This Is My Kingdom Come by Megan Rees (red white and royal blue hardcover txt) 📕

“I had a nightmare about Mother and wanted to see her,” Cody admitted, looking down. “I’m sorry.”

“We haven’t got time for apologises; in case you haven’t noticed, the whole place is on lockdown and we may only have a few minutes to escape. Are the other people here prisoners?” Luna explained.

The seven year old nodded hastily. “Most of them are newer than me, so they should be good with escaping.”

“Luna! We need to leave now!” Adele shouted, herding a small group of children to her. “Leon and the others are at the rooftop!”

“Um, I can’t walk,” Cody responded a little uneasily. “Some people gave me an injection to make me stronger, but I can’t move my legs on my own for twelve hours.”

“Wait, you’re experiments?” Luna was horrified. “They’re testing things on you?”

“Some of the kids have lost legs, so I’m lucky.” Cody replied.

Luna was only just able to contain her anger. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

“I had this really yucky pink liquid too,” Cody pulled a face at the sentence. “And they gave me a dress that smells of metal.”

“Hospital gown?” his sister corrected him in amusement.

Cody shrugged, not looking too bothered with his mistake. “Whatever.”

Sighing, Luna scooped up her little brother and was about to offer him a piggyback when Oscar darted over. “I’ll take him, if you like. I can run with extra weight.” he offered politely.

Cody looked a bit sceptical. “Who are you?”

“Prince Oscar Herring of the High Kingdom. Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the brown haired boy introduced himself. “I’m an ally.”

“You can trust him.” Luna assured Cody, passing him over to Oscar who placed the child on his shoulders. Though she could tell that her brother was afraid, he seemed comfortable enough with being around the strange Prince.

“We need to go now, no exceptions!” Adele screeched. “There are guards coming!”

Swiftly, Luna thrust her hand up and released a ball of fire towards the other door behind them, hoping to keep the Silhouette guards busy. “Go now!” she yelled, encouraging the children out of the door. Some of them were limping, but Cody was the only real badly affected one because some of the older Purebloods had too grave injuries to help them out. To keep everyone together on remembering the pitch-black corridors, Luna created a small flame to act as a lantern to guide the younger children.

The horrific sirens were still screaming in the corridors, so the older Purebloods had to work quickly and carefully to ensure that the experiments didn’t send them on a wild goose chase. It was really the last thing they needed right now.

“Atlas said the explosives are in place, but they’ll go off in two minutes!” Adele yelled above the alarms. “He wants to know what floor number we’re on – it’ll say by that staircase up ahead!”

“It says we’re on floor eighteen, so we’re going to floor nineteen by climbing these stairs!” Oscar shouted back.

“The rooftop is floor twenty, so we’ll make it!” Adele sounded relieved.

Once they’d crossed several more corridors, they clambered up the final flight of stairs at long last to get to the rooftop, but Luna couldn’t push back a nagging feeling in her mind. This seems all good to be true. We haven’t had any major run-ins with guards… where are they?

“One minute to spare,” Atlas remarked, nodding. “Good work.”

“How are we meant to get down safely?” Imogen asked curtly, curling her lip. “Those kids are probably about the same age or younger than Teddy; they’ll break their necks easily.”

Atlas looked rather uneasy on the comment which reminded Luna that Rune had died in a fall, so she decided to speak. “We haven’t got a choice. Purebloods are relatively steady on their feet and most young Winged can glide down, so most of them should stand a chance. If there are any Skyriders or werewolves, then they might be in trouble.”

“Guards coming!” Leon suddenly yelled frantically. “Get the children off the roof!”

“I’ll use my powers to put some of them onto the top of that building nearby!” Ash shouted back, beckoning the group of terrified experiments towards him. Luna rushed in his direction to help, but Atlas blocked her. “We’ll need your powers to hold off the guards. We haven’t got long left before the building blows up and we can’t afford too many casualties. Ash will be fine.”

Reluctantly, Luna took out a long dagger and pointed it threateningly at a short female guard with the normal black hooded cloak and a personal black cat mask. She just laughed mockingly, not bothering to even draw a weapon. “You’re kidding me, right? A bunch of kids broke into the headquarters?”

“You took my brother when he was lost and scared,” Luna snarled, her light blue eyes blazing with all the anger thriving in her. “If you mess with my friends or family, you’ll have to deal with me.”

“Oh man, is the big scary Pureblood gonna stab me with her big sword?” the Silhouette taunted in a childish tone. “Oh, I’m so scared!”

“You should be!” Luna snapped. “I made the journey to the Land Of The Lost, survived being poisoned, watched my father die before my eyes when I was seven and have probably killed more Demons that you could ever hope to!”

The woman had a smirk playing on her grim face. “You may have survived being poisoned, but would your little friends be as strong?”

