There are going to be a lot of changes around here once we’ve dealt with this nightmare.
The moment I get the door shut and barricaded behind them, dragging a slab of concrete from the debris in front of the door for extra protection, I shift back into my largest panther form and jump down from the small porch to join the other shifters, sniffing at the air as the next wave rolls in.
North and the others are doing a great job of keeping most of the fighting away from us, but there’s a group of Transporters here bringing in wave after wave of soldiers, and there are too many slipping through to us for me to leave and join the fight.
In my fully shifted form, I can tear through three men at a time, which is helping keep the crowd at bay. Ezra shifting behind me into the tiger form he has and being able to take out one at a time also helps. Elliot stoops down to place his palm on the ground, sending a sheet of ice that grows out of his fingers to cover the ground and freeze the approaching soldiers, making them easy game for me to rip in half.
It’s messier than the other deaths, but there’s something very satisfying about doing it.
There’s a quiet moment, a lull in the hordes of insurgents around us, and then I turn towards the footsteps coming up quickly from behind. Kyrie has a scrape down one of her cheeks, a split lip, and a child she’s found somewhere tucked under one of her arms, but her eyes are clear and she’s still sharp as she looks around the side of the school building, spotting me and deflating a little in relief.
She helps the kid onto the porch and then winces a little as she pulls herself up. “Tell me you have guns here as well? I only had three in my room, and I’m already out of ammo.”
I jump up to lead her over to the pile of clothing I’d torn off to shift, and she stoops down to grab two of the guns and some clips that I’d grabbed and brought with me when North had called.
She sweeps her hair back into a ponytail, all business and looking so much like her brother with the no-bullshit look on her face. “There’s some houses on the edge of zone three, just over there, and there’s people trapped in there. They have kids, and they’re too scared to move them without an escort. I’ll go now. I have an earpiece, and that Benson kid has been directing me.”
I drop my head down in a nod, because I’m not going to shift back and have this conversation butt-ass naked with her. My bond ripples in my chest at the idea and the seething sort of jealousy that Oli’s bond had shown around us makes it a non-option.
If her bond is out here tearing souls out, I’m not going to provoke it into hurting Kyrie.
There’s a boom as the Charge takes out another building, one of the trucks they’d rolled in here lifting into the air and landing a few feet away in a charred and smoking mess. I jerk my head at Kyrie to get her moving and jump back down to where the others are waiting.
The next wave of Resistance arrives in front of us, guns and hands raised as they begin firing at us but the bullets bounce off of an invisible barrier. We might not have a Shield hiding in the school strong enough to protect the entire Sanctuary, but there are three mothers and a father in there doing everything they can for their kids, and I would protect them over the Top Tier Flame bureaucrat shitting himself next to them any day of the fucking week.
The barrier isn’t enough to keep them away from us though, but we’ve been at this for over an hour, so we know how it works. I focus on the bulk of the soldiers while the other two grab whoever I miss. It’s bloody work, but it’s also cathartic, taking out every last ounce of my frustration on these fucking pieces of shit who came here after our most defenseless population.
When I’ve taken out the six men who crossed the barrier, I look up to find the Charge there, hand out as if he’s about to blow a fucking crater into the ground where I’m standing.
Except then Oli strides around the corner with her hand up and her eyes voided out. There’s nothing here that my Bond can’t handle. Dozens of the Resistance fall as one until there’s no one left for me to deal with. I watch Ezra and Elliot both drop back, moving away from her with a look of fear in them so strong that even shifted, you can tell they’re shitting themselves.
I think she just looks hot as fuck.
“Ugh, what was that? That guy there, what was his power?”
I glance down and then shift back to my human form, enjoying the little squeak she lets out at the sight of me. I glance around but there’s only the building workers still out here, and I don’t think she’ll give a shit about them. “He was a Charge. A living bomb. He’s the one doing all of the damage. He flipped a truck over on a few of Gryphon’s guys early on, and North has been working at pushing him back this whole time. He had a Shield working with him but… well, that’s the other guy you just took out.”