Not one person looked my way as I stood next to the master who held my leash. On one side of the double-paned glass, Anastasia and I watched silently. Vonlowsky monitored from a few feet away, stoic as ever. Silent because he knew this was wrong.

Now isn’t the time to overreact, I reminded myself.

I could help them, but I needed to be smart about it. Throwing a temper tantrum like a three-year-old would get me nowhere with the Council Member.

“Look at them, running around like ants waiting for a boot.”

I didn’t respond and carefully kept my face blank. Maybe it was the shadows, but my doppelgänger looked like she was enjoying this a little too much.

So much for her spiel about not wanting to start a war.

Maybe she just liked putting powerful people under her thumb to see how they fared. To make sure she always came out on top as Head of the Council.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced my ears when a bomb went off that Blair hadn’t been able to diffuse, and Alec jumped in front of her. Shrapnel bounced off the glass, and the bloody shreds of his jeans told me it wasn’t good.

“I thought you were supposed to be training them, Vonlowsky,” she said sharply.

My teacher swallowed hard, choosing his next words wisely. For someone who had no problem telling me where it was at, his attitude was a bit more pliant when it came to the Supernatural would-be queen. “I have been, my lady, but there have been complications…”

I narrowed my eyes at his damned cowardice. Complications? He meant me. That bastard was going to throw me under the bus.

“Complications? The prison break they orchestrated was more thought out than this,” she sneered.

I tucked that information away for later, as one more piece behind the nine’s presence fell into place. A prison break? Which one of them had been the prisoner…or was that person even still alive? Now wasn’t the time, though, because I wasn’t getting blamed for this mess of a hit squad, even though it was kind of my fault.

“What he means to say, Council Member, is that they’re unaccustomed to not having orders. How can you expect them to fight as a unit without me there to guide them?” I asked. My palms broke out in a clammy sweat, and I wiped them discreetly across my thighs, hoping she didn’t notice.

“Guide them? I think you’re overselling yourself, Foster. This course was designed to simulate a war, because a war is what you’ll be fighting. One girl won’t make a difference. You won’t make a difference. Do you understand that?” she snapped, suddenly colder than ever before. Something I said must’ve triggered her defenses, because she seemed determined to make sure I understood how insignificant I was.

But I’m not.

“I understand, Council Member.” I paused just long enough for her to settle and turn back to the glass like it was a boring TV show. I should’ve stopped there, but I couldn’t. “But I think you’re underestimating me. Aren’t my skills the reason you made me do this?”

Unfortunately, I didn’t take into account that even speaking at all would bring down her wrath like a merciless god.

Her hand twitched, like she was having to control the urge to do something, but what was beyond me. To add insult to injury, when she turned her cold eyes on me with the full weight of her fury behind them, I refused to look away and lower myself to the level of her measly, cowering servants. I didn’t know what had happened between now and when we’d last spoken, but something had changed in her. Her coldness was harder, her silver tongue sharper.

“Last I checked, Foster, your skills are the only reason you’re even of use to me, but if you’re so desperate to demonstrate how important you are, by all means show me just how you plan to save them all.” For all the fury consuming her, her voice was lifeless. She didn’t seem to particularly care one way or the other about what happened to them. I did, though, and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like that I gave a damn about what happened to them.

“By all means, Mistress. I live to serve,” I hissed back through a clenched jaw.

She smashed a button on the remote in her hand, opening the door to the simulator. Fire shot out, and I took a deep breath before plunging into the flames, feet first and headstrong as always.

If limbo had taught me anything, it was that I needed to man up and buckle down. Whoever had called me a coward wasn’t wrong, but I could change that. I could save them all.

The smoke filled my lungs faster than I’d expected, but it only added to my sense of urgency. Anastasia hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d turned this place into a war zone.

Concrete littered the ground, sometimes stacking up so high I couldn’t see around it. There were clearly buildings in this simulation, before the bombs, but they were broken now. Demolished. Disintegrated. Desolated. That was what this simulation was: despair given life. This could’ve been any city, anywhere, since rubble was all that remained of the once mighty concrete jungle. Fire spread from one downed power line to the other, as explosions shook the earth.

How the simulator even worked was outside my understanding, but this scene…it was something else. Piles upon piles of smoking concrete stacked up in every direction. This was madness. No, that wasn’t right. This was war, and it brought out a desperation in people that could make some go crazy. But I wouldn’t falter, and I wouldn’t fail.

