by Amelia Shaw
“You couldn’t have just been a bad guy,” I said. “You had to be a misogynistic pig bad guy to boot? I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
He didn’t look concerned, and that worried me.
“Killing me in someone else’s skin only pushes me back into my own. You won’t kill me. You will kill this man though. I’ll simply hop back into my own body and go about my day.”
Yes, please keep bragging about your abilities. Keep telling me your plan like a Scooby Doo villain.
I made another circle around him and slashed out with the knife. He barely dodged it and I caught the captain across his chest. There would be time to feel guilty about it later.
While I loved a good ‘bad guy spills his secrets’ moment, I would not be able to hold out much longer. The wound in my side had been steadily dripping blood since I gave everything in me to Fin. Which, upon reflection, might have been a bad idea considered he still hadn’t woken up to help here.
The captain struck his fist at the side of my face. I went down hard and stayed there a moment, dazed.
He leaned over me and pointed the knife under my chin. “Don’t move, or I’ll gut you. I’ll hook you up to an IV and use your body like a breeding machine. Then I won’t have to deal with your mouth as a consequence of keeping you alive.”
If this guy didn’t stop threatening to rape me and use me to breed his babies, I was going to rip off his limbs, in the captain’s body or not.
I tried to push off the ground, but my arms gave out and I collapsed.
Something sang through me. It took me a moment of hazy focus to realize it was the bond between Fin and me. It shimmered and flexed inside me, soaking in the magic and life force I’d shoved into it.
Then Fin sat up with a gasp of air, clutching his throat. The captain spotted him at the same time I did.
Fin couldn’t protect himself yet. I launched myself at the captain from the ground and took him down.
Fin scrambled to his feet somewhere behind. The captain got me around the neck and squeezed, then he pulled the gun from his thigh holster.
“Come any closer and I’ll blow her head off,” he yelled at Fin.
Well, Fin looked like shit. I probably looked just as good. He walked toward us, dragging a sword in his hand. Isolde. It drew a line through the pine needles as dirt as he lumbered toward us.
“Let her go,” he said, his voice only a whisper.
Esteban laughed “Oh sure, I’ll just let her go and you can take me prisoner and end this entire bloody campaign. Shall I?”
“God, you’re a dick,” I said, struggling in his hold.
He bit my earlobe hard and whispered fiercely. “I know you're eager to have me but please don’t make me shoot you on accident. Or your lover.”
I didn’t waste the breath telling him again that Fin and I weren’t lovers. He’d obviously gotten it into his head and let it run free into his imagination.
His legs wobbled around my hips, and his calves held my own locked tight with his. He used my body as a shield. The only good spot to hit would be part of his wider torso he exposed from behind me.
I calculated the odds of me getting stabbed at the same time if Fin struck, and they were pretty high.
But Fin didn’t make a move. He crouched down onto the ground in front of us, using the sword shoved into the ground as a crutch.
“You don’t want to kill her,” he said. “You’ve spent some time coming up with these plans. If you kill her now, you’ll have to find another baby factory to force into submission.”
I groaned. “Don’t say baby factory. Gross.”
“Shut up,” Esteban said against my ear. “Women don’t get issued opinions in my household. You must learn that before I bless you with my seed.”
I gagged at the thought.
Fin made eye contact with me, so many questions in his eyes. One rang out above the rest.
Can you free yourself?
As much as I hated the idea of someone in my mind, I had to admit during battle, it would come in handy.
Fin continued his casual lean on the sword and eyed us. “What about my Captain? Are you going to release him?”
“When I’m done with this body, I’ll kill him. He is a mage, after all. One of my kind, not yours.”
I tried to jerk away from him, but he pressed the gun tighter to my temple. “Now, now, pet, settle down.”
Fin struck, the sword pointed right under the captain’s chin. He’d moved faster than even I could see.
The captain/Esteban didn’t loosen his hold on me, and when I squirmed, he only tightened his grip. The crazy bastard was playing a game of chicken using someone else’s body. Not cool.
“Well, it seems we are at an impasse,” the captain said.
Fin nodded. “Release the girl and we can settle this between us.”
To my surprise, he did. As I scrambled away, he extended the gun toward Fin. At this range they would both kill each other, or at the very least mortally would each other. Could Fin withstand a gunshot to the head? I had no more magic or life force to offer up. My body screamed at me from every nerve ending that I’d already given him too much.
“Like men then,” Esteban said.
They circled each other, both arms steady and poised to strike at any moment. If I jumped in now either I would die, or one of them might make a misstep, and kill the other or themselves. Shit. I sat on the sidelines like a helpless damsel, and I resented it with all my god damned might.
