Boundless (Unearthly, #3)(70)

“Lucy,” I say, blinking at them in confusion.

“Clara Gardner,” says the one with the jangling bracelets, her dark eyes widening in astonishment. “Oh my God.” She smiles. “What a coincidence, me stumbling upon you here, of all places. Clara, I’d like to introduce you to my sister, Olivia,” she says, like we’ve bumped into each other at the country club.

She killed Anna, I think. That girl just killed my friend’s mother.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” says Olivia, although she’s clearly not charmed. “Give us the baby,” she says. “It’s over.”

I glance over my shoulder, back at the auditorium. Where is Christian?

“Oh, we took care of your friend, although he did put up a pretty good fight,” Lucy says offhandedly. “Now hand us the baby. If you give it to us right now, I promise it’ll be quick when I kill you.”

My throat closes in despair at the idea that Christian is lying in the dark below us somewhere, dead or dying, his soul laid bare. I clutch Web to my chest. He’s being so quiet—too quiet, I think—but I can’t worry about that at the moment.

“Give me the baby,” Lucy says.

I shake my head.

She sighs like I am really wrecking her day. “I’m going to enjoy gutting you.” The black dagger appears in her hand. I sense a kind of humming noise from it, a vibration that resonates all through me. She steps closer to me. “I just adore your brother, you know.” She laughs. “He’s the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. So attentive. So sexy. It’s going to be terrible when he finds out his sister died. So tragically too—a fire. He’s going to need so much TLC to get him through it.”

She’s trying to goad me, I realize dully, but nothing in me rises to fight her. I don’t have long now. Out of the corner of my eye I see Olivia start to move in on me from the side. They’re backing me to the edge of the stage. Even if I could fight them, I’d never be able to keep them both at bay. Not with Web in my arms.

They’re closing in for the kill.

I need to summon glory, I think. I don’t know if it will keep them back the way it will for Black Wings, but I need to try. It’s my only shot.

I close my eyes.

I try to empty myself.

Focus.

Every other time I’ve asked it, truly asked it, the light has come to me—that day in the forest with my mother, when I fought Samjeeza; the night of the car accident after prom; any time I’ve truly needed it, it’s been there like it was waiting for the moment to literally shine. But there’s no glory anywhere inside me right now, or if there is, I can’t feel it. I can’t access it.

All I feel is dark. Because I’m going to lose this battle. Christian’s seen it.

I am going to die.

No, comes Christian’s voice in my mind. No, you aren’t.

Tears spring to my eyes. You’re not dead, I say stupidly.

I need you to do what I tell you, exactly when I tell you to. Okay?

Okay.

I hear the sound of sirens in the distance.

“Give. Us. The baby.” Olivia is close enough now that she could easily stab me. She lifts the dagger.

“Go. To. Hell,” I say between clenched teeth. Maybe there is some fire left in me, after all.

Lift Web up over your head! Now! Christian shouts in my mind, and I don’t think, I just do as he asks, I lift the baby, and Christian leaps up from the orchestra pit onto the stage, and his glory sword is a blinding spray of light as it passes through me from shoulder to hip. I can feel it slicing through my clothes, but when it touches my skin, there’s only warmth.

“No!” someone calls out.

Dazed, I lower Web back to my shoulder, and that’s when I see Lucy—the one with the bracelets—standing a few feet away, her face a mask of rage and disbelief, screaming in this ragged, animal-like agony.

And Olivia falls at my feet, dead.

Cut almost in half by Christian’s glory sword.

“I will kill you!” Lucy screams, staring at me with bulging, grief-filled eyes, the black dagger clutched in her fist.

But Christian is with me now, beside me, sword in hand, and the sirens are getting closer. Any minute and this place will be crawling with firefighters.

Lucy glances toward the exit. “I swear I will kill you, Clara Gardner.” A tear makes its way down her face, dangling on her chin for a few seconds before it drops. “And I’ll make sure you suffer first,” she says, then turns and runs up the aisle of the theater, bursting through the smoke and flame and out onto the street.

I can hear her sobbing as she runs.

I don’t look at Olivia. I can’t. I turn away, bile rising in my throat as I realize that I’m covered in her blood, my shirt soaked with it, my shoulders and arms splattered.

I used to think of this place as being so safe, I think. A place for all of us to talk and be ourselves. A magic place.

Now it’s burning down around us. It’s gone.

Angela is gone.

Slowly I become aware of Christian standing in front of me, panting, pressing his shirt to his ribs.

“Are you okay?” he asks, squeezing my shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I answer to both questions, then see that he’s bleeding. “You’re cut.”