“Hurry up, do it now,” he snaps. I lean over his sister as we hear a commotion in the hospital corridors. I reach into my pocket while Darian turns with the gun pointed at the door before I rip the tube out of her throat.
I jam the vial down her throat harshly. I hear her jaw break as the vial shatters in her mouth, my venom slides down her throat, before the machines go haywire, screeching loudly. Darian spins around. The growl that escapes him makes me flinch before I lunge at him.
His gun goes off, and the bullet grazes my arm, but I shift, tearing into his shoulder before he tosses me off. He shoots blindly, and I am hit in the flank, making me wheeze. Andrei’s wolf, Donnie jumps clean over the top of me, landing on top of him. He rips into him, tearing his arm off and flinging it at my feet. Donnie is going berserk, and we only have thirty minutes, maybe just ten left if we’re lucky, to get everyone out. I rush out the fire exit, shifting back to toss the door open.
Darian’s men don’t react as I burst through the door. Instead, they bare their necks in submission, and I realize they were waiting for him to die, so the command over them drops.
“Dad, where are you?” I ask.
“We are working on getting the last of them out of the community center bunkers.”
“The bombs are set on a timer. Get out of there. Where are my mates?”
“At the school bunker,” he answers, and my stomach drops.
I run.
“Got it. We got the community center bunkers open, heading for the school,” My dad adds.
“No, help Andrei. I am at the hospital. He is taking on Darian,” I order before I turn down the next street, and I race toward my old school.
“Ezra, Mateo!” I scream through the link.
“You are in so much shit for rejecting me, ” both of them growl at the same time.
“Get out of there!” I order them, running toward their location.
“We are. We just got the door open and are letting them out, then I am re-marking you,” Ezra threatens, and I chuckle.
“Only if you get to her first. I call dibs this time,” Mateo teases.
The school comes into view, I feel relief and as everyone races across the oval to get to safety. Nearly there, I think, as Ezra and Mateo rush out the double doors at the front of the school.
I reach the gates and am about to race through them when the ground bucks under my feet, making me stop for a second. Looking back at the school, a piercing scream leaves my lips.
The ground turns into a series of geysers on the oval, like land mines are going off, the school explodes, the windows blowing out, and the entire building shakes before combusting into a pile of rubble and fire. The ravenous pits of earth swallow those running on the ovals, and my screams echo as their loved one’s race to try to save their families. I force my legs to keep moving as I sprint toward my mates. A second explosion goes off across the town, the air fills with another plume of smoke, and the air leaves my lungs when I find them.
I collapse beside them, where they managed to make it before everything went wrong. Mateo has a piece of rebar through him, and I pull it from his chest before moving to Ezra, whose lower half, his legs, pelvis, and chest is crushed under the brick wall as it tore from the building. It took everything to drag his lower half out with the help of some warriors lifting the broken bits of rubble.
They’re both dead.
I stare out over the carnage of the grisly scene. Howls and wails fill the air as loved ones are snatched away, and I’m reminded of Marabella trying to heal her fallen pack before she couldn’t anymore. I could save them. Getting to my feet, I stared at the gut-wrenching scene. Smoke filled the air and from the blood and grisly remains, this place looked every bit of a war zone. All of this destroyed for the greed of a dictator who had no care for the victims of a war they never asked for, mere pawns in his little war game.
“She could have saved them.” I chuckle at my newfound clarity before looking down at my mates’ broken forms. “She just had to give her life for them,” I whisper, the Moon Goddess’ words replaying like a broken record. Tears stream down my face. “I will pay the ultimate sacrifice, and you will live,” I whisper to my mates, I could save them, or I could give everything and save them all.
One life for all of them was a simple and easy decision, even though I wasn’t just sacrificing my life but my future, and their future growing within me.
“I am sorry, Seline, and I forgive you for what you did,” I chuckle at my insanity while digging my hands into the earth.
My contact lenses melt away as my energy heats up like a beacon. It builds before my magic slips out, spilling over the ground, moving like a fog. Its tendrils ooze into everyone, joining them and healing them, while I feel myself slipping further into the abyss. Screams of rage and heartache erupt from me. I scream for the future I will never have, and for every goddamn thing that’s been taken from me, but this wouldn’t be taken.
This was my choice and the only one I could make as my life force is sucked out of me. My soul slips from this earth to the next, and I smile when I sense their movement as I become frozen in my death as the air leaves my lungs for the last time.