headquarters. The boundaries sectioning their compound off from the rest of the city remained intact, keeping the Bloodless out, not that this should come as a surprise.
As I passed through the main entrance building, I tried to block out images of the horrific situation going on around me in the city and focus on the man who had started it all.
Lawrence had better be right that he was here in Chicago.
I headed straight for Atticus’ office, whose location I knew well enough by now. But it was empty. As was the rest of his apartment. I continued to search throughout the rest of the buildings, until I lost patience completely at one point and manifested myself before a hunter, pinning him against a wall and threatening him for an answer. But I made no progress with him either.
I finished roaming the base, looking in every room that I thought he could have even a remote possibility of being in, but in the end, I failed.
Either he was somewhere in this HQ but so concealed that I would never find him, or perhaps it wasn’t him who had given the direct order after all, and it was one of his representatives here in Chicago. Maybe he was back in Canada, or in some other place. God knew.
I had no choice but to leave the IBSI headquarters and return to the city.
As I departed from the main entrance to the IBSI’s compound, I found myself discovering street after street of horrors. The blown boundaries had caused the Bloodless to storm the city. I found myself wondering how they had even crossed the toxic river that was supposed to be acting as a natural second boundary. To my shock, I realized that bridges of long wooden slabs had been laid across the water at various intervals along the bank.
These people will stop at nothing.
Screams erupted as homes were raided, people being dragged outside and bitten before my very eyes.
I did what I could for a young man being attacked from just a few feet away from me—I slammed into the back of the offending Bloodless, causing him to lose balance, and knocked him away from the man. But it was clear that I had come too late. The man already had deep gash marks in his neck. And it would be only a matter of time before he turned too. There was hardly anything I could do to help these people. Not while I didn’t have the antidote with me.
Hurry up! I found myself urging the others to return. Then, as I caught the sound of distant roaring, I realized that they already had. It was the roaring of dragons. During the extended period of time that I’d taken to search for Atticus in the IBSI’s base, our group had arrived, even the slower-traveling firebreathers.
I spotted Xavier holding aloft two long, razor-sharp swords, beating back a group of three Bloodless who were encroaching on him. Then I spotted others: my sister, Caleb, Yuri, Kiev, and many more familiar faces mingling with the chaos and joining forces to fight the Bloodless back and prevent them from encroaching on the city even further.
“Hey, Rose,” I called, hurrying toward my sister, who was focusing on not getting bitten by two Bloodless who were hurling themselves at her. “Where’s Lawrence?” I asked.
She shrugged, not daring to take her eyes off the Bloodless, even as Caleb hurried to join her. “I don’t know,” she said. “Go look around.”
I passed more friends and family—including Aiden and Kailyn, as well as a large group of Hawks who were attempting to beat down a gang of ten Bloodless.
Our game plan now had to be to first get the Bloodless back on to the other side of the river, and then for the witches to put up another protective boundary. Only then could we think about moving to New York. We had no idea when exactly the IBSI would pull the trigger on the boundary there, but something told me that once they caught wind of our work here to regain control of the Bloodless, they would do it sooner rather than later, to overwhelm us. And then, after pulling the trigger on New York, there would
As I passed through the main entrance building, I tried to block out images of the horrific situation going on around me in the city and focus on the man who had started it all.
Lawrence had better be right that he was here in Chicago.
I headed straight for Atticus’ office, whose location I knew well enough by now. But it was empty. As was the rest of his apartment. I continued to search throughout the rest of the buildings, until I lost patience completely at one point and manifested myself before a hunter, pinning him against a wall and threatening him for an answer. But I made no progress with him either.
I finished roaming the base, looking in every room that I thought he could have even a remote possibility of being in, but in the end, I failed.
Either he was somewhere in this HQ but so concealed that I would never find him, or perhaps it wasn’t him who had given the direct order after all, and it was one of his representatives here in Chicago. Maybe he was back in Canada, or in some other place. God knew.
I had no choice but to leave the IBSI headquarters and return to the city.
As I departed from the main entrance to the IBSI’s compound, I found myself discovering street after street of horrors. The blown boundaries had caused the Bloodless to storm the city. I found myself wondering how they had even crossed the toxic river that was supposed to be acting as a natural second boundary. To my shock, I realized that bridges of long wooden slabs had been laid across the water at various intervals along the bank.
These people will stop at nothing.
Screams erupted as homes were raided, people being dragged outside and bitten before my very eyes.
I did what I could for a young man being attacked from just a few feet away from me—I slammed into the back of the offending Bloodless, causing him to lose balance, and knocked him away from the man. But it was clear that I had come too late. The man already had deep gash marks in his neck. And it would be only a matter of time before he turned too. There was hardly anything I could do to help these people. Not while I didn’t have the antidote with me.
Hurry up! I found myself urging the others to return. Then, as I caught the sound of distant roaring, I realized that they already had. It was the roaring of dragons. During the extended period of time that I’d taken to search for Atticus in the IBSI’s base, our group had arrived, even the slower-traveling firebreathers.
I spotted Xavier holding aloft two long, razor-sharp swords, beating back a group of three Bloodless who were encroaching on him. Then I spotted others: my sister, Caleb, Yuri, Kiev, and many more familiar faces mingling with the chaos and joining forces to fight the Bloodless back and prevent them from encroaching on the city even further.
“Hey, Rose,” I called, hurrying toward my sister, who was focusing on not getting bitten by two Bloodless who were hurling themselves at her. “Where’s Lawrence?” I asked.
She shrugged, not daring to take her eyes off the Bloodless, even as Caleb hurried to join her. “I don’t know,” she said. “Go look around.”
I passed more friends and family—including Aiden and Kailyn, as well as a large group of Hawks who were attempting to beat down a gang of ten Bloodless.
Our game plan now had to be to first get the Bloodless back on to the other side of the river, and then for the witches to put up another protective boundary. Only then could we think about moving to New York. We had no idea when exactly the IBSI would pull the trigger on the boundary there, but something told me that once they caught wind of our work here to regain control of the Bloodless, they would do it sooner rather than later, to overwhelm us. And then, after pulling the trigger on New York, there would
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