Chapters (42)
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT PAGE
- DEDICATION PAGE
- CONTENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I fought wildly, even as my wrist bent at a horribly unnatural angle and made me see stars. I opened my mouth to scream, but another hand closed over my face. This time, I bucked forward, caught a finger between my teeth, and bit down hard, choking on blood as a roar of pain filled my ears. I spit blood and flesh onto the asphalt. Teeth sank into my neck in the next moment, and I was lurched backward away from the others by the enraged Mazikin whose finger I’d just amputated.
“No!” shouted a voice behind me.
It wasn’t Malachi. Or Jim. Or Ian.
It was my mother. Or, at least, the Mazikin who wore her skin.
She tackled the Mazikin who’d chomped on me, and I fell to the ground, my neck and shoulder throbbing and buzzing. I lifted my head to see the Rita Santos–Mazikin struggling with one of the men from the homeless camp, the burly drywall guy who’d been putting the moves on the skinny waitress. He stumbled away from my mother, scowling. She leaped to her feet and threw her head back, meeting my eyes. Her wild hair flew around her face. She put out her hand. “Come.”
“No fucking way,” I snarled, rolling clumsily to my feet. The sounds of battle were still coming from the back of the SUV. Only twenty feet or so away. Most of the Mazikin were focusing their efforts there, probably to distract Malachi and Jim from what was happening. I drew a sharp breath into my lungs.
“Guards!” I yelled.
“Estúpido!” she screeched, and then lunged for me, grunting and growling in the Mazikin language at her pals, who leaped on me like a hungry wolf pack. I kicked out with my heels, jabbing, throwing hard punches with my good hand. Nearby, I could hear Malachi shouting something, but I couldn’t make out his words over the snarls of my attackers.
And then—I had an opening. I hit the Rita-Mazikin’s chin with a blow hard enough to send her head snapping back, jerked my knee up and struck the drywaller in the balls, and head-butted the toothless woman. I staggered away from them, my chest heaving, trying to summon the strength for their next strike.
The sound of squealing tires drew my head up.
The Mazikin van didn’t have time to stop.
It hit me head-on.
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-TWO
MY WORLD EXPLODED IN a nuclear blast of pain, and then it all went away. I didn’t remember hitting the asphalt. All I knew was it didn’t hurt. When I opened my eyes, my mother was leaning over me, stroking my face, tears falling from her cheeks, making me think it was raining.