The Awakening of Ren Crown Read Free

power lines toward Christian.
    He pulled me behind a short, square building.
    Why were we stopping? I quickly signed at him— plan? I had been in enough paintball fights at his side—staying in one position eventually meant death. But there weren't enough structures for us to move stealthily between. Why were we here ? The street chase was far more in our favor.
    He motioned with his glowing fingers to signal that he was going to jump the men when they came near. I signed back a quick negative with a few added expletives that we had added to the code years ago.
    But there was a focused mania in his eyes. “I don't know what this is, but I can do anything right now, Ren. I can feel it.”
    “What?” I hissed, grabbing his arm, the terror of being discovered combining with panic at his uncharacteristic behavior. Some of the mania in his eyes immediately lessened at the skin contact, but the focus remained.
    He squeezed my hand. “Run. I won't let them hurt you.”
    “Hands at your sides.” A man stepped out of the deep shadows cast by the main tower. There was malevolence in his very movement. “Your type is so predictable, always looking for energy. Boy, put your hands against your sides now . Girl, come here . Clean and easy. There's no escape now.”
    The four other men appeared, surrounding our position. One of them was limping, his expression full of rage.
    Christian stepped in front of me and the electric field between his fingers grew stronger.
    “You don't want to do that, boy.” The man lifted something dark and barreled.
    I lunged at Christian's back at the same time that he half-turned, grabbed me, and threw me to the side as easily as tossing a child's stuffed animal. Something cracked in my right forearm as it hit the edge of the building and spun me around.
    A deafening blast immediately hit the place where we had been.
    As I fell back in horror, I could see Christian dodging left, then lightning lit from his fingers and three of the men went flying. The man from the shadows raised his gun toward me.
    Christian's arm reached out, and a wave of something warm and protective shot from his fingers into my chest.
    Then something pulsed, blinding me, filling my vision with crimson. Lights exploded and detonations rocked the universe.
    Everything in my world went end over end, and I slammed face down onto concrete.
    Blackness. All I saw was blackness.
    Darkness blurred. Faint shapes formed. My cheek was pressed oddly to the hard ground, and dark red streams streaked away from me.
    I tried to move. My cheek wouldn't lift. My neck wouldn't lift. My vision was streaked red.
    I told my neck to move. My lips tried to repeat the command, soundless, something wet upon them.
    On my fifth blink, my vision returned. There was a strange absence of light, only the stars and crescent moon casting any at all. Power lines and towers lay in pieces around me. No electricity arced—as if the entire supply had all been used. There were six bodies lying twenty yards away. One slowly, painfully, rose—becoming a large shadow hovering above the others. The rising figure gave one of the motionless bodies a kick.
    The shape and hair of the kicked body registered, and I instinctively rejected all emotion.
    He was so still, splayed like a carelessly tossed doll. I had never seen Christian like that. Not even after being blindsided by a spectacular sack.
    Protectiveness and primal panic surged.
    I struggled to push upright, blackness completely overtaking my vision, pain radiating through my head. I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, then forced my too heavy head to still and my vision to clear.
    My view of the obliterated lot wobbled with my success. I tried to move my left arm, but it wasn't working, so I stretched out my right and pulled myself forward. Eighteen feet away. Seventeen and a half. Seventeen. Just a little more.
    Each pull scraped a layer of the void away from my mind and a layer of skin from my useless left arm, and my