Chapter 160

As I lay gasping for air, Redakai crashed to his knees beside me. Blood was smeared across his chest and face, but he paid it no mind as his hands began moving over me in fast, precise sweeps. “Tell me where you’re bleeding,” he growled, fingers pressing along my ribs.

“My…stomach,” I wheezed, staring at the black sky spinning above me.

He ripped my shirt open, his jaws clenching at seeing the shallow claw marks. “Not fatal,” he breathed.  “But an inch deeper and they would have been.”

Keeley dropped to my other side, her hands shaking as they hovered uselessly over me. “Dammit girl! You scared the absolute shit out of me,” she hissed.

“Good,” I rasped, a tone of teasing sarcasm lacing my voice. “That means you care.”

Lucas landed nearby with a heavy thud, his eyes bright and sharp. “That handler just flatlined,” he called. “And every pack unit out there felt it.”

Suddenly a chorus of furious howls tore through the river corridor, and Syrus appeared through the smoke in a streak of motion, blood dripping down his forearms. “They’re retreating along the southern grid. They did not expect that.”

Dirk exhaled hard as he knelt beside me as well, magic still crackling faintly around his fingers. “You collapsed spatial density and inverted it.”

“I have no idea what that means,” I muttered.

He rolled his eyes. “It means you just killed an ancient pack commander without touching it.”

Redakai’s hands tightened on my sides. “You do not do that again unless I tell you to.”

I forced myself to meet his eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

His jaw worked violently. “You are not expendable, Kaisha.”

“And you’re not my boss,” I shot back weakly. “So there!”

Keeley huffed a shaky laugh. “You two are impossible.”

Another shockwave rolled the skyline, but this one pulled backward instead of pressing in. “They’re withdrawing,” Lucas announced.

Silence crept back into the courtyard inch by bloody inch. Bodies lay everywhere. Stone continued to smoke, and wards flickered but held.

As I attempted standing, my legs gave out, and Redakai hauled me up against his chest. “You do not ever do that again without warning me,” he growled near my ear.

“You don’t ever let me lie there thinking I just died,” I snapped hoarsely.

A corner of his mouth twitched despite the carnage. “Difficult woman.”

Corton wiped gore from his face. “That was not a probe…that was a declaration of asset removal.”

“They targeted Kaisha directly,” Syrus observed.

My stomach dropped. “So the handler wasn’t testing the wards?”

“It was confirming the convergence and neutralizing it,” Lucas replied.

Redakai’s arms tightened. “They failed.”

“But they found me,” I whispered.

Keeley leaned in, forehead pressed to mine. “And now they have had a taste of what you’re capable of.”

Redakai lifted his gaze toward the river corridor. “The Olympus will answer for what they tried to take tonight.”

Ash drifted from the sky in slow, quiet sheets as I sagged against him, strength bleeding out now that the fight had paused. Deep inside my ribs, not magic, not prophecy, but one cold human truth locked into place…I had been chosen.

~~

Redakai shifted his grip to reassess me. His fingers brushed too close to torn skin and I hissed.

“Hold still,” he ordered, softer than the words.

“I am holding still,” I muttered. “Your hands are just rude.”

Keeley snorted. “If she’s bitching, she’s breathing.”

“Medical science at work,” Corton drawled.

“Check flank bodies,” Syrus ordered. “Confirm the handler was alone.”

Corton jogged off with a two-fingered salute.

I watched Syrus and Drayton approach the handler’s remains. The corpse looked wrong. Hollowed. Like something scooped the inside out and left the shell.

“I did that?” I gasped.

Redakai followed my gaze. “You survived.”

“That isn’t what she asked,” Dirk cut in. “And yes. You did that.”

“The Olympus will remember that signature,” Dirk continued calmly. “They waited centuries to feel it again.”

Ice slid down my spine. “Because of the first life.”

Dirk shook his head. “Because you defied their culling.”

Great. Ancient murder wolves with generational grudges. Fantastic.

“No rupture. No combustion,” Syrus noted. “Space inverted and refused to release.”

Drayton nodded. “Sharper than last time.”

Dirk studied me. “You pulled from memory…not the bloom.”

“I pulled from panic,” I snapped. “I was busy being mauled.”

Dirk's lips twitched. “That’s the problem.”

Keeley bristled. “She just folded a commander inside out. Maybe back off?”

Redakai’s thumb brushed absently along my hip: reassuring.

“You need stitches,” Keeley murmured.

“I think I’m knitting,” I whispered as I could feel the wounds already closing.

“Necromantic reinforcement,” Dirk murmured. “Residual.”

“So I’m a haunted glow stick,” I muttered.

Corton jogged back. “Perimeter’s clear. Witches are screaming at the river bottleneck.”

“About what?” Keeley asked.

“About her,” he replied. “Shocker.”

“I am not a thing,” I snapped.

“You’re a fulcrum,” Dirk countered.

“Try fewer horror metaphors,” Keeley shot back.

Syrus turned to Redakai. “Every faction felt that pulse.”

“Then they answer to me,” Redakai said coldly.

“They’ll demand her,” Dirk warned.

“They can choke on it,” Redakai shot back.

Their eyes locked, and the argument became leashed, but still dangerous.

I gave a groan, my stomach and head throbbing violently. “I’m still here,” I muttered. “Maybe someone could ask what I want?”

Redakai looked down at me. “What do you want?”

A thousand answers crowded my throat. What came out was small. “I want to stand without collapsing.”

He helped me straighten, allowing me to apply pressure on my legs again. They shook but held…barely.

The handler’s hollow corpse lay in my peripheral vision, and fear surged, but I pushed it back.

“I’m not running,” I said. “I might crack. I might puke. But I’m not running.”

Keeley slipped an arm around my waist. “Good. Neither am I.”

“Welcome to the front line,” Corton muttered. “No refunds.”

Syrus inclined his head. “You held. That matters.”

“The city is adjusting,” Dirk reported. “Every predator can feel it.”

Redakai’s focus never left me. “Let them.”

We were scared, shaken, and bleeding, but here.

Slowly, I drew a breath that tasted like smoke, and my hands still trembled, but I curled them into fists anyway. The war had come to me tonight,and for all the ones still to come, I would be fighting back.