Anxiety began to pull at me as we waited for Livvie to reply, and my eyes flicked between the hole in the window she’d disappeared through and the other girls. It had only been seconds, but I was still worried, and I knew the others were too. They were barely paying attention to the spiders still filling the quad.

  One of the creatures was sneaking up behind Alice, I realised. She was distracted, too busy focusing on the one spider she was fighting whilst also anxiously waiting for Livvie to say something, anything. She hadn’t noticed it, and it was so close to her.

  Venom dripped from its fangs as it reared back, preparing to strike, but Alice was too late. She started to turn, her eyes widening in shock, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to do it in time. She wouldn't be able to dodge or hit it, but I was ready. My hand shot forward, bending the nearest jet of water and sending it shooting towards the spider. It was thrown back into another with an audible crunch, and I winced as they were both smashed against one of the buildings.

  A wave of guilt rose within me, warring with the excitement and celebration I felt exploding in my chest and slowly filling my body. It was wrong to feel happy that I was killing anything, but using my powers felt fantastic. It always did, and that made me feel so conflicted.

  Thanks! Alice thought, leaping to the side and slamming a creature into the ground. Why are there no roots under this damn city? I’ve been trying to find them since we got here, and… got it!

  She jumped into the air, glancing towards the shattered window before reaching out. I’d seen her summon plants many times before, but it was still cool to watch, despite my growing anxiety. A slight smile appeared on her lips, the expression tight, before a series of cracks sounded.

  Panicked clicks came from the spiders as thick dark roots began to appear through the gaps in the stone slabs, bursting through the webs. They reached towards a group of spiders, like snakes diving towards their prey, wrapping around their legs. I felt almost bad for the spiders as the noises they were making became even more frantic. The vines were reaching higher and higher, rendering the spiders immobile. They fought to break free, but it was impossible. The plants were too strong. The grip they had on the creatures couldn’t be broken.

  Alice’s hands turned to fists, and she yanked them back. I winced, knowing what would follow, watching as the spiders continued to struggle. A sharp, rigid root shot forward, piercing the first spider’s body and causing it to fall still immediately.

  The other three spiders grew louder, their bodies twitching violently as they tried to escape the roots that had entrapped them, but they couldn’t. There was nothing they could do to avoid death.

  Livvie, I could really do with you out here, Alice thought, a worried edge to her voice. I trap them, you laser them. That’s how we do this, right?

  She was met with silence. I glanced at the gap in the building again, feeling fear bubble in my stomach. Livvie hadn’t answered anyone since she went in. I hoped she was just distracted, that there were webs inside and the stupid photograph had gotten trapped in them or something. Maybe she was just paying too much attention to carefully trying to get them free without hurting them or getting stuck herself, and that meant she couldn’t focus enough to think anything to us.

  But I was starting to get concerned. More than just starting to. I was worried, really scared for Livvie, but I clung to hope, needing to believe that she was okay. She would be. I was sure of it.

  Maybe the web’s just blocking us, Phoebe thought hopefully, but the anxiety in her tone was too audible. She did say she couldn’t really hear anyone in the town hall through it, so maybe it’s just blocking our powers or something?

  Yeah, maybe… Issy replied.

  It was clear she didn’t really believe Phoebe’s explanation, though. There was a moment of silence as she ripped a spider in half with a brutal gust of wind, and I glanced around again. My eyes found a creature that had appeared on the top of the building. Its legs were moving fast as it weaved a bundle of web to throw at us.

  I pushed my mind into the water again, causing the nearest geyser grow even more energetic. It stretched high into the air, curving gently before crashing down on the spider and washing it off the building.

  The water caused some of the webbing to come loose, being washed away from the glass front in a disgusting matted ball of white. I had to look away as nausea threatened me. I wasn’t sure why it was so sickening to me, but I couldn’t help imagining how that would feel against my skin.

  “Avery,” Issy called, her voice loud in my earpiece. “Can you hear anything from Livvie? She went into the building above the… what is that? A pizza place? I don’t know. I can’t see the name of it, but it’s on the… south side. She went in there like a minute ago to rescue a person, but she’s stopped responding to us.”

  “What?” Avery replied sharply. “Which pizza place? Do we have eyes in there? No, it’s obviously not that one. That’s not surrounding the quad! It was directly off the main square, right?”

  “Yeah,” Issy confirmed.

