Out of nowhere, Hudson grabs me, and we fade halfway across the ballroom—and Ephes turns on a dime to watch us. Damn it.

“Why’d you do that?” I demand. Hudson’s brilliant blue eyes are dim, but he’s still on his feet. “You can’t keep wasting your energy like that!”

But he’s already gone before I finish my sentence, running as fast as he can toward Ephes. Just as Ephes swings an arm toward Hudson, he fades left, then left again, then left one more time—until the giant is spinning in a circle. It was a good plan, and it would have worked if Mazur didn’t take advantage of Hudson’s distraction and aim a well-placed kick in Hudson’s side.

Hudson goes flying through the arena, and I let out an ear-piercing scream as his body crashes into the wall, then falls to the ground like a rag doll. The crowd goes wild.

Ephes must have heard my scream, though, because he turns toward me and takes off running again. I have a brief thought of, What if I run toward him…

Either he’ll catch me and this nightmare will be over, or, if I’m lucky, he’ll have too much momentum to turn quickly and I’ll make it to the other side of the arena before he can catch me. It’s a good plan…if I didn’t have the shortest fucking legs in existence.

I’m running full-out, and Ephes just slows down and watches me race by. He watches me—then swings a huge hand down to scoop me up.

But before he can close his fist around my shoulders, Hudson fades out of nowhere and grabs me, and then we’re halfway across the arena again. But this time, Hudson leans forward and presses his hands into his knees, dragging huge gulps of air into his lungs.

“Nice—breath, breath—try.” He squeezes my hand. “Just—breath, breath—run closer—breath, breath—to his legs.”

My eyes widen. Is he kidding right now? I could have run close enough to trim his toenails, and I didn’t have a shot in hell. But I don’t have time to explain the physics of my short, human legs to him because both giants are heading right for us again—and so Hudson takes off to draw them away from me.

What if I run close to the wall? Surely I might at least be fast enough to roll out of the way then, with less space for a giant to maneuver. It’s a plan, so I take off for the nearest wall. Ephes is all about my wall idea, too, if the speed with which he chases after me is any indication.

My heart is pounding in my chest as I run as fast as I can. I see his hand start to swing toward me and at the last minute, I roll out of the way. And he misses. But there’s no point in celebrating because I have neglected to consider a very important detail. He has two hands.

He grabs me around the waist with his other hand and shakes me until my brain feels like it’s rattled loose inside my skull. Then he spikes me at the ground like I’m a football and he got the game-winning touchdown.

It hurts. A lot. Then again, everything in my body hurts at this point. Even before he lifts his colossal foot and starts to stomp down on me.

I manage to roll away from him before he can grind me into dust, but it’s a close call. And it’s only getting closer as he stomps another foot down, this one barely grazing my hair. I roll one more time, but I have to admit, my rolling days are limited. I’m sucking wind right now, and I might just throw up if I roll one more time.

I look up as Ephes’s disgusting foot is about to slam down on me—and this time there’s nothing I can do. I close my eyes and curl my body into itself, but then I feel myself being lifted on a breeze, cradled against Hudson’s hard chest, as once again he fades me out of danger.

Before my feet are even fully on the ground, he’s fading away again, drawing the giants to the center of the arena. I can’t understand why he wouldn’t draw them all the way to the other end of the arena where he’d have more room to fade away again, when I realize something very bad. He faded to the middle of the arena because that was as far as he could fade.

I only have about a second to process that information before Mazur slams a fist into Hudson’s stomach—and sends him flying. He skids across the floor face-first, and the fact that he didn’t fade to get out of the situation tells me everything I need to know about how drained he is.

And how fucked we are.

I’m so busy trying to will Hudson to get up, I don’t even realize Ephes is only twenty feet from me until it’s almost too late. I take off running, but he easily backhands me a hundred feet through the air, and I hit the ground. Hard. I can’t even pretend to have the energy to pick myself back up.

As if in a fog, I realize I’ve landed only about ten feet from where Hudson is sprawled on the ground, facedown. The ground is shaking as one of the giants races toward him, and I force myself to roll to my knees. I don’t know what I plan to do—drag Hudson out of the way is at the top of my thoughts—but I can’t do it. I don’t have the energy to get to my feet, and I instead watch in horror as Mazur aims a foot for Hudson’s broken body.

I scream as loud as I can, which admittedly isn’t very loud given I can barely pull air into my lungs without passing out from pain. But before Mazur’s kick lands, Hudson rolls to his feet at the last minute. Then he jumps twenty feet in the air and hits Mazur right in the nose.

Mazur roars his displeasure as blood squirts everywhere. But instead of grabbing his nose, he snatches Hudson right out of thin air and sends him spinning across the ballroom. Again. Hudson crashes headfirst into a pile of cheering, stomping crowd members, who roll his limp body right back down onto the ballroom floor.

I struggle to get to my feet. I can’t just let him lay there and get trampled, but Ephes has me in his sights. I race (if someone’s definition of “race” is running in quicksand) in the other direction, trying to flee from him and run straight into the still-bleeding, still-furious Mazur. He snatches me up by the hair, and it’s my turn to go spinning across the ballroom.

I don’t stop until I hit the wall.

Hudson, who, in the meantime, has managed to get to his feet, fades over to me and tries to help me up. But my head is throbbing, my ears are ringing, and I’m seeing three of him instead of one. Plus, I’m pretty sure Hudson isn’t the only one with a broken rib anymore. My side burns like hell every time I try to take a breath.

And that’s before Ephes pulls back his foot and punts us both across the ballroom, straight at Mazur.

Mazur lets loose a shout and jumps into the air, stretching himself out in the most bizarre imitation of a pro-wrestling move I’ve ever seen in my life. Especially when he starts to belly flop down right on top of us.

I freeze, screaming, but Hudson wraps his arms around us and rolls us away. Then, with what has to be the last of his strength, he fades us as far away from the giants as he can.

Unfortunately, it’s not far enough.

If he’d faded only himself, he would have made it. But with the extra weight of me, I realize, with cold precision, that neither of us is going to make it.

Ephes laughs and picks Hudson up by one foot. He twirls around, holding Hudson straight out from his body like a dirty sock as he builds up speed and momentum.

When he finally lets him go, Hudson soars shoulder first into the wall at the bottom of the bleachers.

And just like that, I’m done. I’m just…done.

Not that it matters. I wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop this even if I wasn’t.

I’m useless without my powers. Absolutely useless. I can’t fly. I can’t fight. I can’t do anything but get hurt over and over again. Or, worse, get Hudson hurt, since he’s so hell-bent on trying to save me.

If he keeps this up, he’s going to end up dead, too, and it’s going to be my fault. He’s already so broken and battered. There’s no way he can fight these giants off if he also has to worry about me. No way he can find a way to defeat them if he’s too busy running cleanup on the poor, pathetic human.

Across the ballroom, Hudson rolls over with a groan. The spectators are on their feet now, yelling and jeering. They’re throwing popcorn and cups down onto the ballroom floor as I struggle to my feet, and I get hit in the back with a full can of beer.

It douses me, but worse, it makes the floor so slippery that I end up on my ass again—just as Mazur turns to bear down on me.

“Get up!” Hudson yells from across the ballroom as he, too, tries to struggle to his feet. “Grace, get up!”