After Happily Ever Afte- Astrid Ohletz Page 0,64

that had been on the Andromeda, Keelas had no desire to play nice with earth’s law enforcement. Many of them disappeared into the world of undocumented immigrants and were never heard from again. Some, however, reveled in destruction, their preferred method being fire. Ava had gone up against a Keela a few years back and barely made it out of the fight alive.

The reporter on-screen said, “Again, we’re coming live from Porter Ranch, where a number of properties have seemingly spontaneously caught alight. Firefighters are calling it arson, but so far nothing has been—” She paused mid-sentence and looked to the sky. “We have reports that Swiftwing is on the scene. She seems to be in mid-combat above the fires.”

They watched the fires rage for a while, squinting at the screen. Gwen vaguely registered the sound of Nicole’s phone alert.

“Soo-mi is on her way there, but traffic is insane,” Nicole reported and then paused. “She says…”

Gwen tore her eyes away from the screen to look at Nicole. “What? What does she say?”

“She says two male Keelas have been seen on the site.”

The blood drained from Gwen’s face. Ava had struggled to fight one of them the last time. The helplessness was overwhelming. It had been a long time since Ava had been in a fight. It had been a long time since Gwen had been faced with these very specific fears. These days, it was mainly natural disasters and crime around the city.

“Hey.” Nicole’s voice reached her from very far away. “Hey, Gwen. Listen to me.”

Dread swirled heavily in the pit of her stomach, and it took everything she had to focus and give Nicole her attention.

“There are two.” Gwen’s voice trembled. She was usually better at this. She was good at keeping her calm, at waiting, at watching how things played out. But it was Ava’s birthday. It was her goddamn birthday, and she was out there, fighting those monsters.

“Yeah, I know,” Nicole was saying. “But she’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know? She’s never had to go up against two of them before.”

“She’s smart. She’ll use their strengths against them. We’ve done something similar in training. A sort of simulation where she was overwhelmed.”

“You’ve…” Gwen cleared her throat. “The two of you have prepared for something like this?”

Nicole nodded. “What do you think we do in my geek lab all day? I have a whole training facility down there.”

“I thought you just ate junk food and discussed Stranger Things fan theories.”

“I mean, that too. But Ava knows what to do if she’s physically overwhelmed. You should have seen her when she first started. She was terrible. She could barely fight her own shadow. She’d come home all bruised and bleeding and—”

“Not helping,” Gwen interrupted.

“My point,” Nicole continued, “is that she’s worked like hell to get stronger and faster and smarter. And if I know Ava’s tactics, which I do, she’ll lead them through the smoke, get a few hits in while they’re blind, and then force them into close range. Then, she’ll create a sandstorm and bury them before they can even think of igniting.”

Gwen was hanging onto her every word, imagining the fight going down as Nicole narrated. She could see it. “How do you know all this?”

Nicole shrugged. “Because I know Ava. And look.” She pointed at the TV.

“…a sort of sandstorm to presumably douse the fires.” The reporter on scene was pointing behind her, where a tornado of sand and debris swirled through the air before landing on one of the estates, effectively drowning the fire.

The camera tilted upwards, where a blur of blue and yellow flitted across the canvas of night so fast, it got lost between the stars and smoke. Up and down the figure dipped, the force of the wind from the velocity acting like breath to a candle flame. The fire itself was monstrous—it heaved and spat as bright orange flames licked up into the sky. But Swiftwing was persistent, and the blaze slowly dimmed until there was nothing but thick black smoke. She was silhouetted against the sky for a moment before diving back down into the billowing plumes, only to shoot out of the darkness like a pebble from a child’s slingshot.

“That was a punch,” Nicole murmured, leaning closer to the TV. “They’re in there.”

Without thinking, Gwen reached out and took her hand. Together, they watched Swiftwing zoom back into the murky fray. Nicole’s grip on Gwen’s hand tightened.

The reporter then began interviewing an evacuated family with a