  My body felt tense as I waited for the response, waiting as Phoebe burnt a spider. In its panic, it had run, leaving a trail of burning web that I quickly smothered before looking around again. Avery was taking too long to reply. She must have muted herself whilst talking to someone else in the control room, and that made me nervous. What could she possibly be saying to them, and why didn’t she want us to hear it?

  “No, we don’t have access to any of the security cameras in there,” she told us after far too long a pause. “John managed to get access to their server and found recordings from eleven thirty today but nothing later. Either the cameras were switched off, or the latest recording just hasn’t been uploaded for remote access yet.”

  “Which seems more likely?” Issy asked.

  Avery hesitated again. If they’d been turned off intentionally, that probably meant we’d found the person behind the attack. They must have either turned the cameras off in a desperate attempt to hide what they were doing, or they might have still been in the building for some reason. It wasn’t a bad vantage point. It had a good view of the town hall, after all.

  But then, why had they been taking photos? I’d heard them; I knew I had. Why would they be taking photos of us rather than just… revelling in the success of their attack or whatever it was villains normally did before we found them during the fight? It seemed weird. Intentional, maybe. Had they been trying to lure one of us in?

  Then what? What was their plan after they succeeded, and why was Livvie still not responding to us? If she could hear us, she would have responded. I knew that, but I was also almost certain that nothing could have happened to her. She was so strong, and she could hear people’s thoughts. She would have heard the villain’s gleeful celebrations before she found them.

  Even if the webs had been blocking her and making it impossible to hear anything through the building, surely that would have stopped the moment she crossed the threshold. Once she was actually in the building, through the webs, they shouldn’t have continued to block her, should they? She would have heard them.

  But what if it happened too quickly, a voice in the back of my mind whispered. What if she burst through the window, and they were there, waiting for her? They could have attacked before she had the chance to realise what was going on.

  I started to drift closer to the window, just in case. I was still fairly far away, but if something had happened to Livvie in there and we had to go and rescue her, I wanted to be closer. It wouldn’t come to that, I tried to tell myself. Livvie was probably going to burst out any second, carrying the terrified photographer. Everything would be fine.

  A spider dashed across the side of the building, racing towards the hole, but my water was ready. It crushed the spider, causing the glass beneath to shatter from the impact. I was losing control. I knew the glass was there, and I should have been more careful. I didn’t want to cause too much avoidable damage to the buildings. That was the kind of thing a villain did, and I knew the city might not be able to afford to pay for everything to be fixed. We’d been warned about that before.

  I floated closer to the building, feeling Phoebe do the same. She continued to fight the spiders on the ground, setting them alight and reducing them to ash, but I couldn’t do the same. Instead, all I could do was stare at the hole.

  Something about it was wrong, I realised as I moved nearer. I wasn’t particularly close still, and I was too high to see through it properly, but… something wasn’t right. It was entirely dark in there. More than just a normal level, too. I couldn’t see anything.

  Perhaps it was just the angle that made it seem so gloomy in there, I told myself, but I knew there was something else going on. It didn’t seem natural. It was as though there was a pitch-black wall on the other side of the window. No light penetrated it at all, and it should have.

  It was the middle of the afternoon. The sun was still high in the sky, and there were barely any clouds. Most of the webbing had been washed away by me just moments before, and the hole Livvie had made in the glass was fairly big. I should have been able to see something, even if it was just a small scrap of carpet or wooden floor, but there was nothing.

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  Guys… I think something weird’s going on in there, I thought, moving closer still.

  The urge to just dive in pulled at me. It might have been just a trick of the light or something that was making the building look strange, but I was becoming more and more convinced that there was more going on, and that meant Livvie could be in danger. She was in danger.

  “We think it’s most likely just a fault with the system,” Avery said, but she wasn’t able to hide the anxiety in her voice. “We don’t see anything suspicious, and there are a few gaps over the last few days, but we’ve requested backup, just in case. The military helicopter is about five minutes away.”

  I looked back at Phoebe before glancing down at Issy and the others. I could tell we were all thinking the same thing. That wasn’t fast enough. If something had happened to Livvie, if the person or people in there had advanced enough tech to create and control the spiders, to hide from us and throw up that barrier, Livvie might need backup.

  Livvie, please tell me you can hear us, Mel thought desperately.

