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SMACK!

I felt the sting across my right cheek, causing my face to go flying to the left. “Ouch!” I opened my eyes.

It was daylight. The sound of constant gunfire and the thunderous, muted booms of bombs out in the distance invaded my ears. I heard the continued scream of people and children crying, as the smell of smoke and ash drowned out my sense of smell.

“Mara!” I looked and saw Jacob hovering over me. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I slapped you, but we’ve got to go. We’ve got to go right now!” I heard the urgency in his voice as I blinked several times, completely confused.

“But where are the hounds?”

“What?”

“A hellhound attacked me,” I muttered, my mind trying to piece together what just happened.

Jacob grimaced as he looked at me in pity. “There are no hounds, Mara.”

“But—I saw it.” Oh my god, was I hallucinating?

“There aren’t any hounds, Mara,” he said, voice somber. “But we’ve got to go.” He grabbed my good arm and slowly hoisted me to my feet.

What the hell just happened to me?I shook my head, and suddenly, I was aware of the pain in my arm again. The constant throb and ache. And then I remembered the bomb in the shop, which was confirmed by a quick glance at the store that was burning from the inside out.

“But the grenade,” I mumbled, still trying to piece it all together.

Jacob worked furiously, pulling out gauze from his bag and wrapping my arm up. “They were going to have me cornered, so I ran into the back of the store and found a back entrance to the alley. I wasn’t in the shop when the grenade exploded.”

I looked around, seeing the two officers that had been attacking Jacob on the ground, and then I saw the third one on the floor by my feet. Is that what hit me? The Enforcement officer? But the hellhound…

“It was so real,” I whispered. “The hound was so real.”

Jacob finished wrapping my arm and slung his bag on his back before cupping my cheek. “I know…it was like it was really there, right?”

Tears blurred my vision. Was I going insane? This was the third time something like this had happened to me. “Am I going crazy?” I looked at my brother, staring into his scuffed-up face and bright blue eyes.

“No,” he cooed. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. They’re just flashbacks. Bad memories that feelreallyreal. I’ll help you with them, but we can’t do it right now. We’ve got to get to the REGfast, okay? Just stay focused on me. And if you see another hellhound, just remember that it’sjusta memory, a bad nightmare. It’s not real, okay? Just a memory.”

I nodded.

It was a memory…just my mind playing tricks on me. I took a deep breath as I blinked, trying to get my head back in the game. Back intothisbattle,thiscurrent fight for my life.

“Attagirl,” he whispered as he planted a kiss on my forehead. “We’re almost there.” Then he took my hand and pulled me forward. REG Command was only a block away.

79: Everything

The street in front of the REG building was empty, and there was nothing but abandoned cars in the parking lot. It was a seven story, square building with nothing but tinted windows reflecting the outside. The main entrance had a long red carpet with a champagne-colored canopy that stretched the length of it. The emblem of the Telvian crest, along with “R.E.G.” underneath it, was stitched onto the fabric at the front end, proudly announcing that this was the Rebel Enforcement Group Command.

“We’ve gotta hurry, Mara,” Jacob shouted over his shoulder as he ran up the red carpet and pulled open the glass door.

Inside was a large lobby, bedecked in golds, reds, and white marbles. Plush waiting chairs, several plastic plants in pots, and ornate end tables filled the space. The red carpet continued through the lobby, past four elevators—two on either side—and ending at a large, circular check-in desk.

It was empty.

“No,” Jacob whispered as he slowed his pace. Then he repeated more forcibly, “No, no,no!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Everyone’s gone. It’s been evacuated already.”

A grim sense of doom curled into my belly, but I cleared my throat and tried to be optimistic. “What floor is the lab on? Maybe they focused on getting the people out and didn’t worry about the tech?”