Riley

The wooden frame of the back door splintered completely as I threw my shoulder against the panels, and the blinding white flash from the grenade was still dancing behind my eyelids while I stumbled into the smoke-filled center of the training shed, my throat burning like hot coals from the remaining wolf-bane dust that was clogging my respiratory tract and making my limbs feel as heavy as lead weights.

Fantine was already standing over the last mafia enforcer on the gravel floor, her breath coming in short gasps as she kicked his pistol away into a dark drainage slot, and the raw link between our minds was shaking with...