Reflected

by Rhiannon Held

  Andrew didn’t reply for a beat and Selene ended the call before he could comment on what was wrong with what she’d said.

  Enrique yanked the phone away and threw it to smash against the nearest pillar. He used his off hand so he didn’t have to change position and give her an opportunity to get away from the knife. Selene wasn’t sure if she could even if the opportunity appeared. Holding on sapped her strength in a steady stream.

  “And yours.” Enrique pointed to Felicia, who dug out her phone slowly, jaw clenched. She tossed it lightly away, possible to retrieve later. Enrique started down the slight slope descending deeper into the garage, glaring at the cars. The tension stretched and stretched as they wound deeper, and Selene realized that Enrique must not be used to parking garages and hadn’t thought of noting the floor when he rode up so he could take the elevator directly to it.

  Other cars and the possibility of distractions so Felicia or Tom could jump Enrique decreased. Their footsteps echoed oddly off the concrete, surrounding silence emphasizing how alone they were. Even the human’s cameras had thinned to one or two a level, easily avoided. Still they wound lower. Enrique seemed to have parked right at the very bottom.

  Finally, she spotted a single car in the sea of empty spaces, down half a level. She assumed it was Enrique’s, since there were no others within sight now. She had no idea how Enrique expected to get them all into the car and drive while still threatening her. His steps slowed like he’d just realized that himself.

  Whether or not his panic had decayed enough for logic, Selene didn’t have time to wait any longer before prodding him. “Now what?” she asked. “Now you have me, have us, what are you planning to do?”

  Enrique looked pointedly to the side. “Felicia? This is your show. I’m sure Madrid would be grateful to you for helping me.”

  Selene didn’t follow his gaze, but she could imagine from the choking noises that Felicia was probably flushed with rage. “He was blackmailing me. He has these forgeries, like I was feeding them information, but it’s not true! I’m loyal.” Her outburst sounded angled in Tom’s direction.

  Selene didn’t quite follow that, but when Felicia held a knife on her, Selene would worry about her. Until then, she would accept the young woman’s assertions of loyalty from before and worry about Enrique.

  “Just look on my phone, you can see all her e-mails to us, giving us all the information we needed. But if you don’t believe that, you have your own unquestionable proof that she’s not loyal.” Enrique smirked, panic ebbing in the face of his delight in this game, this … revenge? Another thing in Felicia’s favor, if she had done something to make him want to seek it. “She lied about not knowing me. Of course Madrid sent me.”

  Tom growled, the sound twisted with desperate anger decaying into betrayal. “You must have threatened—”

  “I didn’t need to. This was her idea. All of it.” Enrique glanced down at his knife and roughly jerked Selene into him as he switched sides. With his arm across her back, he used the pressure of the knife against her side to hold her close while he unlocked the car.

  Now. Someone had to do something now or Selene would completely lose herself. She took her eyes off Enrique long enough to check the other two. Tom’s expression roiled with betrayal and anger, Felicia’s with desperation. Neither of them would do anything, because it would get her hurt, she was certain of it.

  When Enrique leaned into the car to reach something, Selene lunged away.

  The pain came out of order somehow—first she felt just a line of cold or pressure along her side. Then it hurt in a blaze of heat along the line and Selene put her palm to the cut as she stumbled out of the way.

  Tom slammed into Enrique and Felicia screamed for Selene, with the wrong name, but what were names anyway? Not someone’s essential qualities. Burn away everything else and you were left with more than someone without a name. Someone who knew herself.

  Someone held her so she didn’t fall, pressed at the blood too. Blood held no names either. It flowed out and Silver found her essential name there waiting for her, not carried away on that tide. Not a quick tide, but inexorable. But the ocean ebbed and returned. The ocean did not die. The Lady waned and returned.

  “Are you going to gather clouds in your jaws forever or be useful?” Death snapped.

  Silver concentrated until the important things around her slid from the mist. The roamer and her assistant snarled and snapped, the assistant’s wild self already marked with ragged wounds, and her mate’s daughter held her. Her wound hurt, but manageably. Already, the wet warmth against her hand was easing as the blood slowed. “Go,” she snapped at the young woman, borrowing Death’s tone. “Help him, not me. I am not dying.”

  20

  Felicia almost stopped breathing when Silver lunged out of Enrique’s hold, slicing the knife along her own side. Tom threw himself at Enrique and Felicia longed to help, wanted to pound Enrique into the concrete all on her own. But Silver was hurt, blood wicking through the whole side of her shirt. Felicia ran to her, caught her before she could stumble too badly, and pressed her hand down on top of Silver’s. Lady, don’t let her die from blood loss. Didn’t humans manage to survive it all the time?

  In her peripheral vision, Enrique twisted, bringing the knife up in a horizontal backhanded slash. The silver metal could definitely burn Tom, and he stumbled back, off-balance. Enrique pressed his advantage, body slamming him into the nearest pillar. While Tom was still shaking off the stunning effects of the crack of his head against concrete, Enrique backed up and traded hands, knife to left, and whip he’d picked up in the car to right.

  Tom didn’t stand a chance. Enrique gave him a precision whip slash across his eyes and Tom screamed. Felicia spat Spanish obscenities at Enrique. Even in a fight back in Madrid, that was a dirty tactic, usually disallowed. She’d never taken a blow right across the eyes herself, but she’d had them come close. Everyone knew it wasn’t the pain that undid you, it was the sheer visceral terror of damaging something so vulnerable.

