The pounding in my temple intensified, and ice glistened as it spread from my fingertips and streaked across the chalkboard behind me.
Jinx pushed her dark sunglasses harshly up the bridge of her nose. “Do your heads hurt?”
“What?” Rina snapped.
Jinx scowled. “All of you were clearly dropped on your heads as children, so I’m asking. Do your heads hurt?”
It took a moment for her words to penetrate.
The room erupted.
Sadie and Scorpius laughed, Malum grinned, Rina started screaming, and one of the male angels kicked a folding chair, while Knox yelled something about disrespect and shouldered his way to the front of the group.
Crack.
The chaos stopped, and everyone gaped at me.
My hand stung from where I’d slapped Knox across the face.
His jaw dropped open as he touched the red fingerprints that were already visible across his cheek.
“That’s my girl.” Sadie clapped loudly and pumped her fist.
Her support was not appreciated.
Rina snarled. “How fucking dare you touch him? He is one hundred times the angel you’ll ever be,” she spat. “You can’t even fly.”
The snowbank.
Straining for hours.
Failing.
Malum let out an unholy noise and moved like he was going to hit Rina. I grimaced and flung myself in front of him to stop him. “Whatever,” I said, “she’s not wrong.”
“I’m going to kill her,” Scorpius promised as he stood up. Orion pulled him back down.
“Why did you do that?” Knox asked as he fingered his cheek.
Malum shifted in front of me and blocked my view of the angels. Flames leaped across his skin protectively. Whiskey and tobacco tingled across my senses.
“Why?” Knox asked again.
My gut told me saying, because I’ve wanted to hit one of you ever since the Legionnaire Games probably wasn’t the best move.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said weakly. “Adrenaline overwhelmed me, and I acted before I could think.”
There was a long moment where I tensed and prepared to fight to the death.
Knox said crisply, “It’s fine. Let’s move on. You’ve been suffering of late because of your overwhelming failures to fly. I forgive you.”
Pompous prick.
“Don’t talk to her with that tone.” Flames leaped higher off Malum’s shoulders, and he cracked his neck back and forth menacingly. “Your legion can focus on the oldest and largest infected during battles. Everyone else will handle the rest.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded in agreement.
“However,” Jinx said, “questions about a cure should be directed to the High Court.” She pointed toward the enchanted tablet on the table. “The organization that is making all of us fight in this war. Save your ire for the people who deserve it.”
The angels sulked but didn’t say anything. They slunk to the back of the room.
Jinx, Malum, and I turned back to our strategy board and started over.
With no windows to filter light, there was no sense of time.
We projected weapons onto the board and rough renderings of the compounds we’d plundered. We wrote down our numbers and estimated the number of ungodly waiting for us in the third location. We counted how many soldiers on average were lost guarding the perimeters and where we needed them positioned.
At one point, Jinx created a math equation that calculated the odds of finding a cure for the infected.
Chalk symbols and letters covered every inch of the chalkboard.
Malum and I updated the equation where she made mistakes, and all three of us solved it for quality control.
We all got the same result.
There was a .07 percent chance of finding a cure, assuming the High Court was already working on one, and a 342 percent chance the ungodly would murder millions if they expanded into other realms and infected people.
Jinx smirked condescendingly and turned around, brandishing her chalk to the room. “This is why your position is idiotic,” she spat at the angels.
No one responded.
I rubbed grit out of my tired eyes.
Everyone was asleep.
Jinx hobbled over and smacked her crutch against Rina and Knox until they woke up. “See why your idea was asinine.” She pointed at the board.
The angels squinted sleepily at the board with confusion. “What are we looking at?” Knox asked as Rina said, “I just see letters and symbols. What is this?”
Jinx let out a small scream of frustration and hobbled back to the board while Malum shook his head like he too was disgusted with their mathematical incompetence.