“Kill yourself and I will let them live.”
“Stop,” I said. “You don’t have to do this!”
She cocked her head sideways at me. “No? You won’t save anyone but yourself? What a disappointing savior you turned out to be.” She waved her hand and both Adrien and Taylor leaned farther out off the roof. Each tottered on the edge, the wind swirling around them as they held on to unstable footholds.
“Wait!” I stooped over to reach for the gun. “I’ll do it.”
The Chancellor sighed. “I can tell you’ll just try to shoot me. You always were so transparent.” She stepped closer to her sleek black transport. “So impulsive and predictable.”
I lunged for the weapon, but out of the corner of my eye saw Adrien and General Taylor throw themselves off the roof.
“No!” I screamed.
For a split second I saw the choice laid out before me. I could use the last tiny bit of telek left in my body to kill Chancellor Bright, but Taylor and Adrien would both fall to their deaths. Two lives lost in exchange for taking down the Chancellor forever. It was what Taylor would have wanted. She’d spoken so often of the need to be willing to sacrifice the lives of the people I loved for the good of all.
But I wasn’t her. The second Adrien disappeared off the edge of the roof, I knew that there’d never really been any choice. He was my life.
I sprinted toward the spot where he’d jumped and dropped on my stomach to look over the edge. Adrien plummeted down, growing smaller every millisecond as the Chancellor’s transport took off behind me.
“Adrien!”
The Chancellor was wrong. I would give up my life for his. I let go of my mast cells completely and cast the telek down toward him like a lasso. He bobbed forty stories below, held only by the invisible line of my power.
I hauled him back up, trying to ignore my swelling tongue and keep only the projection of him in my mind.
Twenty stories.
Ten.
My throat had swollen all the way back up by the time he was only one floor away. Just a little farther. My body was on fire. It didn’t matter.
But then the projection cube in my mind started blinking in and out. Adrien dropped a few feet as I lost control before I caught him again. I tugged him back upward and reached out, leaning farther off the building. Bright spots appeared at the edges of my vision.
My gloved fingers scrabbled to get a solid grip on his ankles, but right as I did, the projection cube blinked out completely.
He slipped an inch, and I poured every inch of strength I had left into holding on to him.
It wasn’t enough.
We only managed a second of equilibrium, me holding tight to his leg before I was yanked forward by his weight off the building.
And then we were both free-falling.
Terror spiked. Every millisecond we flew through the air, I knew I was supposed to be doing something. I was supposed to save Adrien.
The wind was like a freight train in my ears and every millisecond the ground rushed closer. I tried to reach out with my telek. But I’d used every drop of energy trying to grab Adrien at the top of the building. My throat closed up and my tongue swelled.
I had nothing left.
There was nothing I could do.
Strange disconnected images flashed in my mind. Adrien’s bright blue-green eyes. The first time we’d met in the crowded Market Corridor. Our first kiss.
Any moment now, we’d hit. I closed my eyes and gripped Adrien’s leg harder. At least we’d be together at the end.
But suddenly our momentum slowed down, like we’d landed on a sea of cotton. I opened my swollen eyes in confusion. Blinding blue light surrounding us, cradling us on all sides. I didn’t know when I’d last taken a breath. Had I died?
“Get them inside!” someone shouted. “The armada’s right behind us!”
The blue light dissipated around us. In my disorientation, I watched in bewilderment as Saminsa pulled Adrien to his feet. Buildings rose up on all sides, and the Rez’s transport was parked in the center of an intersection.
Rand saw me and grinned. “Did you miss us?”
Cole jumped out of the transport while Xona held a rocket launcher over her shoulder and fired at a group of Regs running down the street toward us. Cole scooped me and Adrien up, one in each arm, just as the explosion lit up the street behind us.
“Saminsa, more Regs are coming, we need another orb!” Cole called as he deposited us inside the back of the transport.
Saminsa immediately raised her arms and blue light exploded from her fingertips. It looked like the same light that had created the otherworldly net to catch us, except this time it expanded outward. Before the orb could encompass the entire transport, a Regulator came from nowhere and leapt toward the still open door. Xona was reloading and couldn’t fire. Cole threw himself in front of her as red light exploded from the charging Reg’s laser weapon.
The instant before it hit, Saminsa’s blue orb expanded and made a shield. The laser fire hit the barrier just an inch from Cole’s face and dissipated harmlessly, absorbed by the blue light. Xona stared up at Cole in disbelief as Rand slammed the back of the transport shut.
“Go, Henk, get us out of here,” Tyryn said, looking out the window. “Two more armada ships are flying in from the north.”
My muscles started shuddering again. I was on the edge of consciousness, darkness threatening to swoop in. Tyryn’s face was suddenly over mine. “We brought another epi infuser,” he said, pushing my hair back from my face.
I felt a bite of fire in my chest. I jerked away from the hands holding me down as the blaze spread through my whole body. I wheezed and clutched my heart, and for the first time in who knows how many minutes, air whooshed through the small space that had opened in my throat and into my lungs.
Tyryn helped me lean back. I gasped and finally got a full breath. The transport jarred beneath us as we launched off the ground.
“There’s three of ’em now!” Henk shouted.
I felt the momentum as our transport rose straight up into the air. Nausea and dizziness swarmed me, but I managed to keep my eyes open. As we lifted past the top of the buildings, I saw three fully loaded armada transports waiting in the air. They launched another volley of laser fire. The lasers rippled harmlessly into the blue orb still surrounding our vehicle.
“This one’s disintegrating,” Saminsa yelled from where she stood in the center aisle.
“Attack as soon as she releases it!” Henk said.
City and Rand lined up shoulder to shoulder and lowered the long window running along the side of the transport. Air rushed in as soon as it was open.
“Now!” Saminsa called, shifting her body forward. The blue orb expanded like a spherical wave outward. City sent a giant spiral of electricity in its wake. Right as the blue orb dissipated, City’s electricity circled around one of the attack transports, slowly weaving into a web. Sparks and explosions crackled through the air.
Rand held out his arms too, and the air wavered like water as he sent out an intense wave of heat. The outer hull of the attack transport closest to us began to melt.
Saminsa launched a small burning blue orb toward the third transport, and it hit with an explosion that rocked the whole thing backward. It toppled into the transport Rand was working on, sending them both spiraling into the buildings below. The next moment, the transport City attacked dropped from the air like a dead weight too.
Bright explosions burst from below us where the transports had hit, but Henk already had us speeding
