The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 30| The Battle Between the Nebula and the Monsters

As soon as the magical dimension opened, it snapped shut.

Storm's magic flickered. 

The rain stopped. The wind died. His lightning humanoids spluttered before going out of existence entirely, and Lilly took this new freedom to shove her hands into her hair and expell a breath she'd been holding for a long time. She knew she should turn around and run, or use magic, or something remotely warrior-like, but she was so shocked that all she could do was stand there. It was as if Lilly's mind shut off, like she could experience the sensation of the war in Elliott Way behind her, the calmed storm around her, the dangerously still man in front of her, but she couldn't understand why those things were happening anymore. It was a battle between sensation and perception and sensation was winning.

Several feet in front of her, Storm's squared his shoulders. Red crept up his neck. His hands curled in and out of fists as he and Lilly both stared at the normalcy that was before them: air untorn, this dimension perfectly intact. 

All at once, Lilly's synapses fired. 

Storm's back was to her, and there was nothing rooting her to her spot anymore. She spun on her heel and tore up the opposite side of the hill. Her momentum sent her careening to her hands and knees, boots and palms squelching in the mud, and she crawled to the crest of the nearest hill—

A flash of light glittered violently to her right. She jerked hard to the left to dodge it. 

But lightning travels at one-third the speed of light.

The bolt slammed into her shoulder from behind, sending shockwaves up and down her arm. Lilly's synapses were still catching up with the rest of her. The scream of pain went straight from her throat and into her skull. 

The force knocked her face-first into the ground. The pain was excruciating, ruthless, white-hot, wicked-sharp. She couldn't move—she didn't have to. Hands gripped her shoulders and spun her onto her back. Storm loomed over her, pressed a knee to her chest to keep her against the ground. His face was blurry.

"What the hell did you do? Why did it close?" When Lilly didn't answer, Storm slapped her. Lilly didn't feel it. All she felt was that horrible horrible pain and the overwhelming aftershocks of thousands of volts of electricity jarring her system. 

"I made sure not to hit you that hard, so talk." Storm dug his knee harder into her chest. Again, it was a phenomenon that, under normal circumstances, would have made her ribs shriek in protest, but Lilly couldn't feel it. 

Space. That was the only word her mind would form. Space.  

Storm seethed. He was loud, vicious. "You have no idea—I've been planning this for years and you've ruined everything! You want to know why I kept your mother alive? She's the reason the Bloom found out I wasn't a Shifter. They locked me up for years and tortured me, all because of her. They blew up my family and it was her fault. I want her to see what her mistake did. I want her to watch as I kill everyone." His green eyes were wild, his breath hot on her face.

The corners of Lilly's vision darkened.

She could move her fingers, just a little. 

Space. 

She formed another mild, distant, desperate thought: Anything. 

"But if you don't want to tell me how you managed to close the dimension, I'll go ahead and kill you," he went on, voice dropping to a delirious whisper. "Then I'm going to kill your mother. And I'll leave you with this swear: I will not stop until I kill every last Shifter in the world."