Katie's Hellion (Rhyn Trilogy, Book One) by Lizzy Ford Page A

her.
    Her headache was gone, her stomach full, and
another glass of whiskey in her hand. By the end of this ordeal,
she’d be an alcoholic.
    If it ever ended. Andre and Kris
seemed to think she was there for the long haul. Her chest
tightened again, and she sipped more of the warming liquid. She
wondered if this was what immortality felt like, watching humanity
progress down a road unable to join them in soirees or understand
how precious every second of life was. Did humans understand both
their universal significance and their individual
insignificance?
    She shook the thoughts away, suspecting they
weren’t hers. Whenever Andre tried his shit, her head felt foggy,
and right now, she was foggy.
    "Stop it!" she hissed at him, suspecting he’d
hear her, even if he was one of those in attendance at the
soiree.
    The sense eased. She slumped against the
sill, hot from the inside out while the late fall breeze chilled
her skin. Her eyes fell to the entryway in front of the elegant
building in which she stayed, then to the street further down,
where several forms moved from beneath a canopy, trailed by a
shadow darker than night. She saw Kris and squeezed her glass to
keep from hurling it at him. Andre was with him, the beautiful
woman, the dark man Jade. All trailed by Gabriel, who paused to
look up and wave at her.
    She waved back, wondering how the most
damning of them all was also the only who seemed anywhere able to
feel sympathy. Gabriel disappeared. She imagined he went to her
apartment to check on Toby and was struck by her longing to return
to the tiny, cluttered mess of a life that was hers. She closed her
eyes, desperately wishing the whiskey’d take effect and knock her
out.
    The boom of thunder and a bright glare made
her eyes open. It hadn’t come from the sky but from one of the
buildings across the street, diagonal to her. She suspected
fireworks and saw something streak into the sky. It didn’t explode
into lights but fell to her side of the street. She watched in
fascination, not understanding what it was until a floor several
below hers exploded into flying stone and fire. The impact of the
rocket knocked her on her backside. She heard another boom, then a
third.
    The building shuddered, one explosion hitting
close enough to her room that her windows shattered. Fear lit her
insides, and she scrambled to her feet, darting to the door. It was
still locked.
    "Let me out!" she shouted, beating on it.
    It wasn’t a cheap plywood door with a simple
push lock but a thick, wooden door as ancient as the hotel with
deadbolts, as if Andre regularly locked prisoners in his guest
room.
    The door didn’t even flinch as she beat her
fists against it as hard as she could. She stepped away, sweating
from whiskey and fear. Another boom, and the edges of the door lit
up and spit fire as the rocket exploded in Andre’s apartment. The
impact knocked her back. The door groaned but didn’t give, though
the wall on one side crumbled enough to leave a large opening.
    Andre’s apartment was black and fiery. The
rocket had exploded as it landed on the floor, leaving a gaping
hole. She squeezed through the hole in the wall to find there
wasn’t enough of the floor left to walk on let alone make it to the
door across the apartment.
    She wriggled back into her room, mind working
quickly. Another boom, another flash of light outside the window,
another shudder as the building struggled to stand upright. Screams
and blaring horns came from the streets. She tiptoed through the
glass and leaned out the window, eyeing the wide ledge. There were
balconies along the far side of the building that hadn’t been
destroyed. Any thought she had at Andre’s apartment not being the
target fled as she saw the damage done to her side of the
building.
    The booms stopped. She saw dark figures jump
from the top of the building across from her to the ground,
unaffected by what seemed like a thirty-story drop. They wove their
way through the panicked