The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,16

it instinct or intuition or whatever word you have for self-preservation, but once it’s there, it never goes away. And when it stirs, you feel it like a layer of static on your skin.

I should know. I’d felt it from the moment I’d accidentally stalled my family’s car in the middle of the I-495. From that heartbeat before the truck rammed into the passenger side of the car. It’s saved me too many times to ever risk ignoring it. As Vida always said, there are times you have to listen to your gut and tell common courtesy to fuck right off.

It was just a little bit harder to do that with cameras rolling. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me afraid. I wasn’t about to flinch again.

But…it wasn’t just a feeling of unease. A faint new vibration coated the air, tickling along the edge of my ear, whining and burning.

In the blur of the crowd moving around me, I caught sight of the girl with the marigold-colored dress. She reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm, pointing at something behind me.

I glanced back over my shoulder, searching for whatever they were looking at. The whining grew in intensity, melting into the hum of the speakers.

“We should go a different way,” Mel said to the Defender in a low voice. “Avoid the crowd.”

Yes. Yes we should. The attendees had bottlenecked at the only entrance, and therefore exit, in the security fencing. The day’s heat boiled the stench of sweat and the mowed lawn, leaving a burning aftertaste in my mouth.

I turned again, looking for a clear path back up toward Old Main, for Agent Martinez, who seemed to have disappeared. But as the crowds parted, only one figure was still heading our way. It was the male Defender, his uniform too tight across his broad shoulders, sweat gleaming on his white face. He lowered his head but not his gaze. It fixed on me a second too long. Before I could point him out, he was an arm’s length away.

Close enough for me to see my face reflected in his gleaming badge.

Close enough to see that there were no silvered words along the length of his baton.

Close enough to see his free hand slip into his uniform jacket pocket. The deadly shape of the weapon there as he reached for its trigger.

I didn’t think. I didn’t scream. The old woman from the highway, her face, flashed through my mind as my arm shot up. My fingers strained forward, close enough to nearly brush the end of the baton. The man gritted his teeth, eyes narrowed with naked hatred. He raised the gun inside his pocket to level with my heart.

I fired first.

I pulled the charge from the humming currents in the air, distilling it into a single thread of electricity that jumped from my skin. I aimed for his chest, to give him just enough of a nudge to knock him off his feet, but—

“No!” someone shouted. The voice rang out through the air just as the Defender—whoever he was—raised his baton to catch the charge. It was wood, it should have only been wood, but the thread of light exploded into a crackling halo that surrounded the baton, flashing up to capture the man in a cage of furious power.

“What did you do?” Mel screamed. “Oh God, what did you—?”

But even her voice was lost to the roar of the speakers blowing out in a wave of fire and thunder.

AT FIRST, THERE WAS NOTHING but silence. Smoke.

It sank deep into my lungs, driving out every last ounce of air. The heat was trapped inside me, bubbling up until I was sure it would separate my skin from my muscles and my muscles from my bones.

The pain came next.

Panic trilled inside my skull. The white-hot air and pressure had lifted me up off my feet just as the Defender disappeared into the torrent of scorched plastic and metal. The fire had caught his uniform and hair, coating him like a second skin before devouring him entirely. And I’d flown—My head hurt, and it was so dark, it was so dark—

My chest wouldn’t expand to take in the breath it desperately wanted. I couldn’t move. My nerves sang and screamed and stung, but the pressure, the pressure that ground me harder against the sharp, uneven stone—it was going to crush me.

Smoke rose everywhere. Ribbons of it spilled over me, stroking the open gashes on my arms and chest.