Page 83 of This Coven Won't Break
“You can still be nervous.” Mom puts an arm around my shoulder. “I am. A little,” she whispers just for me. Ellen is here with us, sitting on the other side of the van. She flashes me a smile. She’s maybe a little too excited for this.
My magic hums in my chest. I’m excited, too.
I’m finally keeping my promise to Dad. We’re finally going to win.
Margaret Lesko, who is driving our van, follows the vehicle in front of her and pulls off the main road. Soon, over a dozen Elementals, three Caster Witches, and two Blood Witches— Alice and Mr. Hughes—stand huddled in the woods.
And all eyes are on me.
“Not everyone inside the company is a Hunter,” I remind the group of assembled witches, “and the actual Hunters won’t necessarily be marked. There shouldn’t be much of the drug left, but they may still have one or two darts. They also won’t hesitate to use force.”
The group around me shifts, and a tremor works through the ground.
“Forget everything you’ve been taught about secrecy. This needs to be big.” I scan the group, Elementals I’ve known all my life and new witches I’ve only just begun to trust. “We want to embody everything these Hunters fear we are. We need to embrace Keating’s vision of a world where we don’t have to hide anything.”
“Go big or go home,” Ellen says, igniting fire in each hand.
I roll my eyes at her. “That’s the gist of it, yeah. Everyone ready?” Nods all around. “Let’s go.”
The group splits off into two teams, Ellen leading the rest of the Elementals and our Blood Witches toward the front of Hall Pharmaceuticals. I stay behind with Cal and the other Casters. We’re needed elsewhere. Before we can pick our way around to the back parking lot, Mom pulls me in for a quick hug.
“Be careful,” we say at the same time, and she presses a kiss to my head. “When this is over, we need to have a serious talk about your tendency to walk right into danger.” But she turns and hurries after the rest of her group before I can respond.
I wait until she disappears through the trees, then lead the team of Casters to the rear parking lot where Benton helped us escape eight days ago. Cal wanted to bring the light-refracting potion he used in Ithaca, but Lexie surprised him with an invisibility potion that works even better.
He fanboyed over it for an entire day. I did, too, once Lexie assured me this version wouldn’t explode. She hadn’t quite cracked that code the first time we met.
Lexie covers us in a fine, shimmering mist, and by the time she’s done, I can’t see any of them.
“It won’t last long,” she says, somewhere on my right. “Fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Then we’d better hurry.” I step out from the cover of the trees and cross the open parking lot, the potion tingling against my skin.
Everyone in position?Ellen’s voice crackles in my comms.
On my left, a handheld video device appears. Cal must have pulled it from his bag, where it wasn’t exposed to the mist. Soon, the company’s security feeds are on his screen. “We’re a go. Commence Operation Fire Starter.”
The words barely leave Cal’s lips before the first tremor shakes the ground. Fire shoots into the air, visible even over the top of the building. Alarms scream from inside the lab, and I watch the security feeds, even as I’m disoriented by the way Cal’s screen seems to float in midair. We watch scientists glance up at the alarm and leave their stations, walking calmly toward the exit. But some—the Hunters—are panicking, running with weapons drawn.
“We’ve got Hunters exiting the building,” Coral says into the comms. Then to me, “I hope you’re right about this, Hannah.”
“Me too,” I admit, keeping an eye on the door. We’re only a few feet away now, and even though I know the Hunters can’t see us, I still crouch behind the closest car to the door.
Cal flips through another couple camera angles until we’re looking at the front lawn. The screen is full of Elementals wielding fire and tornados that tear up the ground. Their power is incredible to see. Alice and Mr. Hughes trace bloody runes on the grass, creating a barrier that will keep bullets from hitting the witches behind the line.
But there isn’t time to linger over their part of the mission. The back door bangs open, and Hunters come streaming out.
One of the Casters hurls a glass vial at the entrance. It shatters against the side of the building, and a plume of lavender smoke settles over the Hunters. One by one, they drop into unconsciousness.
I reach for the air and disperse the knockout potion away from the door. One of the Hunters fell partially inside, so it’s still propped open.
The door swings wide. “I’ve got this. Drag them away from the building,” Cal says, and we do as he asks. By the time we’re done, the invisibility potion is already wearing thin, and we follow Cal inside.
Our paths are predetermined by the updated building schematics Benton gave Archer before we took his memory, and we race through the halls. At the split, Coral and Lexie— who are little more than glittering shadows—head downstairs to destroy whatever makeshift lab the Hunters have created since the last time I was here. Cal and I continue on to the security room.
There aren’t any cameras inside—at least none Cal has been able to tap into—and when we come flying around the final corner, our shadowy figures must catch someone’s attention because the door bursts open and Hunters come spilling out. Cal is faster, though, pulling another purple vial from his belt and hurling it at the wall beside the Hunters. The smoke engulfs them, and the men fall in heaps on the ground.
“Let me know when the air is clear,” Cal says, checking his device to make sure no one else is sneaking up on us.
