The air around us smelled like burnt ozone and desperation. I stood at the center of our defensive circle, bat held ready as forty angry teenagers closed in from all directions.
"Look at all those pissed-off faces," I said to Natalia, keeping my voice cheerful. "You'd think I insulted their mothers."
"You basically did with that speech." She created a shield of purple energy that wrapped around our position like a dome, the barrier shimmering with a faint lavender hue. "The entire country heard you challenge them."
"I said make it worth my time. That's practically a compliment." I shrugged, feeling the weight of forty hostile stares pressing against Natalia's shield like a physical force.
Juan sighed from my left, his cards already shuffling through his fingers in that absent-minded way that meant his brain was calculating probabilities. "This is why people want to murder you."
"Because I have high standards?"
"Because you're an insufferable asshole."
