Page 57 of Your Final Resting Place

“I’m coming back,” I told them. A defiant tear escaped my blurry eyes before I could swipe at it. “I’m coming home.”

“You had better,” Victor said, his voice tight. He laid a gentle kiss on my forehead and whispered, “Zodiac is a mess without you.”

Cain’s thunderous roar belittled the real thunder rumbling above the city.

“Go.” I pushed them away. “Go, please . . . I . . . You have to go.” I needed them to be far away for what came next. I needed them safe.

Zee backed up, then spread his wings and took to the sky. He swooped over the retreating Lost Ones, lightning forking through the dark above him.

Tom Collins appeared at my side, his dapper attire untouched by the howling wind, the prior battle, or any of this night. A smile warmed his semitransparent face. “You know all that shit I said was to distract Cain?”

“You mean you don’t really hate us?”

He snorted. “You’ll see them again.”

I faced the AI bartender, who wasn’t an AI bartender at all but was my best friend.

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t do personal displays of affection.”

“Really? You don’t say.”

He thrust out a hand. I wrapped mine around his strange, weirdly solid fingers, and ignored the strange tingling.

“Don’t fuck it up,” he said.

“Great advice.”

Saluting, he took a step back, and vanished in a fizzle of static.

The Lost Ones were off the bridge. I could barely see anyone on the bridge deck now, among the abandoned cars. I was alone.

Turning, I faced the living, breathing, enormous storm of dark intentions made real.

Whatever had been in that bead, it had made Cain a hundred times worse. Why couldn’t we have gotten bubbles, instead of whatever this was?

I probably should have expected it, with our luck.

But here we were, the epic showdown.

And here I was. Adam Vex. Not human at all. Definitely dragon.

I planted my feet, spread my hands at my sides, and with Cain’s laugh barreling around me like a freight train, I freed all the restraints holding the real me inside. One by one, the mental chains snapped, and the creature I was inside began to wake up.

It had been a long time since I’d been dragon . . . really let myself get into the role, and my true skin.

Four years in hiding. Longer if you counted my whole life running from destiny.

No more hiding.

No more running.

No more shame, fear. No regrets.

It was time to show the world who and what I really was too.

In the movies, the bad guys wait for the good guys to get their act together. This wasn’t the movies, and Gideon Cain wasn’t going to wait for me to power-up. I wouldn’t have waited either.

Cain’s sideswipe hit like a wrecking ball. Had I been human, I’d have been dead on impact. The blow knocked me into the air—but that was fine—and so was the fiery pain racing through my veins. It would all be over soon.