I call to Jaxon, but he’s either ignoring me or he doesn’t hear me. Either way, it’s another bad sign, considering he usually knows exactly what’s happening around him at all times.
Just the thought that he’s in some kind of trouble has me rushing on the stairs right after Flint, determined to catch up with them before something terrible happens.
But Jaxon is moving swiftly, too, and we end up chasing him down one hall, past the physics lab and several classrooms. He pauses for a second at the door of a room I haven’t been in yet—I think it’s one of the student lounges—and I call his name again. I’m all the way at the other end of the long hall, so I’m not surprised he doesn’t hear me.
Byron does, though. He turns his head and stares straight at me. I’m too far away to see his eyes clearly, but the look on his face is more than a little frightening as his eyes dart back and forth between Flint and me. Then he shakes his head at me in a quick back-and-forth motion.
It’s obvious he wants me to leave them alone, but that’s not going to happen—at least not before I know what’s going on in there. So I just lay on the speed, determined to get to Jaxon before he does…whatever it is he intends to do.
I don’t make it, and neither does Flint. Jaxon walks in the room, followed by the other five members of the Order—including Byron, who doesn’t look my way again.
Panic slams through me, and I run faster than I ever have before, ignoring the way my neck and arm hurt. Ignoring the way it makes me feel dizzy. Ignoring everything but the need I have to get to Jaxon, to make sure he doesn’t do anything because of me that he can’t take back.
I don’t know how I know this is about me, but I do.
I hit the door just as Jaxon sends all the furniture in the room flying in every direction.
Next to me, Flint curses. But he doesn’t move to interfere, even when Jaxon sends a guy that I’m pretty sure is Cole flying next, slamming him against a turned-over table and an upended chair in the process.
My breath catches in my throat in a strangled scream. I knew he was powerful, knew he was dangerous—everyone has been telling me so since I got here—but before now, I had no idea what that meant. But as Jaxon slams the guy—and yeah, it’s definitely Cole—into the wall with a flick of his fingers, then has him dangling a dozen feet in the air using nothing but his mind, I begin to understand.
Still, no warning, no vampire lore, nothing anyone could have told me could prepare me for what comes next.
Several students rush him—other shifters, I assume since Quinn and Marc are among them—but just like in the cafeteria, Mekhi, Byron, and the others make a perimeter around him. The shifters don’t seem to care, though, because they keep running straight at them in an effort to rescue the one Jaxon is still dangling about ten feet in the air. And that’s when all hell breaks loose, the five members of the Order in an all-out brawl with three or four times as many shifters.
It’s fast and brutal and terrifying to witness, some shifters fighting as humans, others as wolves. Teeth and claws come out, raking down Luca’s back and Liam’s arm as the vampires grab on to fur and send the wolves slamming to the ground. Jaxon must be the only one with telekinesis, though, because the Order is fighting the old-fashioned way—with fists and feet and what I’m pretty sure are fangs.
I turn to Flint, hoping he’ll wade in, but he’s just watching the fight with clenched fists and narrowed eyes.
Other students don’t have his reticence, though, and they join the melee—more shifters and vampires squaring off against one another in a fight that will end I don’t know how. But the ground is already littered with fur and blood. If someone doesn’t stop this soon, people are going to die.
Jaxon must have the same thought because he suddenly drops Cole. He hits the ground hard, falling on his ass before scrambling back to his feet. At the same time, Jaxon waves his other arm out in a wild arc that stops everyone in their tracks. Some even fall over completely.
I’m still across the room at the entrance, but the power he blasts out hits me, too. And Flint. We both end up stumbling backward, grabbing on to the double-wide doorframe to keep from falling.
I know I’m just a human, but Flint isn’t, and he was shoved backward, too. I can’t imagine the force the people close to him felt. No wonder so many of them ended up on the ground.
I think it’s over—the fight and whatever Jaxon planned on doing to that shifter—so once the power blast dissipates, I take a step forward. “Jaxon!” I call, hoping to get his attention. Hoping to make him think in the middle of all this madness.