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“Mira and I kind of came up with one. We have a blanket that suppresses power. We were thinking one of us could throw it on him so I could ’port him somewhere.”

“Where? You’d have to have a destination in a thirty-mile radius, right? Isn’t that your range? What if you’re in Times Square? You going to drop the two of you in the bay?”

“Or Rome could knock him out,” I offered, only half joking.

“That might be the better option,” Chessie muttered. “If Kerry’s erupting, he won’t be happy with you ambushing him with a blanket and teleporting him. He might hurt you, and you wouldn’t have anyone nearby to help.”

“I’d drop him off and go back for Jax. So long as Kerry doesn’t have his shield up, Jax can hold him.”

Poor Gigi’s face was so earnest, I didn’t want to disillusion her, but Chessie was right. Kerry would hurt her. When he calmed down, he’d regret it, and Jax would never forgive him, but Gigi would still be hurt.

Or worse.

“I’ll talk to Rome,” I promised. “He’s full of good ideas when it comes to strategy and stuff.

Does he know about the blanket?” “I don’t know.

” Gigi turned wide blue eyes to me. “Kerry found it in the field after the ambush. Things were chaotic, and I don’t remember much.

Rome was unconscious when I ’ported back with Travis, but he woke up at some point.

I remember him walking to the motel, anyway. ”

“Well, I’ll make him aware that you have it.” I smiled at both of them. “Most likely, we’re worrying about nothing. I bet he already has a plan.”

#

Rome

When the ladies came back to the living room, Gigi introduced us to the new girl. Well, tried to.

“So, guys, this is Chessie. Chessie, this is Rome.” Gigi waved her hand at me. “He’s a warrior, which I think is rather obvious.”

I stayed seated so my size didn’t intimidate her.

“Hello,” I offered.

Instant wall. I could almost see it. She gave me a tiny nod and moved a half step closer to Mira.

I get that sort of response from about half the people I meet, so I’m used to it and let it roll off me.

When she reacted the same way to Chance, though, I paid more attention.

“And this is Chance.” Gigi pointed to him. “He’s the one you’ll be working with. He’s a healer.”

“Nice to meet you.” Chance smiled.

And Chessie disappeared behind Mira.

My eyebrows flew up.

I’d been best friends with Chance since ninth grade and, let me tell you, everywhere we went, girls tripped over themselves trying to get him to notice them. How odd that this one would hide from him.

Maybe she was a haughty princess who thought no one was worthy of her. Or maybe she was a quiet mouse with a crippling degree of shyness.

Then again, I thought with a sigh, knowing most nephs’ background, she’s probably a survivor of some horrible trauma.

I felt sorry for her, but at least it was Chance’s problem this time and not mine.

#

Mira

I didn’t understand why Chessie was hiding behind me. I wondered if she was shy or had issues meeting strangers. Since I had some issues myself, I figured I could be her bulwark. It cost me nothing to help her, but her silence was stretching and making everyone shuffle and fidget.

Then Kerry came into the room.

“You meet everyone, Chess?” he asked. She musta nodded because he said, “Good. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go pick up my ride so you two can take off.”

More silence, and Kerry didn’t seem interested in breaking it. He merely walked past us, went over to the window, and flicked the drape aside to look out.

All right, then.

“That’s it!” Jax jumped to his feet. “I can’t wait any longer!”

“Then go to the bathroom already,” Gigi teased him.

“Hardy har har, Gi.” Jax made a face at her. “No, I want everyone to see my video from City of the Future.”

“Can you watch this, Kerry?” I looked over at him.

“I was the one doing it at the time.” He wore a duh face.

“I think she’s afraid you’ll remember why you did it,” Rome said, “and we’ll have front-row seats to the encore.”

“I’m fine.”

I smiled at the sight of his scowling face, then glanced at Rome only to catch him staring at me.

I held his gaze despite my warm cheeks until Jax, having hooked his phone up to the television, hit play and the footage he’d shot appeared on the big screen.

We formed a half-circle around the screen and, by mutual agreement, Rome and I stayed standing side-by-side in the back. Kerry joined us.

“Sucks always being the tallest, doesn’t it?” I smiled cheerfully.

Both of them grunted.

At first, it was a nauseatingly jumpy view of a river, then a grassy bank, but it steadied and I could hear Jax’s breathing as he focused in on Kerry.

I shuddered as I watched. A blue tornado of power rose above the treetops and sent silver lightning to grab djinn and pull them in. In the center of the twister, I could barely make out the shape I knew was Kerry.

On the screen, Rome and I ran toward the camera, our hands held tight, and we slid into the ditch with the others. Everyone shouted over the deafening wind and sounds of destruction as Kerry lifted the tornado to rest in his hands and held all that Divine power as easily as I did a wrench.

I lifted nervous eyes up to Rome, who looked down at me and grimaced.

Yeah. All of us together wouldn’t be able to stop Kerry if he went supernova.

“Everybody down!” I heard Hank Bishop, Kerry’s warden, screaming on the video, and I flicked my eyes back to the screen.

Kerry narrowed the twister into a solid cylinder and the crashing winds stopped, the silence enormous after all the noise. When he called the power down, it whooshed into his cupped palms and formed a large ball. I could barely make out the squashed figures inside and hear their terrible wailing.

“I have a message for your masters!” he bellowed. “You tell those sons of whores there’s nowhere they can hide from me!”

He pushed his hands closer together and the ball shrank a few sizes. A series of loud pops made me grimace.

“Oh, this is— This is epic,” Jax said on the video.

Gigi screamed at him to take cover with them, then Kerry was talking again.

“I’ll find them again and, when I do, I’ll kill them and any who stand with them!”

Kerry crushed the ball down even more, this time accompanied by squishing noises. Against my will, my mind filled the image of bodies turning into the consistency of toothpaste.

“Blech!” I couldn’t hold back the chill that shook me.

Kerry’s mouth kept moving on the screen, but Jax’s phone hadn’t caught the words this time.

“What are you saying?” Chessie leaned closer to the television.

“Never mind,” he muttered. “None of that was for any of you to hear, anyway.”

On the video, he shook like a leaf in a hurricane, but managed to smash the sphere down to a golf ball. Holding it in his palms, he whispered something, then smashed it.

Everything on the screen went crazy, flashing from the sky to the river to the grass and up to the metal roof I’d slammed into the bank to make a deflection shield. A blinding white burst filled the screen and the video ended.

“And to think,” Gigi murmured, “guys like Noah Farley and Cole Fanishell tormented you at school. I don’t think they ever realized that you could have crushed them in seconds.”

“Yeah, like one of those martial arts movies where the main character enters the ring and bam bam, bam,” Jax made three quick jabs, “the enemy falls down dead.”

The others continued in the same vein, and I wasn’t surprised to see how blank Kerry’s face was. He didn’t play. Not even a little. He’d done what he’d felt he needed to do. Period. Gigi’s astonishment at his capacity for brutality meant as little to him as Jax’s admiration of it.

As for me, after watching that video, I realized how lucky I was to have met him before I’d joined the hunting party at City of the Future.