Kaye’s eyes widened, the others looking at me as though I had spoken gibberish. I may as well have. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it in my dreams. If I hadn’t seen myself teach Joclyn to fly.

The admission had my magic erupting in a powerful torrent that rushed through me. A breeze played around my toes, the memory of throwing Nastya away from me all those years ago replaying softly in the back of my mind.

I couldn’t stop the grin.

“But bullets…” Kaye said, her voice a soft reminder of my fear, and perhaps my limitations.

“Maybe I am bulletproof, Kaye,” I said, my smile growing as the eager joy spread. “There is no better time to find out.”

Kaye’s smile rose to join mine, the grin spreading just as wide as she realized what was about to happen.

“We need to get through whatever is on the other side of this rise,” her voice was hoarse as she nodded her head toward the gunfire just on the other side. “If we can get through that then it should be a straight shot to the border.”

Magic swelling inside of me, I nodded once before closing my eyes, letting the power swell into the air.

Me following right behind.

The men and women in Kaye’s group began to shout in shock, their voices drowned out by the wind as it picked me up, my body wobbling and shaking as I worked to control it.

“Focus only on the wind. Focus on its movement, on its warmth. Focus on how your magic will bring it to you.” My own words whispered through memory, the phrasing unknown to me, although I knew at once what it was talking about.

So I obeyed.

My body began to stabilize as I closed my eyes, magic swelling further as more and more of the drugs began to wear off.

Smiling, I hovered before the group, all of them in differing states of awe and fear, all except for Kaye. Kaye stood beneath me with the widest smile on her face, the sheer joy out of place as she stood against the rubble.

“Be ready,” I said, only waiting for Kaye to nod her head in acknowledgment before I took off, soaring over the remains of the old building and toward the fight below.

About twenty black-clad soldiers marched below me, their chests all stamped with the sinister star that I now abhorred. Cleaners.

The Cleaners were closing in on a small group of what looked like civilians, the small group of disheveled militia taking stock of their weapons from behind a rise even smaller than the one Kaye and her people were behind.

The rebels were the ones to see me first, their shock and fear rising as they began to lift their weapons. It was only when Kaye and her men ran over the rise that they calmed, but the quiet was short lived.

The Cleaners turned at the noise, gun pointed toward Kaye before one after another they caught sight of me, hovering above them. Judging by the looks on their faces, even without my hair, they knew exactly who I was.

Guns shaking, they lifted them to the sky, twenty black muzzles pointed right at me.

In a staccato explosion of sound the guns exploded, tiny blasts of flame shooting from the mouths as a dozen bullets cut through the air.

Right toward me.  

Stealing my courage, I shoved my hands forward, heart pounding as an absolute wave of yellow erupted from my fingers. The wall of magic spread away from me like a net, little sparks of red popping against the color as the bullets were devoured. As everything was devoured. Soldiers screamed as they scattered like ants, the one man who couldn’t leave fast enough turning to ash as the magic met him.

Shouts of fear and awe echoed around the clearing as both sides saw what happened. Rebels took off running, soldiers scattered to a new formation as they were joined by others, the black-clad army breaking through the trees. The Cleaners formed a wide circle as they surrounded me on all sides, necks craned toward me as their guns rose as one. With a single snap of a command, bullets soared from all directions, hurtling through the air toward me.

This wasn’t the one-sided barrage I had been hit with before. I couldn’t engulf everything in flames to stop it, the rebels were still there, sneaking through the rubble toward the city, Kaye and a few others picking off The Cleaners one by one.

With a sharp inhale I pressed the power away from me, creating a wave that I hoped would knock out bullets and Cleaners. While I heard screams of pain, saw the faint pops of light as bullets exploded, I couldn’t get them all. The bullets kept coming.

Bringing my magic to me, I let it swallow me as I tried in vain to recreate the shield I had felt in memory before. Keeping the moment as I ran through the burning forest with Joclyn clear in my mind, I tried to replicate the magic, replicate the feeling.

I was almost successful.

The clear barrier rippled in light and air as each bullet hit it, sending the now flat disks falling to the ground. All but one. The single bullet ripped through the barrier before it ripped through my flesh, the sound of my magic disintegrating a faint pop before it was drowned by my scream.

The agony was one I had felt so often that the scream was almost wasted, except for the fact that I was now tumbling to the ground, limbs twisting as I desperately attempted to focus my magic through the pain, to protect myself from a devastating impact.

