Parrish still wasn’t sure why Lily had decided to help them back at the hospital, or what she would do when they met up again, but she guessed they were about to find out.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she said. “Give it all you’ve got, and then we’ll slide into one of these buildings and take a break to make a plan.”
The four of them lined up side-by-side in front of the oncoming horde while Beast and BirdWoman watched their back, cleaning up any rotters who dared attack from behind.
Parrish smiled. Time to show off what they could really do.
So far today, she’d been mostly going back and forth between her fire and ice abilities, practicing the switch between. For the most part, changing from one to the other was a pretty clumsy process for her. It was like trying to do math with someone shouting random numbers in her ear.
Focus was the main issue, but once she got into the rhythm of the new ability, she was getting better at controlling it.
Like now, for example. She sheathed her katana and allowed a cold chill to crawl through her. It took a moment for her to embrace the ice side of her energy, but when she connected to it, her hands glowed with a bright blue light.
She blew air across her lips and smiled as the air came out like a cold fog that crackled in the heat.
Reaching forward, she pressed her icy hand on the forehead of a rotter who lunged toward her, its mouth open. Frost travelled quickly down its decaying body, freezing its jaw in place.
She pushed her power just a little and the rotter’s entire body froze to the spot.
But she wanted to see just how far she could take this, and how easily she could switch from ice to flame when she needed to.
She inhaled, drawing as much breath as she could hold. When she exhaled, she turned her head from side to side, sending a cloud of white snow and ice in an arch in front of her body.
Whoa.
She’d frozen at least fifteen zombies in place.
Noah caught on to what she was doing with the ice and contributed his own power to hers. At first, they combined efforts to freeze another row about twenty deep on Noah’s side.
Unlike before, when she and Karmen and Crash had all touched skin to amplify their power, Parrish and Noah were able to boost each other’s spells just by focusing together as one.
She wasn’t sure if it was due to the fact that they’d become so close in so many ways over the past couple of months, or if it had something to do with the fact that they were using the ice element side of their power, but either way, she could feel his energy infusing with hers.
With every second, her power grew stronger alongside him. She reached deeper, pushed harder, and together, they sent a wave out over the horde, encasing them all in a harsh blue coating of pure ice.
“Whoa,” Crash whispered, stepping back as every rotter in the area ceased to move.
But their awe and excitement was short-lived as a blast of heat rolled back toward them in a widening rush of pure flame.
The frozen horde disintegrated into ash, and in her fear, Parrish reached for the second half of her power. For the first time since she’d gotten to New York, she managed to access both sides of her abilities, tapping into the combined power she’d only just discovered back at the beach house by accident.
Back then, she’d wondered if it was some kind of fluke. Something she’d done but could never replicate or understand.
Now, though, she was sure it was a skill she had the innate ability to use, which meant that some part of her, deep down and still buried within a series of trapped memories, still knew how to use it.
She gave herself over to that subconscious part of her own mind, and everything slowed to a crawl. Time was suddenly hers to control, and in that moment, a memory took hold.
Parrish, standing in a field of flames, her face bloodied and burned on one side. A woman with dark hair stood on the other side of a raging fire, a purple glow surrounding her form.
In her mind, she saw herself clap her hands together, a purple orb forming between her hands as she brought them apart. With a thrust of forward motion, she sent the purple orb toward the woman in the flames just as another blast of fire came toward her.
The fire moved in slow motion, and this ancient version of Parrish threw up a wall of ice to shield herself.
She snapped back to the present and repeated the motion, creating a wall of ice that protected her and her friends from the flames.
She continued to pour her energy into the ice wall until the fire on the other side subsided. The ice quickly melted onto the asphalt, combining with the ashes of the dead.
Parrish’s heart raced as her combined power slipped away from her and time sped back up to normal.
She’d managed to use it this time, but she wasn’t strong enough yet to hold onto it for very long.
And from the looks of the fresh horde approaching them from all sides, she was going to need it.
Up ahead, flames dancing on her fingertips, a woman stepped forward.
Black hair. Pale skin. Parrish recognized her instantly, despite the distance between them.
Lily.
Parrish was glad to see her, because if Lily was there with them, it meant Zoe and David were still okay. She hadn’t gotten to them yet.
Parrish raised her sword, eager for the chance to put an end to this, once and for all.
Fate was pulling them forward, unrelenting, and all they could do was surrender to it now.
Forty-Six
The Boy
The intensity of emotion was almost more than
