A flash of violet blinded me, just for an instant, and I was dying… But then the bullet ricocheted—pew!—off the moth-light tangle.
My skin burned as the hasty cocoon disintegrated in a silvery dust around me. I let out my breath, and the faint hiss echoed through my empty veins as the expended moths faded to nothing.
Hollow, I dropped to my knees, and the impact splintered the lingering haze of purple across my eyes. In one blink, my dazzled vision cleared. Alling was staring down at me where I knelt, the deep lines of his frown almost as black as the gun. The wavering gun, tipping out of his hands…
Crimson welled up at the center of his crisp white shirt and poured down like a wide, garish necktie in a less cool workplace. The gun clanked on the floor as he crumpled, and his skull on the tiles made a dull thud. Blood seeped out from beneath him, thicker than pomegranate slushie syrup.
And redder than the flames billowing up behind the corpse. The fire that was supposed to save us and now was going to kill us.
Gasping and choking—on tears or toxic smoke, I wasn’t sure—I huddled against the elevator door, still stubbornly closed. Mom wrapped her arm behind me, pulling my head to the crook of her neck.
“Imogen,” she whispered, her voice cracking like the burning steel and concrete. “Shhh. Hush, baby. We’re almost there. Only one more door. I know you’re tired, but we can’t wait.”
Before the moths, I’d had one shitty superpower outside Legendelirium: waiting. No matter what else happened, I could always pull in and shut down.
Waiting wasn’t enough anymore.
So one last time, I pushed to my feet, steadying myself on Mom’s shoulder. The fire was so close now, even my numbed nerves tingled from the threat. I bowed my head, eyes closed, searching inside me for something else, anything else.
And the moths rose.
I thought I’d already given everything I had, but this time I meant it. Slamming my forearms together in the protective [shield] spell over my heart, I pressed my fisted knuckles into my closed eyes. In that darkness, violet lightning splintered. I took one more breath, gathering myself and my moths—
And flung my arms wide, fingers spread, opening my eyes. With a primal scream, I sent out every bug, leaving myself totally exposed.
An unfurling in every hue and shade of purple, like a cape…, no, like butterfly wings, spread out from my gesture. It wasn’t Legendelirium pretending; this was me, just me, giving everything I had, holding nothing back.
The moths flashed as they flew, cutting a swath through the smoke. With a subliminal echo of my yell that sounded like chiming thunder in my ears, they surged into the oncoming flames.
My hive fell in a silver-violet rain, dousing the fire in one mighty wave of purple energy.
Gone. All of it. Fire, hive, the last of my will to fight.
It was over.
An electronic bell sounded behind me, and I swiveled around with a feeble gasp as the elevator opened.
Luis the night guard stood there, visitor passes in his hand.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOFT JAZZ PLAYEDas the elevator ascended. I shook, wrung out and useless, in my mother’s arms. Yeah, the temps in the lab had been super frigid, and it seemed as if the cold from the compressed gas had seeped into my marrow and crystalized there. I felt as if I were on the brink of shattering.
The guard lurked in the opposite corner of the elevator, his gaze wary.
I wondered what he was thinking. Mom’s hands were covered in Carlo 2.0’s blood. The red had splattered and diffused on her blouse too. And then there was me, bruised and wilted, with my makeshift headband and bracelets like an asylum escapee. And still in my Freezie tee, reeking of smoke and—I sniffed discreetly, ewww—sweat. I really didn’t want to die in this shirt.
“Did you remember to feed the cat?” Mom asked.
It was so totally random and yet so totally my mom that a laugh burst out of me. It hurt like hell and felt good at the same time. Still alive.
And no, I hadn’t.
“Poor Gwump.” I really wanted to see him again. If I lived, I was gonna buy him some of that fancy cat food and serve it in a crystal bowl, just like on those old TV commercials.
The elevator sounded its electronic bell again, and the doors slid open.
Mom was quick on the draw, scissors brandished before her again. I swayed, hands swimming in front of me as if to search for a spell instead of casting one because…
