches in my chest, and I half-stand to try to see what’s going on. But before I can find the source of the noise, more shouts and screams rise up all around us.
“What’s going—aaaah!”
Asher’s words end in a pained yell, and I whip my head toward him, fear twisting my stomach. The magic dampening brace on his arm is burning away, the metal melting as if under high heat. Then Cam shouts too, and I think Dmitri grunts, but I barely register the sounds because scalding, white-hot pain tears through my forearm, making my nerve endings scream.
I grip my arm as the brace burns away, a yell tearing from my throat as the pain intensifies. All around, people are doubling over, sobbing as their magical cuffs dissolve into liquid metal.
Then a massive bolt of lightning strikes the table next to ours.
Everyone around it ducks for cover, their screams shifting in tone as terror mixes with pain. For a horrifying moment, I think we’re under attack. And I must not be the only person who thinks that, because more magic erupts around me. A second year with disintegration power hurls a blast toward where the lightning appeared, and students scream and scatter as the table explodes into dust.
Oh shit. Our braces. They’re all gone.
No one in the hall has their power restrained anymore, and all of them are scared and hurt. Just like the first time I unleashed my sonic boom, their power is rising to the surface as an instinctual defense mechanism.
And once a few people unleash their power, more students follow suit, creating a domino effect as everyone fights against an enemy they can’t even identify. People are yelling, screaming, and crying, lost in their panic, as bolts of magic fly around the room. Chunks of stone are blasted from the walls as smoke, fire, and dust choke the air. One student with petrification power has turned her entire table to stone.
It’s utter chaos.
“Get down!” Dmitri yells, grabbing me and trying to yank me under a table, but I can’t get down. I can’t be near other people, not with adrenaline and pain flooding my system. Not with my sonic boom. Last time it went off, I put two guys in the hospital.
I pull out of his grip and race for the nearest wall, scrambling up it and out of the way. I’ll be above the chaos like this, right? Safe and sound, where I can’t hurt anyone.
Maybe I can even see something from up here, figure out how the hell this started. It’s a total mess. Some students have a better handle on their magic—the second and third years, mostly—and are trying to use it to subdue the ones who’ve gone rogue, but it’s just adding to the insanity. Cam’s tackling someone to the ground, Dmitri’s yelling, and now, finally, security is running in.
It’s a good thing Dmitri has an eye on me, because I don’t have any idea what’s headed my way until I hear him yell, “Elliot! On your left!”
I turn just in time to see a fucking fireball flying straight for my head, set off by someone across the room.
I don’t think. I just react.
My sonic boom tears out of me, sending the fireball blasting back into the other direction.
But it doesn’t just hit the fireball.
Asher is below me, trying to grab my ankle, I think with the idea of yanking me down out of the way of the fire, when my boom goes off. He’s thrown back, hurled through the air, and his head slams into the table we were eating at with a sickening crunch.
“Asher!” I scream. But my voice barely rises above the din of the chaos.
More security pours in, along with the admins and teachers, including Roman. Most of them look pretty shocked, but they all roll up their sleeves and dive right into the fray.
It’s clear that while this might not have actually happened before, it’s a contingency that the school’s prepared for. The staff move calmly and quickly, subduing the most out of control students with spells. The magic flying around the room cuts off abruptly, and at first, I can’t see what the teachers are doing—then my stomach lurches as I detach from the