Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) Read Online Free Page B

fallen.
    I heard, “ It’s
a go ,” from one of them before they all disappeared, only
to reappear several miles away, nearly out of my mind’s reach.
    “What are they
doing?” I asked aloud, not about to give the all clear to the
island yet. Something was up. Then I heard the planes in the
distance, quickly approaching—with no mind signatures inside of
them. Were they drones? The answer to my question came a moment later
when the bombs began dropping. On Amadis Island.
    “We can stop
them,” Tristan said after several bombs hit the town with loud
explosions, shaking the ground under us. Dirt fell from the ceiling
and walls.
    Owen’s
sapphire-blue eyes squinted. “It’ll take a minute to
power up the shield.”
    “I meant we .”
Tristan looked at me, and I nodded.
    “Stay here,”
I ordered Vanessa and Dorian.
    Tristan, Owen, and I
flashed outside, and we all raised our palms to the sky as more
planes flew overhead and more bombs fell. We used our powers to stop
three from slamming into the village and turned them toward the sea.
But we’d barely rerouted them when more came. It took almost
every ounce of energy I had to keep them from hitting the island.
Then finally, they began to ricochet in midair like the spells had
done earlier.
    “ We can shield
against those! ” Charlotte whooped into my mind, and I let
out the air I’d held trapped in my lungs at the sound of her
“voice.”
    Owen joined his mother
and the other mages who’d survived and strengthened the shield
over the town. Unable to hit us anymore, the jets banked away and
flew off. Dozens of columns of black smoke rose into the air from the
main street in town and more in the residential district. My stomach
sank at the thought of Amadis lives lost. I felt the grief spreading
from people’s minds at the heartache right before them, but we
still hadn’t given them the all clear to come out from their
shelters.
    “Take cover,
Alexis,” Owen said. “We don’t know if it’s
over.”
    Tristan took my hand
and flashed us back to the dungeons.
    “Is it over?”
Vanessa asked.
    “Can I go back to
my room?” Dorian demanded.
    “We don’t
know yet,” I said, and I gave Dorian the mom-eye for his
rudeness. “And you can go back when we say you can go back.”
    He rolled his eyes and
diverted his attention to Sasha, who had shrunk some, but remained
alert.
    We sat in the cold,
dank cell for hours. The Daemoni mind signatures hadn’t slipped
completely out of range—they remained close enough for me to
feel them, but not close enough to hear their thoughts and plans. I
wouldn’t give the green light to my people until I knew we were
safe.
    “ Alexis ,”
Charlotte mind-spoke to me from where she and the other mages
continued powering the shield from the main room above us. “ Chandra
just called. She’s been trying to reach you. One of her
villages in India has been bombed, too. ”
    My stomach sank. A
little while later, another, similar report came in on Char’s
phone, this one from Jelani in Africa. One by one, Rina’s
council members checked in, delivering the same news over and over.
The Daemoni, using the Normans, had bombed dozens of our villages and
colonies around the world.
    And I couldn’t do
anything about it. I was stuck here in the dungeons, but even if I
weren’t, what could I have done? The attacks had stopped hours
ago, so all I could do now was to tell them to stay undercover and
keep safe.
    “I feel like I’m
telling everyone to just squat down like sitting ducks, when we
should be fighting back. What kind of leader am I?”
    “You’ve
told them exactly what Rina would have,” Tristan said, trying
to assure me. But it only irked me.
    I shook my head as I
paced the cell. “No. We have to do more. We won’t survive
if we’re always on the defensive. We’re stronger than
this. We have to fight back.”
    Finally, the Daemoni
mind signatures retreated completely, and after having Owen return
the shield to