“Go!” Shane yells, slamming into me. “Go!”
I run, sprinting for the packed dance floor. It will be easy to get lost in the mass of revelers, and with the near-deafening music and all the tech in this room, the fae will be disoriented.
We have to jump down from the side of the stage to the floor. I catch a quick glimpse of the band as I do. The bassist, a tall, skinny guy covered in tats, is headbanging as he plays. A cord runs from his bass to the equipment behind him, a cord that, apparently, a remnant doesn’t see. It rips out of the instrument as the fae trips over it. The last thing I see before I shove into the crowd is a baffled look on the human’s face.
“Go! Go!” Shane yells, shoving me deeper into the crowd. I’m trying, but the place is packed. I slip between two dancing girls, then look over my shoulder.
Shane’s gone. I have no idea where, but I keep moving, trying to get to the center of the dance floor. Everyone is pushing and dancing and not making it at all easy for me to get anywhere. Somehow, I end up near the front of the theater. I look up at the stage, see a remnant standing there. He’s in fae clothing and holding a sword as he scans the crowd. I have to assume he’s invisible since security isn’t doing anything to remove him.
I think I might be safe where I am. I can’t see the fae spotting me here. When the concert ends, I can file out with the crowd. I should be able to avoid the remnants.
If I survive the concert.
Despite the cool air outside, it’s hot in here. I can barely breathe in this mass of people. My nose wrinkles when someone lights up something that’s definitely not a cigarette nearby. The smoke gets into my lungs, makes them itch.
Suddenly the song ends. The lights go out. The crowd becomes a sea of lit-up cell phones and…
A flash of blue lightning strikes across a face, right in front of me.
I reach for the dagger hidden under my shirt while I back up, pushing against the crowd as hard as I can, but the crowd pushes back. I can’t get the dagger free. The remnant doesn’t have the same problem. When the lights flash back on, they glint off the short steel blade in his hand. He stabs toward my stomach, but at that exact moment, the crowd reacts, surging around us and making the fae miss.
Miss me. Not the girl who’s tripped into the space I just occupied. Her scream is lost under the fierce, pounding notes of the next song. She collapses to her knees. Instinctively, I reach out to help her, but everyone is still moving, shoving back at people who shoved them.
I manage to grab the girl’s elbow. I’m pulling her up and looking for the remnant at the same time. Someone shoved him. Unintentionally, I think, since it’s obvious no one else can see him. He shoves back, then his eyes lock on me once again.
I need to run—the fae won’t miss me a second time—but if I can somehow get the girl to Aren, he can save her.
“Come on!” I have to yell at the girl so that she can hear me over the music.
She takes one step, then her knees buckle. I strain to keep her on her feet, but her arm slips from my grasp. No one else helps her. They don’t notice the blood soaking her clothes.
The remnant is only a pace away. That’s when the anger takes over. Anger at the unfairness of the girl’s impending death and the brutal torture of the Sighted humans in the building next door. With a scream that nobody hears under the roaring music, I attack the remnant.
It’s clear he doesn’t expect it. There’s a moment of shock in his expression as I ram into him, my fingers reaching for his silver eyes. My nails scrape down the side of his face instead.
I scramble for the hand that was holding his dagger a moment before, but can’t find the weapon. I look at the cement floor to see if he dropped it, but he grabs a fistful of my hair. He jerks my head down, brings his knee up.
Tiny glints of silver dance through the air. Stars, I think, as he slams his knee into my face again.
When my vision clears, I’m on my hands and knees, still alive somehow. Breathing makes my face hurt, but I draw in the hot, smoke-tainted air and look up. Aren is here. He’s wrestling with the fae. Neither of them has his weapon in hand; they’re trying to kill each other with their fists.
Aren dives for the remnant’s knees, gets underneath him, then lifts. I think he intends to body slam the other man, but the fae gets his arm around Aren’s neck, throwing him off-balance. They fall recklessly into the crowd, taking two guys down with them. The humans can’t see what happened; they have no idea what’s going on, but they make assumptions. The first guy throws a fist at the second. Someone jumps in to help, and all of a sudden, the whole place becomes one giant mosh pit.
When someone steps on my shoulder, I realize I’m going to be crushed if I don’t get back to my feet. I stagger forward, half crawling, half standing until I trip over the girl the remnant stabbed. She’s still breathing. Still crying.
Grabbing her arm, I heave up. I have her halfway to her feet when an elbow to the ribs sends a sharp pain down my side. I’m shoved back to the ground. I make an effort to get up again, but people are stepping on the edge of my open coat, pinning me down. The crowd presses in, and the gap I once occupied disappears.
I can’t breathe. Someone steps on me, then someone else. I’m lying on top of the girl, almost cheek to cheek with her. Her eyes are open, glassy. A reckless foot kicks her head. She doesn’t blink or cry out.
The screams from the crowd are actual screams now. I manage to slip out of my coat, then try to get off the ground yet again, but there are too many people around me, on top of me. I’m going to be trampled to death.
Then I’m wrenched back to my feet. I look over my shoulder, expecting to see Aren. It’s not him. It’s a human. Someone I don’t know and who doesn’t know me. Just a random stranger saving my life. I want to thank him, to make sure he gets out of this okay, but I lose sight of him when the crowd surges again. We’re all converging on the exit, an exit that’s far too small to accommodate this many people. Everyone’s screaming and yelling and shoving and pushing. No one will make it out that way.
I shove backward and sideways at the same time, manage to slip through the thinnest gap in the crowd. Adrenaline and a desperate urge to survive are fueling me now. Everyone’s trying to escape the club, so the farther I get into it, the less resistance I meet.
To my left, a trio of girls have broken a window. They’re climbing out of it. I start to head that way when something on the stage catches my eye.
Paige.
A fae has a sword in one hand, my friend in the other. He wrestles her behind the thick, black stage curtain.
“Paige!” I scream, even though I know she can’t hear me. I don’t see any other fae in the club. They could easily have fissured out, so I run, jumping on the stage and sprinting for the split in the curtain where I saw them disappear.
There’s an exit back here. I run through it, scan up and down the street. I don’t see Paige or the remnant, just humans, some who were obviously in the club and others who are watching the rest of us spill out the exits. Some of the women are sobbing. The men look disoriented, too, and the sound of sirens grows louder as the authorities respond to the scene.
Then I hear something else, something I’ve heard far too much lately: the sound of fae fighting.
It’s coming from a side road to my left. I run that way, stop at the corner of the building to peek around its edge. Trev brought back help. He and Aren and at least ten other rebels are fighting an equal number of remnants.
“McKenzie!”
I turn to see Paige sprinting toward me. Before she reaches me, fissures open up all around us.
“Paige!” I scream when a remnant appears out of a slash of light right next to her. She doesn’t blink or swerve away from the fae. Normal humans can’t see the battle taking place in the middle of a London street; she has no idea how close her enemy is.