I have to clamp down hard on the urge to run like everyone else. I keep my position and put heavy-duty earplugs in my ears, leaving my noise-canceling headphones around my neck. I see others doing the same around the edges of the stage, the rafters, and the suspension cables.

‘Two . . .’

There are too many people rushing in the same direction. The hideout lattices we set up can only handle so many people below the bridge. It’s utter chaos, with everyone running and screaming.

‘One . . .’

As the crowd drains, they leave behind camouflaged gunmen who scramble into position.

A cloud of locusts swoops in from the mist faster than I expect in a flurry of stingers and teeth.

Locusts?

Where are the angels?

Chapter 59

59

Shots blast into the locust swarm, but we might as well be shooting at the clouds for all the good it does. The locusts must have been attracted to the lights and sound that were meant for angels.

They’re landing on all fours around us. Gunfire shoots off everywhere as the ground crew kicks into action.

I pull out my knives just as a locust drops down from the sky in front of me. Its stinger looms over its head and jabs at me.

My arms automatically come up. I slice and stab. I’d give anything for Pooky Bear right now.

That thought makes me all the more vicious. I voluntarily gave Raffe his sword back.

I slice again.

The stinger whips out of the way of my blade.

The scorpion in front of me is doing its best to kill me. It’s moving its stinger so fast I have to wonder if it was a tap dancer in its previous life.

I’m drenched in sweat in seconds as I evade and try to fight at the same time. These little knives aren’t going to do anything but annoy it.

I spin to the side and give it my fastest side kick. My foot slams into its knee with a crunch.

The locust screeches and leans to the side as its knee breaks.

I bend low and swipe the other leg. The monster crashes down.

‘Stop!’ My sister runs to the middle of the bridge flanked by her pet locusts, yelling at everyone around her.

It’s a war zone with bullets zinging by, and she still runs out in the middle of all the chaos with her arms out. My legs almost give out at the sight of her.

‘Stop!’

I’m not sure who stops first – our fighters or the locusts – but both sides pause to look at her. Hope and wonder rise in me as I watch my sister stopping a bloody battle with just her conviction.

I don’t know what she would have done next, because a huge locust lands beside Paige.