to hurt you that way, but . . . I need to get away from here, I can't . . . I can't . . .”
His dark eyes stared at her, filled with pain.
I can't leave him like this. I can't.
She knelt beside him and rested her hand on his forehead, closing her eyes. Her other vision kicked in a moment later, and she was horrified to see what she'd done to him—pulling out the energy that his body needs, the energy of the cells themselves.
She reached into herself, for the heat of magic within her, and poured it back into him. She could feel his body changing beneath her hand, grasping desperately for life, and willing itself to live. When she opened her eyes, he was unconscious, but alive.
Now I'd definitely better get my ass out of here. . . .
“There she is!”
“Oh, shit!” Kayla looked up at the three ­T‑Men in the broken doorway and saw the leader raise a pistol to fire. . . .
She closed her eyes and called the magic.
Blinding light filled the room, light and a warmth that felt like sunlight on Kayla's face. It was too bright to see, so bright that the light imprinted itself on her closed eyes. Kayla blindly leaped for the doorway, crashing into someone who fell out of her way and half‑falling, half­rolling down the stairs. On the landing, she managed to open her eyes, though the world was still filled with glowing afterimages. She scrambled down the remaining stairs and paused at the bottom, listening closely, and then reaching out with that other sight.
She could feel the light of human lives around her: two just beyond the apartment wall that she was leaning against, close to a third life that was fading to nothingness even as she touched it. There were two others outside, beyond the building walls.
She took a deep breath and leaped out the door. The two T‑Men standing at the car reacted a half second too late as she dashed past them and into the alley. She heard a gunshot ricochet off the wall just behind her, and a window just ahead of her shattered, splinters of glass flying past her.
“Stop her!” she