Then again,I thought with a sigh,knowing most nephs’ background, she’s probably a survivor of some horrible trauma.
I felt sorry for her, but at least it was Chance’s problem this time and not mine.
#
Mira
I didn’t understand why Chessie was hiding behind me. I wondered if she was shy or had issues meeting strangers. Since I had some issues myself, I figured I could be her bulwark. It cost me nothing to help her, but her silence was stretching and making everyone shuffle and fidget.
Then Kerry came into the room.
“You meet everyone, Chess?” he asked. She musta nodded because he said, “Good. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go pick up my ride so you two can take off.”
More silence, and Kerry didn’t seem interested in breaking it. He merely walked past us, went over to the window, and flicked the drape aside to look out.
All right, then.
“That’s it!” Jax jumped to his feet. “I can’t wait any longer!”
“Then go to the bathroom already,” Gigi teased him.
“Hardy har har, Gi.” Jax made a face at her. “No, I want everyone to see my video from City of the Future.”
“Can you watch this, Kerry?” I looked over at him.
“I was the one doing it at the time.” He wore aduhface.
“I think she’s afraid you’ll rememberwhyyou did it,” Rome said, “and we’ll have front-row seats to the encore.”
“I’m fine.”
I smiled at the sight of his scowling face, then glanced at Rome only to catch him staring at me. I held his gaze despite my warm cheeks until Jax, having hooked his phone up to the television, hit play and the footage he’d shot appeared on the big screen. We formed a half-circle around the screen and, by mutual agreement, Rome and I stayed standing side-by-side in the back. Kerry joined us.
“Sucks always being the tallest, doesn’t it?” I smiled cheerfully.
Both of them grunted.
At first, it was a nauseatingly jumpy view of a river, then a grassy bank, but it steadied and I could hear Jax’s breathing as he focused in on Kerry.
I shuddered as I watched. A blue tornado of power rose above the treetops and sent silver lightning to grab djinn and pull them in. In the center of the twister, I could barely make out the shape I knew was Kerry.
On the screen, Rome and I ran toward the camera, our hands held tight, and we slid into the ditch with the others. Everyone shouted over the deafening wind and sounds of destruction as Kerry lifted the tornado to rest in his hands and held all that Divine power as easily as I did a wrench.
I lifted nervous eyes up to Rome, who looked down at me and grimaced.
Yeah. All of us together wouldn’t be able to stop Kerry if he went supernova.
“Everybody down!” I heard Hank Bishop, Kerry’s warden, screaming on the video, and I flicked my eyes back to the screen.
Kerry narrowed the twister into a solid cylinder and the crashing winds stopped, the silence enormous after all the noise. When he called the power down, it whooshed into his cupped palms and formed a large ball. I could barely make out the squashed figures inside and hear their terrible wailing.
“I have a message for your masters!” he bellowed. “You tell those sons of whores there’s nowhere they can hide from me!”
He pushed his hands closer together and the ball shrank a few sizes. A series of loud pops made me grimace.
“Oh, this is— This is epic,” Jax said on the video.
Gigi screamed at him to take cover with them, then Kerry was talking again.