  Once again, no answer came. The silence in my head felt deafening, and anxiety wrapped even more tightly around my chest, making it hard to breathe. I needed to do something, needed to help Livvie.

  I’m going in, Issy thought before I could. It’s probably nothing. I’m sure it is, but I just want to check. Keep fighting the spiders out here, and then free the people in the town hall. Don’t follow me unless—

  Let me go, Alice thought, shooting forward. We need you out here.

  No, it’s— Issy started to think, but she didn’t have time to finish the sentence.

  Alice was closer to the building. She’d been drifting nearer, just like I had, and before Issy had a chance to finish telling her not to go, she’d disappeared through the hole. I held my breath, watching as Alice’s body vanished from sight.

  Movement from above caught my eye, and I managed to dodge just in time as a spider plummeted towards me. It must have thrown itself from the top of the building, but I hadn’t even noticed it appear up there. Wetness splattered against my face as it passed, its legs reaching out towards me, trying to pull me down with it, but I was out of reach. The venom burned my skin, and a twinge of distant fear sparked in the back of my mind.

  I could feel my hand reaching towards my face, but it was like a shadow. It wasn’t my current hand, but one in another world. The real world. I could just about feel my skin under my fingertips as I checked to make sure it wasn’t bubbling and blistering. It could have been. Some injuries had somehow passed between the worlds, like the time I was shot, and I had no idea how I’d explain it to my mom if my real face started to burn, but it felt fine. I was pretty sure it did, anyway.

  Alice? Issy asked. What’s happening in there? Can you see Livvie?

  I couldn’t breathe as I waited for her response. She was fine, though. They both would be, I told myself. They were Shooting Stars, after all. We were pretty much invincible. Sure, we’d gotten injured a couple of times, but it was never anything big. It was always just… superficial.

  We’d been shot at, set on fire, and someone had even thrown a grenade at us once, but the worst thing that ever happened was a bit of a burn and a headache. Even that wasn’t too bad, though. It went away in less than ten minutes, so they had to be fine. There was nothing anyone could do to us that would kill us.

  Can you hear me now? Alice replied, her voice distant and quiet.

  A sob escaped my lips, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to hold it back.

  Yes! Issy almost screamed. What’s going on in there? Can you see Livvie?

  Tears streamed down my face as I took down another spider that had been racing toward Mel. My movements were mechanical, and I was barely paying any attention to what I was doing. I was too distracted by trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything Alice said.

  No. I have no clue where she is, but… it’s weird in here.

  Weird, how? I asked immediately. Do you need us to come in?

  A voice came from elsewhere as Alice paused, but I didn’t really hear it. I was pretty sure it was my mother, but I couldn’t respond. I didn’t want to leave the world for even a second in case something happened or I needed to go after Alice and Livvie.

  No, I don’t think so… It’s just… empty in here. I don’t know how long the villain was planning this, but there’s literally nothing in any of these rooms.

  My heart clenched slightly.

  Nothing? Issy asked. Avery said they had cameras there earlier today, just a few hours ago… she said they didn’t see anything strange.

  A few hours? Alice repeated. That can’t be right. This place is dusty. No one’s been here for weeks.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Phoebe, meeting her gaze. She looked just as concerned as I felt, and I knew she was wondering the same thing I was. How could that be possible? Surely, Avery and the team would have said something about the place being empty or they would have noticed if the images looked weird, like if they’d been faked or something. They were good. They knew what they were doing.

  What about Livvie? Do you know where she is? Issy asked, flying closer to the building.

  No. But I think she might be ahead. I hear people.

  A lump of fear lodged itself in my throat, and I swallowed hard, trying to force it down as I drifted even closer. Issy and I were almost within reach of the glass. We were so close, but it was still impossible to see anything through the hole.

  People? How many? Is there a fight going on? I asked, the questions tumbling out before I could stop them.

  No, I don’t think so. I can just hear movement, Alice told us. It doesn’t sound like they’re moving particularly fast, but… I think there’s a lot.

  Wait! Issy thought suddenly, causing me to look at her. Wait for us. You might need backup.

  She looked conflicted, though. I knew she wanted to go in and help Livvie and Alice, but her eyes darted towards the town hall. We needed to save everyone. It was stupid, foolish, but that was our mission. We had no clue what was happening in either building. Perhaps Livvie was fine, and everyone in the town hall was being murdered. We couldn’t risk it.

