Free Ravens by Kaylie Austen Page B

back at her. Her grim
and brooding features represented her new life as a so-called Raven.
    She noticed a window to her left where
moonlight intruded on her solitary world, went to it, stood on the toilet seat
to unlock and open it, and removed the screen, tossing it onto the floor. She
peered out into the night and down the flat, brick building from an alarming
five stories above the sidewalk.
    The men muttered outside the room.
Nathan knocked on the door. “Are you okay in there?”
    Kendra jerked her head back and barked
at the locked door, “No.”
    “Well, don’t worry, it’ll pass soon.”
    When Kendra didn’t reply, he went on,
“We’ve all gone through this, Kendra. We were taken by the portals and woke up
in this world without any knowledge of what happened. We all had to experience
a violent, painful transformation we couldn’t control. At least you know what’s
going to happen. You don’t know us, but you have us.”
    His consolation just wasn’t enough to
keep her calm. She couldn’t fully grasp everything, and the situation proved to
be too much, too fast.
    Kendra leaned out the window and debated
the sanity of this risk. As a human, she knew a fall like this would hurt, or
even kill. As a Raven, though, she knew she had a better chance of making it. A
fall five stories above the street through a window barely large enough to crawl
out of could place her in a worse situation if she didn’t make the jump safely.
    Liam said Ravens possessed incredible
agility and speed amongst other abilities. She could risk it, right? What would
be the worst that could happen? She’d break her neck and die, maybe, or, she’d
break her neck, not die, and be at the full mercy of these strangers.
    Kendra took the risk. Stepping onto the
toilet lid and leaning against the wall, she grabbed the edge of the window and
pulled herself up, and crawled into the small frame. She didn’t stumble back.
Instead, she found herself nimble as she paused on the perch, her knees to her
chest and her hands gripping the sides of the windowsill.
    She took in a sharp breath.
    Just remember to bend your knees on
impact ,
she coached herself as if she knew what she talked about!
    With the sudden thought that Liam still
prowled her mind, uncovering her intentions, she leapt into the cool, evening
air. Her body acted before she thought, and, before the thought of her actions
caught up to her, she elegantly, silently hit the concrete. The wind whisked
away her hair as she fell. She landed just as she perched, with knees to chest
and arms at her sides. Her palms faced down and barely touched the dingy
cement. Talk about graceful and limber!
    Kendra stood up, amazed that she didn’t
break a bone, and looked up at the narrow bathroom window, then at the adjacent
room. Obscure shadows moved across the lit living room window. She hurried up
the street and away from her captor and his friends.

Chapter Nine
     
    Liam jerked toward the bathroom and
sniffed the air, dragging in molecules of scent, Kendra’s scent…or in this
case, lack of. He rattled the doorknob.
    “Kendra?” His voice boomed.
    When she failed to respond, he didn’t
bother pounding on the door twice. Liam synchronized the heat in his fingers
and a laced energy wove into the door through the gap between the door and the
frame. It moved the metal obstacle until it retracted back into the door. The
bolt clicked. He pushed open the wood barrier and groaned. Only the drawn
curtains flapped in the breeze in the empty bathroom.
    Kendra escaped! He knew it the instant
her scent disintegrated into the night.
    He growled and stormed back into the
living room. The others watched him.
    “She jumped out the window.”
    “Great, another time waster,” Mark
griped.
    “We have to find her before someone else
does. A new Raven all alone can get herself killed!” Nathan got to his feet and
raced to the front door with Lou and Mark close behind.
    “You guys go downtown. I’ll search