Bound: A YA Urban Fantasy Novel (Volume 1 of the Dark Reflections Books)

by Dean Murray

  Chapter 24

  James Wright

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  We'd been driving less than five minutes before we saw Kaleb's caravan come down the road towards us. The lead car flashed its lights at us as though trying to tell us to pull over, but Jasmin just flashed hers back as if in a friendly hello and pretended like she didn't understand the signal as we went past them at exactly the speed limit.

  "Make sure your phones are all off. We need to be able to play dumb as long as possible."

  I double-checked that my phone was powered off and then checked the speedometer.

  "Don't speed, Jas. We don't want to tell them that we know the jig is up. With any luck Vincent and Brandon are both riding with Kaleb and he'll refuse to come after us."

  "I know, I'm just adding up numbers in my head. We dropped Alec off five minutes ago which means that he's got roughly ten minutes between when he gets back to the house and when Kaleb and the others arrive. What can he possibly do in ten minutes?"

  "I don't know, but I hope that whatever he's got planned works."

  We'd only been driving for a couple more minutes before I looked up and saw a single black SUV overtaking us from behind. Jasmin waited as long as possible before pulling over, but once they were within a few feet of us they started flashing their lights at her again, so she slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road.

  Vincent was out of the other car and up to Jasmin's window before I even managed to unbuckle my seatbelt.

  "Where are they?"

  "Where are who?"

  I tried for confused, but I was pretty sure that my tone came out sounding smug. Vincent came around the SUV as I opened my door and got out.

  "Alec and Rachel, you idiot. Scott saw them leave with you. What did you do with them?"

  "We didn't do anything with them."

  He hit me with a left jab to the side of my head. My beast awoke with a flare of power as it tried to force a transformation. I managed to stop myself from losing my shape, but it was a close thing.

  Vincent tried to hit me again, but I blocked his swing this time and hit him with an elbow to the jaw. He stumbled backwards and I saw his shape expand and then contract slightly as he overrode his beast's natural instinct to shift and take the fight to me with everything he had.

  "News flash, Vincent, but you aren't dominant to me so I don't have to tell you crap."

  "Brave words from a guy who's submissive to someone I almost killed the last time we fought. You're lucky that there's nowhere around here where we can transform without being seen. If we were back at the estate I would have ripped your heart out of your chest by now."

  I needed to buy Alec more time so I did the only thing I could think of. I stepped forward and hit Vincent in the nose with everything I had.

  "You talk big, but the fact that you may be able to kill me when we're fighting as hybrids isn't going to save you if I beat you to death with my bare hands out here."

  Vincent's response was a wordless howl that was accompanied by such a burst of energy that I almost thought he was going to ignore the rules and transform. He stayed in his primary form though and hit me in the stomach with an uppercut that rocked me backwards.

  I didn't actually expect to win. Alec had studied three or four different kinds of unarmed combat over the years in an effort to find something that he could adapt to fights between hybrids, but I'd never been interested in that kind of stuff. I'd always figured that all learning martial arts would do was wire the wrong set of reflexes and get me killed in a hybrid fight.

  It looked like I was about regret my lack of interest in anything over and above basic boxing.

  Vincent came in again with a blow to the body but I managed to absorb most of the force of the strike against my arm rather than my stomach. I threw a wild haymaker that he ducked and then he hit me with another jab to the nose.

  I heard a crack as my nose broke, but although I hadn't been able to dodge his attack it had given me time to set up a response of my own. I saw stars from the force of his blow, but I managed to get a knee into his crotch and I had the distinct pleasure of watching him hit the ground as he curled up in pain.

  I stepped forward to kick him in the ribs, but someone hit me from behind in the kidney before I could reach Vincent. I tried to turn around so that I could deal with my new attacker, but all I ended up doing was turning into the hardest punch anyone had ever hit me with.

  I lost a couple of seconds because the next thing I knew I was on the ground and two of Vincent's guys were kicking me in the stomach and ribs. One of the kicks landed hard enough to puncture my lung and I blacked out again. When I regained consciousness it was hard to breathe and someone had propped me up against a rock on the side of the road.

  "I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, James. I'm only going to ask you this one more time before I just kill you and start in on the girls. Where are Alec and Rachel?"

  It was incredibly tempting to smart off again, but I could see it in Vincent's eyes. He was actually hoping that I would give him a reason to kill me.

  "I don't know. They jumped out of the car as soon as we were out of sight of the house. He said he was going back to the house and that we should just go get ice cream like we'd told Cassie we were going to."

  Vincent stepped on my hand and another wave of pain threatened to tear me away from reality. I had a moment to be amazed at how much more everything hurt when I didn't have the weaker pain receptors of my hybrid body and then Vincent pulled my face up so that I had to meet his eyes.

  "What else do you know?"

  "Nothing that will help you catch them, you child-raping monster. By the time you make it back to the estate Alec will be long gone."

  Vincent kicked me in the stomach and for several seconds I couldn't focus on anything other than a desperate need to get oxygen into my lungs as my diaphragm went into spasms. Vincent had only hit me with a fraction of the force he could have used, but it still was nearly more than I could withstand. When I finally sucked enough air into my chest to be able to notice anything other than the pain, I saw that Vincent was on his phone.

  "…jumped from the car a little ways out from the house. You should be able to scent track them if you hurry. Oh, that's even better news than I expected."

  Vincent dropped his phone back in his pocket with a satisfied look on his face.

  "Congratulations, loser. You just got the crap kicked out of you for no reason. I called back to the house to get them looking for Alec and Rachel, but it turns out that Brandon took off after them nearly ten minutes ago."

  Vincent turned back to the two bruisers standing behind him and pointed at me. "Keep him and the girls here. I'd say bring them back to the house but I want to leave our options open. It might work out best just to kill them out here and say it was an accident. Don't kill James without orders from Brandon or me, but if he happens to bleed out that's fine. I never have liked him."

  Vincent started back towards his SUV with a smile on his face. "Tonight is actually turning out much better even than I expected it to. James is as good as dead, and Brandon will run Alec down and kill him too. By sundown my two biggest rivals will be dead and Alec will get the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't manage to save his sister from me. It's only a matter of time now."