The Awakening of Ren Crown Read Free Page B

clearly again. It was the guy with the beautiful masculine voice. Michelangelo’s David would sound like this.
    I tried to choke out the words for him to help Christian, but only liquid bubbled up.
    I used every last resource I possessed to slowly curl my hand and touch the boy's fingers at my wrist. The pressure of his fingers increased minutely at the touch. I tried to tell him to help my brother, but I couldn't remember how to make my lips work anymore.
    “I can barely tell it's human under the blood.” The older man sounded extremely disinterested. “Broken nose, shattered cheekbones, but she does have long hair. Girl chose the wrong boyfriend. Poor mongrels.”
    “She is as human as we are, Uncle.” The boy's lovely voice radiated disapproval.
    The older man sighed. “The scanner is dead and soon she will be too. Let her find peace,” the older voice said dismissively. “You don't waste reserves on ordinaries when you don't know who might be watching for the right opportunity to strike. If only the scanner was working.”
    “Maybe she isn't ordinary. I've never felt such a linger in the air.”
    “These scavengers are foot soldiers only—boy probably had more magic than they could deal with—bet they leaked his magic everywhere, or else we'd have found it in a container. Still...check her wrist.”
    I felt my wrist lifted.
    “Nothing. Her skin is clear,” he said. He carefully laid my arm back down. “But she feels...” His voice trailed off.
    “Mother would heal her,” the boy said, as if to himself. “She wouldn't care that she was ordinary.”
    “She would care if it hurt you . You are crouching there as if that girl is the first soon-to-be dead person you've ever seen. Help me finish tying up these scumbags.”
    The boy stood and the heat from his hand lifted with him. Everything became cold, painful, and hazy again.
    The night sky was circling. I...was at the planetarium with Christian? Any moment now there would be music and a laser show. But the manager and lighting technicians couldn't agree on something. I could hear the buzz of their furious whispers. Then someone was once again next to me, kneeling and putting a hand on my arm, and I felt some semblance of clarity, along with relief that his hand was touching me again.
    A sigh issued from somewhere far to my left. “Fine. Do it, if you must. A tiny amount only. I'll transport these to Processing.”
    The hand moved to my chest. Something like strangled laughter and blood bubbled from my chest and up my throat with the thought of telling Christian that I couldn't even appreciate my first experience getting to second base.
    Christian .
    Heat centered in the hand pressing against my chest, and something electric and white hot shot through me.
    The electricity connected and something in me—that part that felt neutralized, like a sleeping dragon—pulled greedily, demanding treasure and gold, knitting it together and throwing swashes of energy through my limbs like paint splattering a canvas. And all of a sudden, all I could see was blue. Two circles of ultramarine, the color straight from the deepest shade of The Last Judgment . Staring into those eyes, a winged henna design sketched itself slowly in my mind.
    “Their police are coming.” The older man's voice was flat. Sirens whined in the distance. “They will take care of her, if she lives, and—”
    Her, not them .
    I flipped myself like a flopping fish, then dragged my body toward my brother's unmoving form, arm over arm. There was no pain this time, and I could use my left arm again, but it felt like I was moving through sludge. Like in a dream. A nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.
    “It—she's moving.” The older man's voice sounded disbelieving. “How much did you use, Ax?”
    “Half,” he answered.
    The older man sounded like he was choking. “Half...what were you thinking, Alexander ? You are not indestructible, regardless of what you and everyone else