by Vicki Leigh
Richard stabbed me right above my belly button. My body jerked, and I shouted as blood poured from my body. Then he removed the knife and held his hand over my wounds, healing me before I could die. I groaned and spat in his face. He punched me, splitting my cheek open.
“Isn’t it time you let him die, Tamesis? You conducted all your research. He’s of no further use to you,” Giovanni said.
“Oh, no. I’m not done with him yet. I’m just taking my time before I use him to his full potential.”
Again, I struggled against the binds that held me to the table.
“Oh? And what will you do with him?”
Richard turned and faced the door. “Gents!” he yelled. The door opened and footsteps entered the room. Then he spoke again, “Take Daniel to Kayla’s room. And make sure you leave him bloodied and bruised. Maybe seeing him die before her eyes will be enough to get her to follow me.”
Four warlocks appeared next to me. When Giovanni and Richard opened the metal cuffs from around my wrists and ankles, I took my shot. Jumping off the table, I grabbed a knife off the counter. But as my fingers wrapped around the handle, a body hit me from behind. My ribs smashed against the edge of the countertop. I cried out as something popped in my side.
A second warlock grabbed my arm as I swung around to slice his neck, and he slammed my hand against the wall. The knife fell. And within seconds, fists were flying at me so fast, I didn’t know where to block.
hit the crimson red carpet of Kayla’s room with a thud and groaned, rolling from my stomach onto my back.
“Daniel!” Kayla shouted from across the room. She dropped to her knees next to me and brushed the hair out of my face. “Oh my god.”
I tried to speak, but my throat was too raw from all the screaming. Tipping my head to the side, away from her, I coughed. The blood that came out of my mouth matched the carpet. I wiped my lips with my hand and closed my eyes.
“Oh, Daniel, what did they do to you?” Kayla took my hand in both of hers. She kissed it. A tear fell onto my skin. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” My voice was raspy.
“This is all my fault.” Her voice broke.
I opened my eyes as she sobbed into my hand. Wincing, I lifted my other hand and wiped the tears from her cheek. “Stop talking like that.” Then I spotted the bruise on her left cheekbone and gently ran my thumb across it. “I’m going to kill him for doing this to you.”
Kayla opened her eyes and looked at me, her eyes wide. “How did you know?”
“Tabbi. Her connection with you lets her get into your head whenever she focuses hard enough. If I take her hand, I can see through your eyes.”
Kayla let go of my hand, stood and wiped her cheeks. Then she walked away. Sighing, I rolled onto my hands and knees then groaned as I got up from the floor. Kayla stood near a white sofa by the fireplace, her back to me.
I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her. She stood there like a statue. Had my revelation scared her? Before I could ask, her arms wrapped around me, and she buried her face in my shoulder. She shook with sobs. I held her tighter and kissed the top of her head. Her hands gripped the back of my shirt, and I rubbed her back as the tears flowed.
“I will get you out of here, Kayla, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
At that moment, the door to the room opened. Richard walked in from the other side, followed by four of his followers—the same four who beat me senseless minutes ago. All of them wore smug smiles.
“Oh, good. I see you two have reconnected,” Richard said. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
He snapped his fingers, and the four warlocks rushed us. I stepped in front of Kayla, poised to fight them, but my body filled with pain, like a hundred daggers penetrating my skin. I doubled over with a gasp.
“Daniel!” Kayla shouted. She reached for me, but two of Richard’s men grabbed her and yanked her away. She screamed and fought against them, but they held her tight.
The other two grabbed my arms and hauled me up from the ground. I tried to fight them and clocked one in the jaw, but a crack of electricity hit me square in the chest. I flew across the room and landed on my back, gasping for air.
“Stop! You’re going to kill him!” Kayla yelled.
“Then join me, and I promise I will spare his life,” Richard replied.
Standing, I shook my head. “Don’t do it, Kayla.” A blast of air flung me across the room and pinned me to the wall. Richard’s left hand rose in my direction.
“Your answer. Now!” Richard’s voice echoed.
