“It’s cool,” Aleksio says. “We have your back, Kiro.”
My heart pounds as I breathe in the scent of Lazarus. Our greatest enemy. I look out at the rectangle of sky and field in the back. “He’s out there. Hiding. Waiting for us to look.” I point to where he is.
“This is bad,” Aleksio says. “They’re going to storm this van if they don’t blow it up.”
Viktor says, “Some old crone once said that together we rule. Together we cannot be defeated.”
I’m barely listening anymore. I’ve just found my brothers, and now he’d take them away? Rage boils in my heart.
“We need a plan,” Aleksio says. “The prophecy is not a plan. Holding out is not a plan. They have no cover. Let’s get creative. Can we get up front through this panel? Drive this thing?”
“I’m ready to get bloody,” Viktor says.
“How many, Kiro?” Aleksio asks.
“Twelve, fifteen. All sides. Except—” I motion at the part where we can see.
Aleksio goes on. Tactics.
I’m no longer listening. I smell them. I hear their heartbeats. Frightened. They want to kill my brothers. Something deep and primal animates me.
“Come on, can we shoot through this panel, you think?” Aleksio wants to change things in the van. He has complicated plans.
All I hear is the fury of my own heartbeat.
All I smell is blood. All I feel is love for these brothers who would mock Donny and then kill him for me. It was something I’d always dreamed of doing, and my brothers did it for me.
My brothers.
They came for me.
The heartbeats of our enemies grow stronger as they close in. Wildness fills me with the power of sunshine, huge as the sky. Thoughts fall from my mind. I see only pictures—me flying at the men. Flying through the air.
I leap out the back of the van, spinning at the men. I’m faster than wind. I’m grabbing and crushing their throats and faces, more airborne than not. Snarling, bloody.
They’ll have to shoot off my arms and legs to stop me, and they know it. It makes them hesitate. It makes them afraid.
My brothers yell something.
Their words mean nothing. I fly at our attackers, ripping, kicking.
My brothers are behind me, shooting, taking out those who recover from their shock long enough to fight back.
Time slows. I close my hand a throat and yank, breaking a neck. Warmth in my fingers. I break a face with my foot. I spin and throw. I kill. Some bodies I lift against me. I allow them to absorb the endless bullets shooting from the endless guns.
My brothers fight beside me so beautifully. I feel as if we’ve been together always.
Men fall.
I feel invincible as I meet another set of stunned eyes, as I close my grip around another throat.
Men with guns freeze in the face of animal rage—even if that animal rage is coming from a human.
Nobody will take my brothers from me. Never again.
I feel Viktor come up next to me. “Bratik, hold!” He grips my arm, pulling me. There are bodies all around. We jump into the front of the van.
Aleksio’s driving. He guns it across the field toward a big, blocky tanklike truck up on the road. Bumpy going.