Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(81)

“Yeah.”

“Let him know what we’re doing so he can pass the word. I didn’t think of it until we were in the air or I’d have told Will. Bring the fire, as much as you can.”

Tonia dug deep, and with her body pressed to Fallon’s, surprised herself by how quickly she produced a fireball. She measured the distance, chose her spot, flung the fire.

“Nice.”

“I pitch for the New Hope Youth Baseball team. Flynn’s on it,” she added as Laoch swung to circle the building, and his riders built a wall of fire.

Over the roar of flames, more explosions, they heard gunfire.

“Get ready to jump,” Fallon called out as they charged through the air. “I’ll see you again.”

“At the checkpoint.”

“No, I can’t stay. I’ll help until I’m pulled back, but I’ll see you again.”

“Pulled back where?”

“Get ready.” Fallon took Laoch into another dive. “No guards outside. The cowards ran. Jump! Good luck.”

She saw Tonia land, notch an arrow, then break the door open with power.

Fallon took Laoch into a climb. She could feel the first hints of the pull. Only a little time left, she thought, studying the battle below to look for weaknesses to exploit, or to help plug. Duncan, with two others, swung his bike to a stop just outside her fire wall. She expected he could douse his sister’s fire, but wasn’t sure about her own. So she opened a door for him and his team, drawing the fire back enough to give them a path.

He glanced up, met her eyes, held them for a moment, just an instant, that seemed to spin out and out.

Then she and Laoch stood in the clearing facing Mallick. He held the crystal in his hands.

“Are you injured?”

“No.” She slid off Laoch, ran her hands over him. The way the shrapnel had flown, exploded so high … But he didn’t have a single scratch. “We’re not hurt.”

“Were you successful?”

“I caught them in time. Some of them knew my parents, so they believed me. The map you helped me draw, and showed me how to light it in the dark, helped. I followed the plan you approved, except …”

He lifted his brows. “Except?”

“Tonia asked to ride with me, to get to the prison faster. And together … I thought of it after we were in the air. We ringed the armory in fire so the enemy couldn’t get more weapons. So the New Hope soldiers could take what they had time to take, then they’d destroy it.”

He considered. “An acceptable amendment to our agreement.” He wouldn’t have known, he admitted. He wasn’t permitted to see into the crystal.

“The rest is up to them, but they had the advantage. If I could’ve stayed a little longer—”

“One hour. We agreed. See to your horse, then come inside.”

“I want to see. The crystal will show me.”

“When you come inside. Laoch needs your attention.”

“He was perfect, Mallick.” Still pulsing from the journey, from the battle, the flight, she turned to nuzzle Laoch. “We were bound so tight. He knew, I knew, every move, every turn. You were right when you said Grace wasn’t meant for battle. He is.”

She led the horse away. You are, Mallick thought, and went inside to wait for her.

They would call it the Battle of Fire.

More than a rescue, Duncan thought as he sped home with Tonia behind him. They’d secured all the prisoners, freed more than twenty slaves, and added twelve semiauto long guns, twenty-two handguns, four boxes of grenades, a couple of sawed-off shotguns, and pounds of ammunition to their own stores.

What vehicles they hadn’t disabled or destroyed they drove back to New Hope.

A rout, he thought, a frigging rout. What had nearly been a massacre had turned into one of the biggest victories of the New Hope Resistance.

“No way she just vanished into thin air.”

Duncan rolled his eyes. Every few miles Tonia shouted some variety of that same statement in his ear.

“Certain way, because she did.”

“She flew away.”

“I told you she didn’t. She was there, then she wasn’t. She poofed.”

“She wasn’t astral projecting. I touched her. I was on the damn horse. She was there.”

“She was there. Then she wasn’t.” How the hell had she done it? he wondered—as he did every few miles. He damn well wanted to figure it out and do it himself.

“There was something about her.”

“Yeah, yeah. The One. The Savior. I’ll give her the wicked cool horse and the firepower, but she looked like a regular girl witch to me.”

“You didn’t touch her. When I did? I felt this buzz, like in the blood. Not exactly like it is with you and me, but something. And I’ve been thinking about it since I’ve had time to think instead of fight. I was touching her—pressed to her on the horse—when I made the fire. I’ve never made it that fast, I’ve never made it that big. It just rolled, Duncan. I think, because of the contact. The physical contact.”

“If she’d hung around we could’ve debriefed her. What was the frigging hurry?”

“She said—I forgot to tell you—something about she didn’t have much time before she got pulled back. And no, she didn’t say where or how or why. We were a little busy at the time.”