  “I’ll go,” I said, not wanting Alice to hear me. “You stay out here with the others and deal with the spiders.”

  Issy opened her mouth to respond, but Alice’s voice came before she could.

  I’m not waiting. I’m almost at the door now, and… oh god.

  What? Issy asked sharply, her head snapping around to face the window again. What is it?

  Is it Livvie? I added.

  Alice’s hushed tone terrified me. I’d never heard her sound so terrified before, and I couldn’t stop myself from moving into position, preparing to burst through the hole. Something had happened, and I had to do something.

  Alice? Issy cried. What’s happening in there?

  A strange high-pitched sound seemed to come from within the building. It echoed through my brain, making my teeth feel like they were vibrating, and I clapped my hands to my ears, trying to block it out. The sound still found a way in. It drowned out everything else, making it impossible to do anything other than groan with pain.

  But as suddenly as it started, the sound stopped. The unexpected silence left my ears ringing, and I shook my head, trying to clear it. I was about to do something, about to go find Livvie and Alice and whatever else was in the building. I needed to focus, needed to pull it together.

  I started to lunge forward, pushing myself towards the gaping hole in the glass, but I didn’t get far. Something slammed into me. A wave of pure energy threw me backwards, sucking the oxygen from my lungs and throwing me through the air. I could feel myself moving, feel the wind rushing past me, but there was nothing I could do. My head was spinning, and my brain couldn’t form any thoughts, much less work out what happened to me.

  The world began to blur as dizziness wrapped around me. My surroundings became fuzzy; they felt less real, and I fought desperately to keep my grip on it. I couldn’t leave, not yet. I had to stay and fight the spiders. I had to find Livvie and Alice and make sure they were alright. If I left…

  I crashed into the ground. The small amount of oxygen that I didn’t know was still in my body left me in a whoosh, and pain exploded in my chest. The webbing on the ground should have caught me, should have protected me from the impact, but it did nothing. I tried to suck in a breath, but my body rebelled. My lungs spasmed, refusing to work, and panic spiked within me.

  Did the fall do something bad? The question seemed to ricochet around my mind as I attempted to breathe again. That could happen. My lungs could have been crushed, or perhaps a rib broke and speared it. Maybe I’d ever be able to suck in another breath again, and I was about to die. I’d choke to death, suffocate, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  There was noise. Someone shouted my name, and commotion roared in my ear, but it was drowned out by my dry, hacking coughs as I fought to breathe. It was painful. My chest burned from a lack of oxygen, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing happened. Nothing stopped the agony.

  “Grace!” a familiar voice screamed.

  Phoebe’s panicked face appeared above me, and I blinked, taking in how terrified she looked. I needed to speak, needed to say something to reassure her, but I couldn’t. I opened my mouth, tried to tell her I was okay, but my words came out as a wheezing cough.

  The world swam; tears obscured my vision, making it impossible to see anything other than Phoebe’s face and the occasional flare of light behind her. I had no clue what the light was. My mind couldn’t process it, and I couldn’t force my eyes to focus on it as I stared up at Phoebe, trying desperately to suck in air.

  “You’re okay. You’re okay,” she told me, her voice sounding strange and high-pitched. “You’re completely fine, just winded, right? You just need a minute, and then you’ll be okay.”

  Phoebe, behind you! someone cried.

  The volume of their shout made me wince, and the movement reignited the fire burning in my chest as Phoebe glanced over her shoulder. She threw a hand back, sending a tunnel of fire towards an approaching spider, but she didn’t even watch it burn. She’d already looked away, her tear-filled eyes finding my face again.

  “Grace, please. Breathe,” she begged.

  I tried to follow her instructions, managing to inhale a little before it caught in my chest and made me cough. That was an improvement, though. It was better, and the moment I stopped hacking, I tried again.

  “I’m okay,” I managed to croak, my head still throbbing.

  “Oh, god!” Phoebe cried, bursting into tears as she threw her arms around me. “I thought you were dead!”

  She’s okay! Phoebe told the others as she clung to me.

  My arms felt like they were made of lead as I slowly lifted them to hug her back. The movement caused tears to well in my eyes, and I gritted my teeth against the onslaught of pain, but it was starting to ease. My chest still burned, and my head was spinning, but it was getting better.

  I’m alive. Sorry for scaring you, I thought. Where’s Issy? Is she okay?