Page 219 of Problematic

On the screen, the failing barrier ignited. The ward snapped upright with enough force to knock two southern soldiers from a roof.

The ward pulled again before I could breathe. I reached for Lux because there was nowhere else to get it. His knees buckled and struck the corner of the table. The hollow inside me started to ache as fast as I filled it, every bit of him I took multiplied and ripped back out through the key.

Black spots crowded my vision. Lux’s grip weakened around mine. My legs were already shaking. Neither of us let go.

I severed the connection. The sudden absence left me swaying. Lux caught me, but his knees hit the side of the chair hard enough to move it. His shadows had thinned to stains around his boots. The pulse beneath the hand I still gripped felt slower than before.

The ward hadn’t taken only from me. I had pulled his remaining strength through my body, changed it into something bigger, and thrown almost all of it into Angelfall. We had enough left to breathe. Apparently, that was the current standard for success.

Vale stared at the grid. “Seven minutes.”

Sam’s breath broke. “Daniel says they can make it.”

I buried my face against Lux’s shirt and tried to convince my lungs they had a job. My legs remained unreliable, so Lux pulled me into his chair and crouched in front of me despite the state of his ribs.

Vale checked the ward readings again. “The barrier will collapse after the tunnel clears. No lasting damage to the primary grid.”

Lux kept his attention on me. On the screen, the final civilians ran through the freight entrance. Daniel appeared behind them, one arm hanging useless at his side while he shoved two soldiers into the tunnel ahead of him.

The ward failed after he crossed. Stone and fire swallowed the entrance. Sam made a broken sound. Her fingers pressed against the mate mark at her throat.

A second later, she sagged against the table. “He’s alive.”

Lux touched my knee. “You saved them.”

I slumped into the chair, my body relaxing only a fraction.

I had spent my life serving coffee, delivering flowers, and taking up as little room as possible. Power had belonged to people whose names opened doors. People such as Lux. People who never wondered whether a rent payment would bounce because a manager cut four hours from the schedule. Now, eighty-six strangers were alive because I chose to use something growing inside me.

Mandi bent over the glowing ward key. “Could she charge my phone?”

“No,” Lux and I said together.

Kalon caught Lux when he tried to straighten and nearly fell over. That would have been funnier if I didn’t make the same mistake and nearly fell out of the chair and faceplanted on a stone floor.

Vale stared at Lux, then at me, then at the chair currently doing most of the work of keeping me vertical. “The Guard can hold the room. The ward is holding, Daniel is through, and neither of you are useful to me unconscious.”

“Flattering,” I muttered.

He rubbed the bridge of his swollen nose. “I have apparently been promoted from public relations to keeping two suicidal idiots alive long enough to address the city.”

Lux started to stand. Vale pointed at him. “No. Upstairs. Shower. Blood removal. Whatever medically questionable thing the two of you need to do in order for you to stop looking recently deceased.”

“You make it sound so inappropriate,” Lux teased.

Vale’s expression remained completely dead. “There will be a press briefing in an hour. I require both of you capable of standing vertically and wearing clothes by then.”

I managed to push myself upright. My legs immediately reconsidered. Lux caught my waist and swayed with me, and we both pretended that had gone better than it did.

Vale rubbed his temple. “An hour. I hate this job.”

Chapter 32

Liv

By the time the penthouse doors closed behind us, we were so exhausted the floor looked comfortable—and I mean really comfortable. Sirens moved through the city below us, the sound distant and distorted. Emergency lights washed the buildings in red and blue, then disappeared, then returned again.

Our fight was over, but someone needed to inform my nervous system, because fuck. I felt so messed up right now, and I couldn’t even begin to list the parts of me that were injured. My hands were still shaking, my breathing unsteady, though at least that was finally slowing.