Free Darkening Chaos: Book Three of The Destroyer Trilogy by DelSheree Gladden Page B

Braden is coming. It will take a miracle to make
him step away from me.
    Maybe
I can think of something. I think I still have a little time. Braden is very
smart, and he knows my group of friends pretty well. He’ll know that after what
we just pulled, blood and tempers will be running high. I can’t see him
attacking when he knows everyone will be keyed up and ready for a fight. He’ll
wait until the adrenaline cools and everyone begins falling into either
planning or grieving.
    “Libby,”
Lance asks suddenly, “why is there a very angry looking teenage girl standing
on the sidewalk behind you? She looks like she’s about to murder someone.”
    I
turn around and blink in surprise when I realize he’s right. Hope is, in fact,
standing there, without any sign of the Xterra that carted off her parents a
few minutes ago. She stares at me, looking angry enough to stop a Sihir in its
tracks. I can’t even speak for a moment faced with the intensity of her fury. Her
blue eyes are electric, so much so that I almost expect her wispy blond hair to
crackle with angry static. Thank goodness my emotional blocks are up and
working well enough to counter at least some of her emotional firestorm. Being
hit with all that rage would have knocked me over.
    “Hope?”
I ask experimentally. She stomps over to me but doesn’t say anything. I try
again. “Hope, what are you doing here? I thought you were going with your
parents. You should really get some rest and … uh, you’ve been through a lot
lately.”
    “I’m
not leaving,” she snaps.
    “Um,
okay.” I look back at Lance for some help, but he doesn’t seem to have anything
to offer. I’m not sure if anyone has claimed any of the guest bedrooms yet, but
if you want to …”
    “I
don’t want to take a nap,” she says as she marches closer. “I want to get back
at the monsters who killed my grandpa. I want to help you. I am going to
help you.”
    So
close to me, even my blocks are having a hard time buffering her anger. “Sure,
okay,” I say, “I won’t turn down help. Why don’t you come inside with me and
I’ll introduce you to everyone. We’re going to start planning our next move.”
    Hope
simply nods and blows past me toward the house. I look over at Lance and shake
my head in surprise. He doesn’t look pleased.
    “Milo
is bad enough to deal with sometimes, given how much he hates the Guardians.
She’s going to be a million times worse.”
    “Well,
what was I supposed to do, tell her no? She’d run off and try to take them all
down on her own,” I say.
    “She
still may. We’re going to have to watch her, closely,” Lance says.
    No
kidding. Braden may have been right about what the Guardians would do to him if
they caught him, but apparently he was wrong about not having people jumping at
the chance to join me. It’s only one person, I guess, but I’m already wishing
he had been right about that one too.
     
    Chapter
8
    Haunted
     
    “Look, everyone, I know
that after what happened this morning we’re all anxious to run back in and tear
the Guardians’ heads off,” I say, “but we can’t. The Albuquerque compound is
hopping with Guardians and Seekers right now, and you can bet the security at
every other compound is being beefed up at the moment, too. If we attack now,
we’re going to get slaughtered. The best thing to do for the time being is
start training the Ciphers and gathering intel. Mr. Walters warned us that
there’s more we’re going to face than we understand. We have to figure out the
clues he left us before we do anything else.”
    “So
we’re just going to sit here and wait for the Guardians to come after us?” Hope
demands.
    “No,”
Lance says. “We aren’t going to wait for anything. The Guardians here have been
hurt, yeah, but that doesn’t really help us. Now there are three times as many
Guardians running around Albuquerque. Even with the Ciphers, we’re still badly
outnumbered, and we’re spread all over the