Sophie Jordan - Vanish

“He needs a doctor,” I say.

“Later. After I deal with you two.”

“Look,” Cassian begins, stepping in front of me. “I don’t know what you think—”

“I think you need to shut up. I’m doing the talking here!” Xander grabs his shoulder. Big mistake.

Cassian growls, his skin flashing a glimmering charcoal. There’s a flurry of movement and then Xander’s on his back on the ground, his expression as stunned as the half dozen others gathered around us.

“Get him!” Xander shouts.

The others converge on Cassian. I scream, glimpsing Cassian’s face amid the hunters. I cringe at the smacking sounds of fists and move toward them, determined to help him, but hands restrain me.

An animal growl rumbles on the air. It’s Cassian. Several hunters hold him down. Angus grins as he plants a boot on his back. With his cheek pressed flat into asphalt, Cassian’s gaze locks on me. His dark eyes shudder, the pupils thinning to vertical slits.

Steaming air rushes past my lips, but I suppress it and shake my head, conveying for him to hold off, to wait, still believing, hoping we can talk our way out of this. That he doesn’t need to reveal himself as a draki, too. Maybe I can still protect him. Maybe he can make it out of here with Mom and Tamra.

The cold kiss of a gun digs into my ribs and I freeze. Mom cries out and I raise a hand, stopping her from doing anything foolish to help me. “Stay with Tamra, Mom. She needs you!”

Xander’s dark gaze roves over me contemptuously. “I know what the hell I saw. A freak with wings.”

It’s a battle not to let the fear swallow me in a fiery wash — a shock that I don’t shift into my draki skin right now.

“Jacinda,” Cassian shouts my name, renewing his struggles.

Xander keeps talking. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. It’s just a tranq gun. We’ll keep you alive and figure out what the hell you are.”

They’re beating Cassian now as he fights to get free.

“Stop!” I shove past Xander, but Angus blocks me. I watch in anguish as they keep kicking him. “Stop! Please, stop!” My heart twists. It’s them or us.

Fire erupts in my contracting lungs and climbs up my windpipe.

I can’t let them take us.

Before I can release the blazing breath, a sudden gust of cold swirls around me. An unnatural chill. I shiver against the swift change in temperature.

As I whirl around, my throat constricts at the sight of Tamra. She stands alone, Mom watching with wide eyes several feet behind her.

My sister’s face is dead pale, her eyes not her own anymore. Not like mine. The ice-gray chills my heart. A vapor rolls off her like steam. Except it’s cold. The frigid mist grows, swelling in an ever-expanding cloud around us.

She arches her body in a sinuous ripple, tearing at her blouse, ripping it in a fierce move with her hands. Hands that suddenly wink and glimmer with a lustrous pearly sheen.

I’ve only seen such color on one other soul. Another draki. Nidia: the shader of our pride. I watch as the roots of Tamra’s hair turn a silvery white that bleeds through the rest of her hair.

The vapor intensifies, a chilling mist that reminds me of home, of the fog that covers the township in a cool blanket. Shielding us from intruders, from any who would hunt and destroy us; obscuring the minds of those who stumble into our sanctuary.

“Tamra!” I reach for her, but Cassian’s there, free from his attackers, his strong arm pulling me back.

“Let her,” he says.

I glance at his face, recognize the deep, primal satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. He’s… glad . Happy at what’s happening. What can’t be happening. Tamra’s never manifested before. How can this happen now?

In the moment I look away, it’s done. By the time I look back to Tamra, she has risen several feet off the ground. Her gossamer wings snap behind her, the jagged tips peeking above her silvery shoulders.

“Tamra.” I breathe, absorbing the sight of her, grappling with this new reality. My sister’s a draki. After so long. After thinking we would never have this in common. More than that — she’s a shader.

Her eerily calm gaze sweeps over all of us on the road. Like she knows precisely what to do. And I guess she does. It’s instinct.

I can’t move as I watch her, both beautiful and terrifying with her shimmery skin, her hair leached of all pigment. She lifts her slim arms. Mist rushes over us like fast-burning smoke. So thick I can scarcely see my own hand before my face. The hunters are completely hidden, but I hear them as they holler and shout, bumping into one another, coughing, dropping onto the road like so many dominoes. First one, then another and another. Then nothing.

I strain for a sound in the sudden tomblike silence as Tamra’s fog does what it’s supposed to do and shades, shades, shades… everything in its path, every human nearby. Will .

I break away from Cassian and fight desperately through the cooling vapor that clouds both air and mind. Hunters sprawl at my feet, lowered by Tamra’s handiwork. I see nothing through the all-reaching mist; my arms swing wildly through the cold kiss of fog, groping, searching for the car where Will lies.

Then I see him slumped in the backseat of the car. The driver’s door yawns open, letting in the fog. The smoky haze curls around his sleeping form almost tenderly. For a moment I can’t move. Only stare, strangling on my own breath. Even bruised and battered, he’s beautiful.

Then action fires my limbs. I pull open the back door and reach for him. My shaking fingers brush his face and smooth back the honey strands of hair from his forehead. Like silk against my hand.

I jerk as Cassian roars my name. “Jacinda! We have to go! Now!”

And then he’s found me, drags me away toward our car. His other hand grips Tamra. He thrusts her at Mom. Her sparkly new body lights the desert night, cutting us a path through the great billowing mist.

Soon it will fade, evaporate. When Tamra’s gone. When we’ve escaped. The mist will fade. And with it, so will the hunters’ memories.

I’d once suggested to Tamra that her talent just hadn’t manifested yet. That she was simply a late bloomer. Even though I didn’t believe it, I’d said it. To give her hope. Even though, deep down, like the rest of the pride, I thought she was a defunct draki. Instead she’s one of the most rare and prized of our kind. Just like me.

Behind the wheel, Cassian guns the engine and then we’re shooting down the highway. I look behind us through the rear window at the great cloud of white. Will’s in there. My fingers dig against the seat cushion until I feel the worn fabric give and tear beneath the pressure. No, I can’t think about him now — it hurts too much.

My gaze drifts, brushes over the pale version of my sister, and I have to look away. Alarmed at the sight of my own twin, now as foreign to me as this desert.

I inhale a deep, shuddery breath. We’re going home, to mountains and mists and everything familiar. The one place it’s safe to be me. I’m going back to the pride.

The shrouded township of our pride rises almost magically on the hazy evening air. The narrow dirt road opens wider amid the towering, mist-laced trees and there it lies. Cassian sighs beside me and the tightness in my chest eases a bit. Home .

At first it simply looks like an imposing tangle of vine and bramble, but on closer inspection you can see that it’s actually a wall. Behind it, my world hides in safety. The only place I ever thought I could live. At least before Will.

A guard stands on duty at the arched entry. Nidia’s mist flows in a thick vapor around him. I recognize Ludo at once. One of Severin’s flunkies, an onyx draki that likes to flaunt his muscles. His eyes round when he sees us. Without a word, he takes off into the township.