Without waiting for a reply, she took a pistol from her belt and fired a dart with a sickly green liquid in a random direction, a wicked little smile replacing her childish smile. Luna could see she was deadly serious now, but she couldn’t see whom she’d hit because there were guards surging everywhere like an ocean crashing against boulders on a beach.

She suddenly felt a little rumble beneath her feet, almost like a mini earthquake. She wanted to panic for a moment, but then realised what was happening.

Before she could even think, an ear-splitting explosion arose from the great skyscraper, and Luna was thrown into the air with the burning debris following her, beginning the suicidal plunge down to the ground.

Oscar only just had enough time to grab Cody as the building blew up, sending every single person into the air and plummeting back down as gravity took its dangerous toll. He was genuinely too shocked to scream, but little Cody was absolutely terrified and sounded like he was being murdered.

The fall didn’t last long, but the Prince hit the ground rather harshly on top of a pile of rubble, covering Cody’s ears so he didn’t hear the pained screams of the half dozen children that Ash didn’t save in time. Where are the others? I can’t see them!

Some of his panic lifted when he spotted Imogen rise up to her feet unsteadily, her arm hanging at a rather awkward angle. She’d probably landed on it in the fall and broken it. Her black silk blouse was also ripped, exposing some of her rib cage.

Knowing that he could stand, Oscar scrambled up and hoisted Cody up with him, who was thankfully uninjured also apart from a few scrapes. Imogen lifted her dark brown gaze to them both wearily. “Two of those experiment kids broke their necks in the fall.” she announced bluntly.

“What about the others?” Oscar inquired shakily.

“Atlas, Adele and Leon are okay, but I’ve not seen Teddy, Luna or Ash. Natural instinct says that they could all be buried under the rubble,” Imogen sighed softly. “Are you hurt?”

“Not too badly. I’ll live,” the Prince assured her. “We should focus on finding everyone else before any surviving Silhouettes do.”

Imogen shook her head, her mousey brown ponytail shaking with her. “Most of them have fled or died. Only a couple remain – they wouldn’t bother stirring up trouble when so few-”

“Imogen! Oscar!” Leon’s pleading cry pierced the air and interrupted the werewolf. “Come quickly! Ash is hurt!”

Oscar swiftly crossed over towards the fair-haired teenager with Imogen on his heels, feeling a sense of fear for Ash. “How badly is he injured?”

Leon had Ash’s head in his lap, one hand over the boy’s right rib cage and another supporting his back. “I saw him get shot in the back by a dart with this weird green liquid in it. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it’s not good,” he explained gravely. “Have you found Luna yet? I’ve not seen her, plus she needs to know about Ash.”

Imogen shook her head and said something, but Oscar didn’t hear what she said. He was more focused on the boy who had found the very sight of him revolting as well as being ridiculously brave, but beneath all of that was a damaged human being. He’d been hurt so much in his childhood from what he’d heard from the argument with Atlas earlier, yet he knew how to care for people in his own way, even if that meant being a sarcastic twat nearly all the time.

Ash has always had a soft spot for Luna from what I’ve observed and heard. Behind his eyes hides the warmth that we all feel naturally – he won’t express it too much in front of others.

A rather small yet reluctant feeling of sympathy rose inside Oscar. He had no idea if Ash was actually dying: he was breathing, but it was slow and unsteady, completely unnatural compared to his usual breathing. If he died, Oscar knew all too well that Ash’s friends would be more than unwilling to help the Prince get his kingdom back. Cody’s kidnapping had already thrown them off track.

Adele crouched down beside Leon, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I’ve called The Lodge. Nigel says we need to get any wounded back as soon as possible in case these Silhouette people have been messing with Demon poison.” she told him gently.

“Seeing the state of Cody and Ash, they probably have,” Leon responded coldly. “Ash is the only person my age in my family. If he dies, then I’ll go back to just being a lone child living with my aunts and uncles. I don’t want to be the poor little lonely orphan that everyone pities.”

“Ash is related to you?” Oscar was rather surprised.

“Cassie’s brother was my father,” Leon replied simply. “He died when I was eleven in a car crash, along with my mother.”

All Oscar could find himself saying was “Oh.”

Adele glanced up at him with a little frustration noticeable on her face. “You’re probably the strongest of us. You can carry Ash back and someone else can take Cody because he’s a lot lighter than Ash.” she explained.

“So he’s fat now?” Imogen remarked, a small smile slithering into her previously concerned expression.

Adele shooed her away with one pale hand mockingly. “Be gone, werewolf. Go and find Teddy.”

As Imogen let out a short mildly-amused laugh and plodded off, Adele returned her attention to Leon, who now held Ash’s head in his hands. “It’s okay. Oscar won’t kill him,” she told