Fin’s arm shook the tiniest bit. He barely had the strength to stand upright, let alone hold a man at sword point indefinitely. I looked around, grasping to find something to do, something to use. Whatever it took to save him.
When I glanced back up at them, the captain turned the gun to his own chin and fired. The sound echoed through the clearing, leaving my ears ringing.
The captain fell where he stood.
Chapter Twenty
I should have moved faster.
But with my wounds, and the magic loss, I could barely crawl, let alone run. But I should have tried. Me not getting to my feet and rushing over to the Captain when Fin did, is what got me caught all over again.
Several goons charged out of the tree line and dragged me to my feet. One bound my mouth and covered my eyes with duct tape, and several men held me tight between them, caging me in with their bodies. I couldn’t kick out, or run, or maim them in any satisfying way at least.
Esteban’s disgusting true form had zoomed right back into his body. He swaggered up and joined the goons holding me in the center of the clearing. They dragged someone else up to stand next to me; I caught the faint scent of apples. Her hair grazed against my arm. They hadn’t taken Sol out of here. She’d just been bound up to keep her quiet while the fighting ensued.
Without sight, I focused on as many sounds as I could catch. The faint beat of the goon’s heart as he held me tight against his chest. The rustle of Sol’s hair caught in the movements of those around us. I listened for Fin to see me, to approach, to save us.
“Oh, fairy boy,” Esteban called, sing-song.
And that was when I saw it. A watch. A pocket watch actually. Hanging from his jacket pocket.
I heard the faint crunch of Fin’s boots on the pine needles as he approached. Somewhere, the sound of dripping sent a shiver down my spine.
“Let them go,” Fin said, his voice still weak from surviving his own slaughter.
The air stirred between us as Esteban moved and talked. “Oh, I don’t think so, but I’ll give you a little present. Choose one to stay and one to go. I know which I would pick if I were in your position, but I’ll leave you to your choice.”
“I won’t choose,” Fin said.
Esteban ripped my tape blindfold off, the one over my mouth jerking free too, and shoved me toward Fin. Before I could make a run for it, one of his henchmen dragged me back into his embrace.
“Not your beloved little sister? Surely she’s the one you want.�
� Esteban asked.
He lifted the ends of Sol’s hair, which hung limp, obscuring her features. The dress she wore was torn and stained, her pale feet bare on the browned needles.
She wasn’t the real Sol. Esteban was using this woman as a decoy. I opened my mouth to scream at Fin, to warn him, but the henchman slapped his hand over my mouth and squeezed so tight I thought he would pop my jaw out of socket.
Instead, I tried to call out to him through the bond, but it lay dark and taxed between us.
Look at me, I yelled in my head
His eyes stayed glued to Sol.
“Choose now,” Esteban shouted. “Or I’ll kill them both.”
Finally, Fin answered, weakly. “Zoey. I’ll take Zoey.”
Esteban eyed both me and the faux-Sol. His jaw clenched and a muscle in his jaw ticked as though he was annoyed. Then he sighed. “I’m a man of my word. Release her.”
Once the henchman released me and stepped back, the entire party of them disappeared. Even the dead bodies the captain and I took out vanished.
Fin rushed back across the field to kneel next to the captain.
I staggered over and knelt down beside them both. “Is he still alive?”
He didn’t answer, only applied pressure to the wound under the captain’s chin. It didn’t look like he would survive. Almost his entire face had been blown off.
“I need to get him medical help. We need to make a run to the helicopter and get out of here in case Esteban comes back,” Fin said, his tone all business even in a whisper.
I nodded and looked around at the blood-soaked ground. Not that I could find anything that might help us.
“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Nothing. You can’t do anything. I’ll carry him. Just follow behind and keep up.”
I took offense to how helpless he made me sound, but I did as he asked and stumbled after them toward the helicopter Fin had ridden in on.
Once we were all buckled in, Fin took off and sped toward the city. He spoke into the radio and advised his ground crew to prepare the doctor for trauma work for all of us. The man on the other end advised the doctor wasn’t available.
Fin squeezed the handset so tight it squeaked in his palm. “I don’t give a fuck if the doctor is busy. Get him there, or another doctor. Kidnap one, pay one, I don’t care, just be ready when we land.”
My heart ached watching him. The captain sacrificing himself to save Fin had to be eating out his insides with guilt. I reached out to soothe him, but he shrugged me off, refusing to even look my way.
“The captain will need help first. My wounds can wait when we land,” I said.
His only response was a grunt of acknowledgement. When had I been reduced to a grunt like that?
“Fin, are you okay?”
“Do I fucking look okay, Zoey? My friend is dying right now and I can’t make this machine go any faster, to get us there any quicker.”
Choosing to give him a little latitude with his tone because of his injuries and his grief over the captain, I let his response go.