Kayla stared at me, teary-eyed, then returned her gaze to her father. “Please, let him go.”
Another shock of electricity hit me, like Richard smashed me between a gigantic defibrillator. I yelped in pain, unable to control myself. Kayla struggled against her captors, refusing her father a response.
“Fine,” Richard said, raising his other hand, palm up. A wraith dropped in from the ceiling. My heartbeat screamed in my ears, and I fought the urge to squirm like a frightened child. I needed to be strong, for Kayla.
“No, please. Stop!” she yelled.
Richard smirked. “You can see them? You’re more my daughter than I thought.”
“Daddy, please. Don’t do this. I know this isn’t you.”
Maybe it was because she called him “Daddy,” but his eyes softened slightly as he looked at his daughter. Chills rain down my spine.
“You know,” Richard said, “the other three, their genes I manipulated. But you are my own. I do not enjoy doing this to you, seeing you cry. Maybe I’ve gone about this the wrong way. Maybe you, like me, respond stronger to love than to fear.”
He took a step closer to her, and I fought against the hold he still had on me. Richard waved his fingers at the two Magus holding Kayla. They let her go. Her eyes flickered to me, then fell on her father’s face.
Richard placed a hand on each shoulder. “I told you—I am doing all of this for you. You are my first true child in almost two hundred years, and I want to make this world a better place for you. I do not want the world to dispose of you like they did to my mother, Gwyndolyn—your grandmother—like they did to my other children. Please, stand with me. Together we can change the world not just for ourselves, but for all of those like us.”
Kayla stared at him, seeming to contemplate his words. Then her eyes turned cold. “Never.”
“Fine. Goodbye, Daniel. Occidere eum!” Richard spoke with ferocity. In a second, the wraith was barreling down on me.
Two of the Magus grabbed Kayla from behind as she pushed away from her father with a scream.
Locking eyes with her, I spoke the words I should’ve said a long time ago. “I love you.”
I closed my eyes and waited for the wraith to take my existence. The pain will be over in a second.
“No!” Kayla’s voice was so loud the room shook. I snapped my eyes open. A crack slithered up the wall behind her, all the way across the ceiling. And to my disbelief, the wraith shrunk back from me in fear.
The gold in Kayla’s eyes glowed like the sun. Flames from the fireplace exploded into the room, catching the floor and ceiling on fire. Kayla flung the two warlocks off her arms so hard they soared in opposite directions. They fell to the floor, unconscious. The other two rushed her as Richard stepped back, but with a swift turn of her hands, their necks snapped.
My mouth gaped. I’d seen Kayla’s power in Bartholomew’s office. Even Trishna had known what was stirring inside her.
Richard just forced it to explode.
Kayla stepped toward the wraith, her eyes still glowing. The air around me grew heavier, and while the flames from the fireplace rose higher into the room, everything around us darkened.
Kayla’s hair flew behind her, as if someone held a fan to her face. Both of her hands were open at her sides, palms facing outward.
“Go back to Hell,” she said to the wraith, her voice amplified like she spoke through a micropho
ne.
With an earsplitting scream, the wraith folded in on itself, disappearing with a loud boom. Then Kayla turned to her father, her hands held out to him. “Let. Him. Go.”
The room shook again, filling with smoke. Dust from the ceiling fell to the floor. If we didn’t get out of here soon, we’d all either roast to death or die of suffocation. Richard took one wide-eyed look at his daughter, then smirked.
I fell to the ground as Richard reached up and magically dropped part of the ceiling down in front of him, trapping us on the other side with the flames.
coughed and forced debris off my body. When Richard pinned me to the wall, he saved me from being trapped beneath the wreckage, unlike—
“Kayla!” I shouted, unable to see through the cloud of dust and smoke. Flames lined the back wall and spread across the floor and ceiling. It wouldn’t be long before they reached us.
“Daniel!” Her voice was a shot of adrenaline.
I jumped up. “Kayla, thank god. I’m coming to get you. Are you hurt?” Waving my hands in front of my face, I moved across the room to where I knew she’d been standing when the ceiling collapsed.