“Your leader said she could save you all. You should hope, for your sakes, that she’s right.” Anastasia’s voice sounded over the room, but even I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. No wonder no one had noticed me earlier. With all the smoke and debris, it wasn’t like you could even find the damn window.

“Selena?” It was Alexandra’s voice, sounding more disbelieving than anything.

A flash of metal skimmed by her, landing three feet away. Two beeps, and I knew what was coming. Swinging into motion, I crossed the twenty yards before anyone saw me and chucked the metal bomb thirty feet up as it exploded in a shower of sparks. Alexandra jumped, whirling around to stare at me. Her eyes were wide and…watering?

“I told them you’d come back,” she whispered, oblivious to the second bomb that planted itself two feet behind her.

“I always do,” I called as I sent it flying.

A chorus of battle cries came from over a ridge.

That had better be the rest of them, I thought grimly as I grabbed Alexandra’s hand and made a run for it.

“They didn’t believe me when I said you would. Can you blame them?” she yelled over the next explosion ten meters behind us.

I had to slow down so she could keep up, but I wasn’t leaving her behind here. Not in a war zone. No matter how pretend it was.

We reached the top of the concrete slab just as another metal disk came flying for us—or more specifically, for our friends about thirty feet below.

Have you ever stopped to think that if you didn’t fight it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much? Your instincts know what you need, even if your sentimental heart doesn’t.

This time I wasn’t letting my sentimental heart get in the way as I pushed Alexandra off the ridge, and jumped ten feet out into the air, plummeting straight down.

Cries of warning and relief rang through the air as I fell, my eyes never leaving the shiny metal disk as we met in the middle. Ten feet from the ground, I plucked the disk from its flight path and rebounded it like a shotput straight for the artificial sky.

The room rattled as the bomb exploded, right as my feet hit the ground. The clearing was soft enough that when I landed, I rolled, coming up face-to-face with most of the rest of my team.

“Where are Blair and Alec?” I asked, but all they did was stare.

Am I really so unreliable that they didn’t think I’d come back? Assholes.

“We lost them when the building came down. This place is a madhouse. We need to get out of here before the smoke gets worse,” Aaron said finally.

Silently, I was thankful that someone had at least addressed me. But that wasn’t happening.

“Over my dead body. I’m not leaving without them,” I said.

Who would’ve thought that would be such an unpopular opinion?

The Graeme girl spat at my feet as her brother pulled her back. “Are you bloody nuts? You’re going to get us all killed!” she cried, and I had no doubt then that she was the one who’d called me a coward.

“I never said you all had to stay, but I’m not leaving without them. Now we can go back and forth about this all day, but last I checked, I’m the one who volunteered to come out here and save all your asses. So, you can follow me or not, but this isn’t a debate,” I said.

For once, I found myself acting like a leader and feeling like I had a choice. It was freeing, in a way, but short-lived.

As if Anastasia knew the precipice we were on, another two bombs came flying at us and a third at the base of one of the only standing power lines. I could’ve showed off and made a display of trying to dispatch the three with my speed and strength, but I could do one better.

I plucked them from the sky with invisible hands, and redirected them toward the simulated black sky.

“All right, we’re running out of time here. Whoever’s leaving needs to go now. I need to find Blair and Alec.” Last I’d seen, he’d gotten himself blown up and wasn’t looking so hot, but I didn’t need to tell them that.

“I’m coming with you,” Aaron said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and instead settled for a raised eyebrow as I looked at the others.

“You’re going to need me,” Alexandra said. She wasn’t wrong when this entire simulation was burning up—even she couldn’t control this fire, though.

“We’re with you,” Amber said, her arm wrapped securely around Tori’s waist, who walked with a slight limp.

“We will fight,” Johanna said, presumably speaking for her nine as a whole.

“We will?” the Graeme girl asked, clearly disagreeing.

“Alec is in here somewhere, and we’re not leaving without him.” Johanna’s eyes flashed with authority, but the blonde wasn’t having it.

“She’s a coward, Johanna. How you can you—”

“The measure of a great leader is not lack of fear but how one faces that fear, Scarlett. She’s made some bad choices, but haven’t we all? I’m willing to give her another chance to prove you wrong. What say you, Milla?”

I followed her gaze to the twelve-year-old child Aaron had been sparring with the day I’d snapped. Her eyes were strange, not clear or gold, but a cloudy white, like cataracts. She had darker skin and frizzy brown hair. Not entirely Supernatural, but not half-breed either. What would give a child so much authority? And how had she ended up here?

