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DAY 246 AF

REQUIEM, TENNESSEE

FOOTHILLS OF THE SMOKY MOUNTAINS

This is what I truly an of the cross Just as I once predicted

With that one gesture, he has broken my heart utterly

--And yet I could not be prouder, Empress-- seductive Death whispered in my mind

I heard hi left to lose, no reason to live in fear of him Watch your six, Reaper, I’m on the hunt

A rasping chuckle --Your Death awaits--

I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop

Jackson paled even more I hoped he would desert me now and take the other three with hiht just kill them all--

Moisture tracked down my face A tear?

Rain

As Jackson and I stared at each other, drops began to fall between us

My laughter died when I saw hihtly that his battered knuckles hite--as if by holding on to it, he could hold on to the sweet girl he thought he’d known

She was gone, replaced by the E in a puddle of the Alchemist’s remains As my reddened hair strea into an expression I’d never made before One of menace

I was half-surprised Jackson hadn’t drawn onover his shoulder

Along with the ohost town, obscuring everything, but I spied aze away froroup, three other Arcana like myself

Selena, Matthew, and Finn

It was Selena I focused on She’d re an arrow froh quiver

I raised otten tired of waiting to kill us

When she nocked that arrow, the whirling thorn tornado above htened in her direction, a viper poised to strike

"So that’s how it’s going to be, Archer?" My voice was raw fro in pain I sounded like a movie villainess I felt like one too There’s a heat in battle--just as Matthew had toldin as renades had eaten away part of ht left indown here?" Finn asked in his SoCal surfer accent "Selena, why in the hell are you drawing on Evie?"

Matthew nored both boys "I don’t want to hurt you, Evie," she said, even as she aied with red like a hunter’shair streaht "But I will protect myself until you rein this back in"

"I’ve remembered e’re meant to do, Selena" Kill each other "Give ht now" I waved to the two huge oaks I’d revived earlier Behind her, the ground ru her into the earth

My soldiers awaiting o

"You needwith so for any one of us to take out alone We work together until we defeat him Then all bets are off"

"And if I say no?"

She drew back on her bowstring

The glyphs winding along ression "Shoot enerate, and I’ll bury you" Big talk, considering I eakening by the second My soldiers as well

Selena chanced a glance over her shoulder "We don’t have ti, ht after the apocalypse was complete without those bloodthirsty zombies "But JD"--she jerked her chin at Jackson--"and I only have a few arrows between us We had to steal a jeep froive it up easily"

I could hear the Baght Like counting seconds between a lightning strike and thunder, I figured they were some distance away

But it also sounded like tons of them

"On top of that, other cards have been on our trail for a day," Selena continued "By now they know you offed an Arcana--the Alcheazed back and forth between ht ere two soirls--or as normal as we could be AF, after the Flash