She whimpered somewhere to the left of me. “My leg. I think it’s broken.”
At least it’s just the leg. “All right. Keep talking.” My eyes burned, but I kept them open, searching for her.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. I didn’t mean—”
“I know. You don’t need to apologize.” I followed the sound of her struggling, and then I saw her through the haze, buried underneath a large piece of drywall. Blood trickled down her forehead. I sprinted the rest of the way to her, ignoring the pain in every part of my body, and dropped to my knees.
Kayla sobbed almost immediately.
“Hey, we’re going to be fine,” I said. “But I need your help, so you have to calm down.”
She nodded and breathed deeply through her nose, setting her lips in a tight line.
The flames were just a couple feet away. Soon they would lick at her hair if I didn’t get her out. Holding her hand, I closed my eyes, praying that Richard lifted the spell to keep me from evaporating.
But he hadn’t. I swore under my breath and touched her cheek. “Take in as little oxygen as you can. Keep breathing slowly through your nose, all right?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’m going to get this drywall off you. When I lift, roll to your right. Don’t slide back, or you’ll hit the flames.”
When she nodded again, I stood up and wiped sweat from my forehead. With a groan, I lifted the drywall, every muscle in my body aching. The depleting oxygen didn’t help, either.
My arms shook. “Kayla, move!”
“I can’t. My leg’s caught.”
The world around me tilted, and I lost my grip. Kayla cried out when the drywall landed on her again. I fell to one knee, apologizing, and shook my head, trying to put everything back into focus. The flames were inches from her now. My throat tightened.
Standing up, my vision blackened around the edges. I coughed and gripped the edge of the drywall again. Come on, Daniel.
A loud boom sounded to my right. I crouched low to gain my balance as the room shook. Someone had blown a hole in the debris. The smoke in the room lessened now that there was an opening for it to go through, and a blurred figure came toward us. I prayed he was a Dreamcatcher, but as he ran further into the room, I could tell he wasn’t wearing a weapon belt. Balling my fists, I prepared to fight with every ounce of strength I had left.
Then he called out, his voice familiar. “Kayla!”
“Nolan!” she screeched from underneath the drywall.
Nolan? My jaw tightened. Not only had he carried her over his shoulder, but he’d been responsible for her botched escape attempt. I swung when he got close enough and clocked him in the jaw.
“Jesus!” Nolan rubbed his face. “I’m rescuing you, and this is what I get? What the hell was that for?”
“That’s for carrying Kayla over your shoulder like a bloody rag doll,” I said.
He smirked. “Oh, she’s definitely not a rag doll.”
I raised my fist again, but Nolan stepped back and held his hand out in front of him. Water shot from his palm, putting out the flames that were now centimeters from catching Kayla’s hair on fire. Then the drywall covering Kayla went flying across the room.
“Can I get a ‘thank you’ now, please?” he said.
With a roll of my eyes, I bent over, scooping Kayla into my arms. She cried out in pain and struggled to get her arms around my neck.
A light film, like a bubble, enveloped Kayla and me.
“What are you doing?” I asked Nolan.
“What do you think? I’m shielding you. It’s either this or put out the rest of the fire, but I can’t tell the firemen I had a squirt gun in my back pocket and used my saliva to fill the tank, can I? Now, hurry up. You can evaporate us from the parking lot.”
I glared at him, unsure if I wanted to trust him, but then Kayla winced in my arms, and I knew it didn’t matter. She needed to be somewhere safe, now. As quickly as I could without hurting her, I ran out of the room then swore when the door opened at the end of the hall. Ten of Giovanni’s Catchers ran in, weapons pointed at us. One pulled the trigger, but Nolan’s bubble worked. The bullet disintegrated in front of my eyes.
“Get out, now!” Nolan yelled. He moved so the light film stood in front of the three of us like a shield. “I’ll hold them off.”
“What about you?” I asked him as the Catchers encroached upon us, firing their weapons.