Wind surrounded me in a rush, billowing around me as it tried to lift it up, only to have the sensation quickly replaced by that of a rock hard ground slamming against my bones. The agony increased as the pain spread, my own stubbornness rising up as I quickly clamped my lips around the scream, refusing to let it escape.

“Jan!” Kaye’s scream ripped through the pulses of gunfire as she rushed to my side, sliding against rubble and dirt in her attempt to reach me faster.

Dirt sprayed over me, but that was hardly my biggest worry.

I reached in vain for the bullet that was no lodged in my back, the foreign object pulsing painfully against me as my body attempted to heal.

“Take it out,” I gasped as my awkward fingers slipped over blood and fabric, trying to claw at the skin.

I would rid myself apart to get it out if I had to.

“Layno,” Kaye swore, her voice agitated as she rolled me onto her lap. My lungs heaved as I lay over her legs, my ragged breathing increasing as she ripped the back of my shirt open. “I don’t have tweezers, Jan. This is going to hurt.”

“Just get it out!” I yelled, my voice similar to the commands that I gave so often in my dreams.

Thankfully, she didn’t wait.

After one shaky exhale, her fingers pressed against the jagged opening of my skin, preparing for the deep dive.

“This area is clear, Kaye,” A voice said, the crunching of rocks and dirt signaling the arrival of one her soldiers, and the end of the Cleaners. “We can mo… what are you doing?”

The voice had gone from calm to panic faster than I could count. Which I couldn’t because all my focus was on getting this thing out of my back.

“Removing the bullet,” Kaye said matter of factly, a new pain beginning to ripple over me as she began to rip and claw at my flesh.  

“What?” The man was aghast, his outrageous fear giving me something to focus on. “Do not do that here! Bind him! He could bleed out.”

I pinched my eyes shut as the pain grew, clenching my jaw in defiance as Kaye worked harder, pulling at skin in an attempt to get at the bullet that was lodged in me.

“No, he won’t,” Kaye said, her patience was strained as she continued to work, the warmth of my own blood clear as it began to pour down my back.

“But he…”

“Got it,” Kaye interrupted the man, the pressure growing for one brief moment before it began to lessen, my back feeling like it was being suctioned before the weight was gone, fingers and bullet no longer blocking my magic from what it did best.

“What…” The question stopped short with the weird clicking noise the man made as I stood, the last drop of blood rolling down my back as the wound began to close.

“Thank you, Kaye,” I whispered, turning toward her with a nod that right then, with all we had gone through, was not enough.

“I forgot how tall you were,” she said with a smile, forcing out a chuckle as she shifted her weight uncomfortably. I couldn’t help but laugh at that, the sound rich and loud, and decidedly out of place for the war zone we were in.

Even with the time and growth that had passed, Kaye still only came to my chest bone. Just like Joclyn.

Joclyn.

“We have to move,” I said, that same commanding tone coming on strong.

I didn’t even try to restrain it, and no one questioned it. I was right, after all, we were so close to the border, to freedom.

I was so close to finding her.

“Right,” Kaye said, taking her phone out of her pocket as she pointed to a cluster of old buildings right before a tree line to our left. “The border is just beyond those trees there. If we get into the trees we should be free. The Hungarians have been sympathetic to our plight from what I have read.”

“Let’s hope that holds true,” one of the men from the truck said, checking his weapons.

Kaye only nodded.

“I will fly above, as a sentry, if you will,” I added, something about the commands I was giving comforting. “If we head straight through the homes to the left I think we will be okay. There may be fewer places for the enemy to hide.” I pointed, many of them following the line as they nodded their heads in agreement. Kaye, however, looked right at me with a look that screamed with an awe so familiar that my soul rebelled against it, the motion twisting and turning in my gut so strong that it was all I could do not to step away.

“Just stay together,” I finished lamely, the words choking awkwardly as I realized where I had seen that look before.

In Joclyn, in my dreams.

No.

That look did not belong on her.

It was then that I did step away.

“Go,” I said as her face fell, taking off into the air before her or anyone else could say another word.

The rebels organized far below me, checking guns and ammo as they began their sprint toward the houses, picking up weapons off the soldiers as they moved. I stayed above them, heart clenching tightly as Kaye looked up to me, the concern clear on her face before it was swallowed by walls and buildings.

They moved into the houses in a double line, each side continually monitoring alleys and streets and windows as they moved through them. While the motions were awkward and unpracticed I could see a skill there, the technique wrought in the determination to survive.