“We know his games now,” I said. “We’ll go back and find him once we all get a chance to rest up.”
“And how long do you think that will take?” he asked, sharply, like it was my fault we were in this mess.
Maybe my wounds were making me delusional, but he sounded angry at me.
“What is happening right now? Are you mad at me?”
“Oh, I am livid with you. What were you both thinking coming out there? Now he’s dying and you—”
“I, what? Say it? Got him killed? Cost you what...Oh, I see. I cost you your sister. Is that what you think? By trying to save you, I lost you Sol for good?”
His jaw tightened, which was a feat since he seemed to be grinding his teeth together to keep himself in control.
I stared straight out the window into the darkness. He didn’t know the woman they brought to the clearing wasn’t his sister. The Black Mage wanted him to choose me so that he would resent the choice later. And if he didn’t choose me, well, he wouldn’t have won that way either.
My side hurt, and my head. Every part of my body from my toes to my eyebrows ached like I’d jammed myself between two cars crashing I glanced over at Fin, who avoided looking at me.
Anger surged up to match the pain. “You’re an idiot. You are the one who came out here on your own with no backup.”
“That’s because my backup was laid out on their asses from our last fight.”
He made it sound as if the captain and I had commiserated and took some kind of sabbatical while we should have been jumping into another fight.
“Wow, so, you went off on your own because he and I were still healing from our last fight, and now you’re blaming us for coming to save you. How the hell do you walk around with that ego? It must be compensating for the size of your balls.”
He threw the radio handset at the windshield and it cracked outward from the point of impact. Thankfully, it didn’t shatter, and he could still fly us. Otherwise, I didn’t know what would happen.
Fear of falling out into the dark night at ten thousand feet made me keep my mouth closed. One more attack on its structure and the machine might fail. I would rather die under the Black Mage’s knife than broken on the ground from a long fall.
I clutched at my seatbelt as every ripple of air, every turbulent current, sent me a new test of will.
When we landed in the lawn of his house, I jerked at my restraints until I freed myself and flung my abused body out of the contraption to the ground. Soldiers were already awaiting our arrival, and they lifted me onto a stretcher. Shock had set in and my entire body quaked so much I couldn’t have stood on my own if I tried.
The captain came next on another stretcher. Fin stayed by his side as the soldiers marched us all into the house.
Fin had almost gotten me killed several times in the last few days. I wanted my money back and to never see the bastard again.
The soldiers put me in a room off the main hallway, somewhere. Doctors or nurses shouted as they tended to the captain. I needed him to survive, if only to punch him later for being such an idiot.
It was a while before someone came to tend my wounds. They slid an IV into my arm and then stitched up the knife slashes along my side. Someone else wrapped my head with gauze and glued together a massive gash in the back of it. After they wrapped and prodded me for what felt like an eternity, a female nurse sponged me down and put me in blood free clothes. I didn’t know whose they were but I was grateful to be out of the crusty material.
“How is he?” I asked one of the women as she fluttered around me.
“The man you came in with?”
I nodded. “Please, tell me.”
She soothed me to lie back down. I didn’t even realize I’d jacked myself off the table to get her attention.
“He’s going to live. He missed by a lot and the bullet went clean through up into his mouth. He needs surgery to fix everything in there, but he’ll be fine.”
Who needed surgery when you had magic on your side? No doubt the moment the doctors left, Fin would use his abilities to heal his friend. The fight for control over his body must have been what kept the captain from truly blowing off his own head.
Would Fin heal me too? Something told me I was on my own from now on.
I settled back into the covers of the bed and stared up at the ceiling. A heart rate monitor ticked away from beside me. Even though I felt betrayed by what Fin had said to me on the ride, I still longed for him to come and see me.
I reached in and touched the bond between us, but it felt jagged on the other side. Like he’d ripped the plug out of the wall. Not only did he blame me for all of this, but he’d also abandoned me now too.
The time we spent together, whatever I thought had been building between us, obviously had meant more to me than it had to him. I’d learn this lesson hard, and I would come back stronger for it.
I das
hed away a few tears as they crawled down my cheek. Fuck him, and his magic, and his money. I didn’t need any of them. If he thought he could use and discard me at his convenience, he would be learning a lesson the hard way too.
Zoey Salix made her own way in the world. And no one would stand in the way of her goals.
I would go after the Black Mage myself. Now that I knew what he wanted from me, it would be easy enough to bait him. And after I killed him, I would spike his head to Fin’s driveway in one final fuck you.
Besides, I had an Ace in the hole even Fin didn’t know about. When the Black Mage had held me prisoner, I’d stolen his pocket watch. And the magic wafting off it told me it wasn’t an ordinary time piece.
It would be my key to bringing the Black Mage down.
THE END
