Chapter 34 · Steal the Starlight - Chapter 34: Shattered Link, Shared Blood

"Don't touch her!" I slammed both palms against the slab of broken concrete before it crushed Wren's legs.

The stone stopped.

Not because I was strong. Because my power had already found it.

Black cracks raced over the slab. The concrete folded inward with a sharp, ugly crunch, collapsing into a fist-sized lump beneath my hands. Pain punched through my wrists and climbed straight into my shoulders.

Wren stared up at me from the gap beneath it. Dust streaked her face. One of her golden light-ribbons had gone dark, and the other flickered over her chest like a dying emergency sign.

"Ellis," she said, too calmly, "move."

"Yeah, great plan. You first."

"I said move!"

A red targeting beam slid across the rubble and stopped on the back of my neck.

A voice called from the street. "Noelle. Step away from Starr."

I looked over my shoulder.

Three cleanup trucks had rolled through the shattered barricade. Their sides carried the Hero Corporation logo, bright and clean against the dust. Men and women in gray armor jumped down with rifles raised. The people inside the trucks didn't look like rescue workers.