“What do I look like? A Disney princess? I can take care of myself. On three. Ready? One, two—”
I took off, my body aching everywhere. Despite her small size, Kayla was becoming heavier, and she screamed with every step I took. But I could not stop, no matter how much my body protested—or my heart. True to his word, Nolan parted the group of Catchers like Moses and the Red Sea. Every one of them, as we passed, went up in flames, froze, or was blown into the wall.
When I finally reached the stairwell, I kicked the door open with a grunt and worked my way down the stairs. Footsteps followed and, for a moment, a hot wave of panic seized me. Then, I glanced over my shoulder to see Nolan following close behind.
“Hurry up, slow poke,” he said.
I would’ve sworn at him had my lungs not already felt like they were going to explode. Then I noticed Kayla was silent and looked down at her. Her lips were pale.
No, no, no. How was this possible? She’d barely been injured. I forced my body to speed up, using every ounce of energy I had left. Finally, we reached the first floor and turned left out the emergency exit. Fire trucks lined the parking lot, and firefighters ran toward us in their gear.
“Somebody call the paramedics!” one of them yelled.
“Grab my arm!” I shouted over my shoulder at Nolan, not caring who saw us evaporate.
He wiggled an eyebrow, but did as he was told. As soon as his fingertips touched my shirt, I evaporated to Alaska, where I prayed the others would still be.
My friends jumped to their feet as soon as Kayla, Nolan and I popped into the room.
“Oh my god. Daniel,” Samantha said as she sprinted forward to help me get Kayla on the bed.
I set Kayla down gently and stepped back when I noticed Bartholomew running across the room. I’d have been more shocked to see him if my heart didn’t feel like it would jump out of my chest, or if the room ceased spinning for one blooming minute.
The sensation of falling hit me, and it wasn’t until someone caught me from behind that I realized my knees had buckled.
“Seth, help me,” Ivan said. Seth ran to my other side, and the two of them led me to the other bed.
I passed out before my head hit the pillow.
awoke to whispers and regretted opening my eyes. The light burned, like someone held a flashlight in my face after months of blackness, and I covered my eyes with a groan.
“Sam, get Trishna
,” Seth said. “Daniel’s up.”
Someone ran from the room, then there was a hand on my arm.
“Drink this,” Tabbi said.
Without opening my eyes, I held my hand out. Tabbi placed a cold glass into my hand. Sitting up a little, I held the cup to my lips and drank the liquid deep. It tasted like mint chocolate. Was this one of Bartholomew’s concoctions?
“You took in a lot of smoke and lost a lot of blood,” Seth said. “You’ve been out for almost two days.”
Two days? So much could’ve happened by now. I passed the cup back to Tabbi. “Kayla—how is she?”
The door to the room opened. “She is stable,” Trishna said. “Right now, let’s worry about you. Can you open your eyes and sit up, please?”
I didn’t like the way she dodged my question, but I obeyed. The light still burned my eyes, but not as much as the first time. My body was stiff, but there was no pain. I leaned against the headboard.
“I saw Bartholomew is alive,” I said.
Samantha nodded. “He found us only hours after Richard took you. We were in the midst of making plans to come get you when you evaporated to us.”
I winced when Trishna shone a bright light in my eyes. “And if I can, that means Giovanni can, too. We need to move.”
“No need. I’ve already put up spells around here to ward off any unwanted visitors,” Trishna said. “Only those who don’t intend to harm us can evaporate here. You are all safe. Now, hold still while I make sure you don’t need any more care.”
Bartholomew had said she was powerful, but I wondered if her spells would hold up against Richard. I let her finish her thorough inspection, and when she said I would be fine with a little more rest, I stood up.
“Where’s Kayla? I want to see her.”
Seth’s frown sent my heart hammering.
“Daniel, she’s fine. I am monitoring her closely,” Trishna said.
“‘Monitoring her?’” I knew what those words meant. Kayla was still in critical condition. I stared at Seth. He’d give me the answers I wanted—needed. “Where is she?”