“She has spoken with the Mother and her path is clear,” she said.

Johanna nodded like any of that actually made sense.

I shook my head; we didn’t have time for this. As if on cue, another scream drew my attention two hundred meters deeper into the room, where another explosion had just gone off.

“Time to move!” I yelled, as we took off toward the swirling cyclone of smoke and ash.

Thirteen people down. Two to go. They’d better both be in one piece when I got there, or someone was going to pay.

Hang on, Blair. I’m coming.

Mercy killing be damned. No one was getting left behind.

I wished for a moment that I hadn’t spent so long moping and had actually trained with the nine like a leader. Maybe then I wouldn’t worry about the Graeme girl stabbing me in the back…but that was probably wishful thinking.

Concrete grit rained down like hail with every bomb that went off. It seemed that for each disk I misdirected another landed just out of reach. It didn’t help that the smoke grew thicker, and with nowhere to go, it was more likely to kill someone than the fire.

“We’re not going to find anyone with all this smoke,” Scarlett muttered. She wasn’t wrong.

“Instead of complaining, why don’t you find a way to fix it?” I asked, not really looking for an answer. We had another hundred feet of incline before we reached the next rise, and hopefully Blair and Alec.

“Oh really? And how do you bloody expect me to do that? Just wave it away?” She cut off, falling into a fit of coughing. She was being an ass, but something about what she said clicked.

“That’s it,” I said, stopping suddenly. Something ran into me from behind, knocking me face-first toward the concrete. I held up my hands to protect my face, but this time, I didn’t need it. Mentally, I pushed back, and the earth yielded.

Invisible strands of power sprang from my fingertips as I righted myself, forcing the smoke back as I went. Telekinetics moved things with their mind, but smoke wasn’t tangible. It had no form. Only the strongest telekinetics could manipulate it, because it wasn’t solid. But it was matter.

I sucked the smoke into a tight, swirling orb of ash that spun like a dying globe over my palm. I grinned to myself at the simplicity of an act that should’ve been impossible.

“You’re telling me you could’ve done that ten minutes ago?” the Graeme girl groaned.

“Maybe I just wanted you to choke,” I snapped, drawing my lips back.

A light touch to my back made me jump, and I turned to find Aaron standing too close for comfort. Meanwhile, Lucas silently skulked toward the back of the group, his eyes dark and hooded as if he had his own thoughts about Aaron being near me. Alexandra grabbed his arm, yanking his attention away as she leaned forward to whisper something in his ear. Aaron coughed loudly, pulling my attention back to him.

“Do you have to touch me?” I asked, the orb of smoke dissipating in a shower of ash all over us.

“When you’re picking fights with the heir of House Graeme, yes,” he said, rolling his eyes as if I were the foolish one.

“I can—” I stopped short at what I saw coming.

Not thirty feet from me, the fire raged, burning both concrete and wood alike. It shouldn’t have been possible for it to grow so quickly, or move so fast. Another zing through the air distracted me, as the bomb landed in the fire and went off with a bang.

“How the fu—”

“Run!”

I don’t know who said it, but it was the only thing that pulled my eyes away from the terrifying blaze as I raced to the top of the ravine. The others weren’t quite as fast, and I used the time to push the smoke back toward the fire, trying to squelch its flames, but it made no difference. This wasn’t an ordinary fire. It was a living, breathing thing coming for us all. As I hauled myself up over the last chunk of concrete, my throat went dry at the sixty-foot drop, and the two people stuck at the bottom of it.

“I found them! We just need to get them out of there—”

“Selena, we’ve got a problem,” Johanna panted, coming up beside me. Her footing was impeccable as she twisted on the sharp edge, and spun me around.

“What is she doing?” I asked.

Alexandra stood at the base of the rubble, her hands raised in surrender. The fire licked at her worn black boots, trying to follow us. Try as it might, though, she wouldn’t let it past her. My heart dropped into my stomach.

“She can’t hold it forever,” Johanna said, putting words to my fears. My own panting had nothing to do with the running as my throat closed.

Calm yourself. She can hold it. She is fire.

I took a not-so-deep, steadying breath.

You’re a leader. Be a leader. Trust that she can take care of herself.

“She doesn’t have to hold it forever. She just has to hold it long enough.”

And then, I did the dumbest and bravest thing I’ve ever done.

I jumped.