Excerpt: They Snared the Birds

With a muffled curse she scrounged for her coat and boots, hurrying to the door. She locked it carelessly behind her, practically throwing her self down the stairs in her haste to get out side. She hadn’t even made it to the outside door before Brendon appeared directly in front of her, holding his hands out in a warning gesture.
“Get back upstairs,” he shouted, and the bombs went off down the block, blowing James back in to the wall behind her. She sensed rather then saw Brendon hover down in front of her, trying to shield her as best as an insubstantial being could in the midst of chaos.
Her head rang from the explosions, little mini blasts of light flared up behind her eyes she could feel the way the ground roared with each attack, the way the dirt shifted beneath her. She curled up as small as she could, ignoring the screaming pain from her back she could barely feel. Time seemed to echo in to eternity, the rolling detonations coming and going as evenly as the wind. She wondered absently if her building would come down on top of her, if she would join Brendon on his eternal walk or if she would simply keep going in to the light. Her dream replayed through her head, and she wondered if it had been a sending, if her family was as dead as she was.