Pulling my focus from the group, I let my magic swell, the power keeping me airborne as I prepared for an attack, or a bomb, or anything else that could foil our plan.

I wouldn’t let that happen. I needed to get them to safety. Kaye needed her freedom, and I would do anything to give that to her.

Magic pulsing as loud as my heart beat in my ears, I let out a shaky breath, letting the expulsion swallow the anxiety.

Although the edge of the city and the start of the forest was growing closer, those below were slowing down. Their pace slower, breathing slower.

That couldn’t be right.

Not this close.

They should be running.

They were, I realized with a start, they were running. I was the one who was slowing down. I was the one who was falling behind.

My magic waned as a residual wave of the medicine ran through me. Head spinning, I lost a foot of height, magic shifting as I struggled to keep control.

As I struggled to bring it back.

Just as the air broke with gunfire.

Faint pops broke through the fog that surrounded me, one coming right after another as the assault came right at me. My sluggish magic barely kept me in the air, so, with the roared commend for the others to run, I propelled myself forward, using the only thing I had to keep me from the gunfire. Momentum.

Without the circle of the attack as before, I was able to flee from it, soaring past it fast enough that not even one of the bullets slammed into me.

Magic stuttering as the wind left, I jerked through the air again, free falling a few feet before I was able to recover. Thankfully the magic returned at once, lifting me back up to where I was.

It was enough time to breathe.

It was also enough time for them to reload.

One after another the sharp pointed bullets plunged into my body, ripping through flesh and bone as they destroyed me.

There was no stopping it this time. I didn’t even have the chance.

The magic was gone as the bullets sunk into me, more digging into flesh and grinding against bone as I began to fall. This time I hit the ground hard, legs crumpling underneath me as the sound of my bones physically braking echoed in their own brand of gunfire.

The scream from the rebels broke out as their gunfire did. The two sides shooting at each other as some chose to fight, some chose to run.

I could see Kaye from where I lay, crumpled on the ground, the pool of my own blood staining the dirt around me.

She fired at whoever had hit me in spurts, sending puffs of gunfire back before she would duck behind cars and corners, those in the building doing the same.

It was a masochistic dance of back and forth, each party tiptoeing around each other until one side stopped, and Kaye was left huddled behind a rock. Waiting. Waiting.

She peeked out at me from the side, our eyes meeting each other, before, with a quick staccato beat of gunfire, more than a dozen bullets rained over me.

I didn’t even scream.

I wasn’t sure I could.

Kaye’s soft whimpers bled through the air from where she hid, until she streaked toward me, grabbing underneath my arms and dragging my body into the dark shadows on an alley. Flopping down beside me, her hands fluttered over me, trying to decide which bullet to remove first.

“There are too many,” I hissed, my voice a weak groan as I attempted to move before I decided that even that was too much. “You need to get out of here, Kaye.”

“You think after all of that I am just going to leave you,” as much as she tried to make her voice strong and powerful, she couldn’t disguise it through the tears. The pain was too much. The devastation was too much.

“You have to,” I sighed, barely able to muster enough strength to grab her hand, “You promised you would.”

“I…” She stopped, glancing up as the sound of doors and footsteps echoed through the alley between houses and right to us.

“Run, Kaye,” I hissed, blood filling my mouth.

She hesitated, shifting her weight before she looked down the street, my focus following hers as we looked away from the quickly advancing troops and toward the line of safety just behind.

The trees swayed in a happy little dance, the supposed safety of the other country screaming for us.

For her.

“You have to go,” I pleaded squeezing her hand once before I dropped it. “Run.”

I could hear the shouts from the soldiers behind us now, the rough Russian mixing with Mandarin Chinese in a way I would have never expected.

“Go. Find Joclyn. Tell her I love her.”

“I will find her. I will come back, Jan.” She whispered her body bouncing in hesitation.

“That’s not my name,” I said sternly, but this time she didn’t even smile, she just looked at me sadly, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I know.” She leaned down, pressing her lips firmly against my forehead before she turned and ran.

I rolled over with a shout, letting my magic pour from my outstretched fingers as I tried to protect her, to stop the bullets that were now flying over my head toward her.

She needed to get out of here.

She needed to be free, to be safe.

The wall of color that streamed from my hand slowly began to fade as more bullets plunged into my body, blood pouring from me. My magic tried to fight it, tried to heal me, but there was too many.

It was too much.