  Enrique laid stripe after stripe across Tom’s chest and upraised arms as Tom clutched at his eyes and gasped with the pain. Felicia jerked toward him—she’d take that whip from him and flay every inch of skin from his body, the Lady her witness—and Silver swayed and she had to stop or drop the woman. She wavered, torn in two directions, while her mind could only scream no over and over.

  Silver straightened and pulled away from her. Felicia wasn’t sure whether to believe her when she said she didn’t need help, but her feet decided for her, taking her away from Silver and into the path of Enrique’s next stroke. Her skills were rustier than she’d realized because she took a solid slash across the shoulder and had to catch the whip on the next stroke. Enrique had sidestepped to try to get at Tom around her, but she sacrificed some skin on her arm and got a good grip when it wrapped.

  “What, you want your turn?” Enrique grinned at her and raised his voice, as if Tom, panting where he’d propped himself up against the pillar, could fail to hear. “Felicia was always a little less precise than me, but much, much more thorough.” He rolled the word, enjoying every syllable.

  Felicia didn’t let herself turn to see Tom’s reaction, though she almost couldn’t bear not to see it. Later. She could explain to him later. “I want my turn to beat you bloody, Enrique. I won’t let you hurt them any more. Don’t be stupider than you already are. My father’s going to get home soon and come looking for Silver when she’s not there. What are you going to do then? What are you planning to do now?” She jerked at the whip to pull it from Enrique’s hands, but he knew the techniques as well as she did, and braced.

  Tom stumbled forward, clearly meaning to rejoin the fight, and his movement behind Felicia provided the distraction Enrique needed. Enrique yanked her to the side using her grip on the whip. She let go too late. He moved his grip down the handle, reversing it, and smashed Tom’s temple with the weighted end. This time, when Tom’s head cracked against the
pillar, he slumped slowly down and didn’t get up.

  Felicia wanted to sob, but satisfaction made Enrique’s grip looser and she darted in and yanked the whip away. They wrestled over it and he almost got her with the knife, but his aim was poor with his off hand. She smashed the whip’s weighted end into his jaw. He stumbled back far enough for her to coil up the rest of the whip. It was entirely in her power now. She slashed at Enrique before he could gather himself.

  Enrique took the score across his forearm and pressed forward, slashing his knife almost at random. Felicia had to back up to keep him within the correct range for the whip. Another two blows in quick succession halted his forward movement. Dimly, Felicia remembered she should make sure Silver wasn’t in the line of any of her backstrokes, but she didn’t hear any cries of pain, so she trusted the woman to stay out of the way.

  Enrique got close enough that she had to block his knife stroke with the whip handle. She smacked into a pillar with her back, sidestepped quickly to give herself more space, and dealt him a blow that opened his cheek. The blood gushed rather than seeped this time. She kept her following strokes light, kissing his skin, the whip there and gone before he could catch it. It would take longer to wear him down, but that was all right. She started to count each as it landed, balancing them against the ones Tom had received. She didn’t know the conversion between those heavy strokes and these light ones, but she’d make sure Enrique got plenty.

  Ten. Eleven. Blood spattered the gray concrete of walls and pillars, blended into the dark dirt on the floor. Small splatters, bigger splashes here and there, and Felicia was gaining ground. Twenty. As long as she stayed far enough from Enrique, she could bleed him cut by cut until he had no healing left and started to stumble. Thirty. She had a few lines of blood along her own skin from miscalculated strokes, but they were small enough to heal almost immediately.

  Enrique began to gasp as Tom had and Felicia reveled in the sound. Yes. It was right he should suffer too. A wild satisfaction washed into her and swept away the anger and the memory of the betrayal in Tom’s voice. The air was thick with Enrique’s blood; she could practically taste it in each breath. Yes.

  Enrique’s heel caught in a depression in the uneven pavement and he fell back onto his ass. Felicia let her whip hand drop and strode up to him. She grabbed a chunk of his collar, but his shirt was in tatters and the fabric tore. He flopped onto his back. Felicia dropped down and straddled his chest.

  She placed the base of the whip against his throat and leaned. He choked and bucked with what little strength he had left as she cut off his air.

  Yes. She could see his face as he died, and he could see who was killing him. He would remember why. He was unworthy. He’d hurt her pack. Hurt her family. “Lady-fucking shotgun hunter,” she hissed under her breath.

  Someone’s hand closed on her shoulder. Felicia leaned harder. She had to hurry.

  “Felicia!” Silver’s voice. Felicia had thought the woman too injured to be interfering. Surprise made her let up enough for Enrique to wheeze a single breath before she pressed down again. Silver’s feet came around to Enrique’s shoulder. When Felicia didn’t look up, Silver crouched and lifted her chin. “Look at me, puppy. This is not a path to walk unconsidered. I have seen its mark on your father. I know he would not wish it for you.”

  Silver’s shirt stuck to her side with a large red stain, and her hand on Felicia’s chin was sticky, but no more blood seemed to be flowing. Felicia met Silver’s gaze and drew a great sobbing breath, feeling like she’d just remembered she needed to breathe herself. “Silver, I’m sorry … he…”

  Silver slid a hand under the whip’s base beside hers and gently lifted. “I know. You think he deserves to be killed, but you deserve to be someone who hasn’t killed.”

  Felicia finally saw Enrique properly. He looked worse than Tom had, because they’d been fighting longer. Gashes crisscrossed his body and blood caked his black hair. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and a flap of skin over his cheek hung down sickeningly. She’d done that. Enrique had done it to Tom, and she’d done it to him.

  And that made her the same as Enrique.

  Her stomach contracted, ready to retch, but Felicia told it sternly to behave and got unsteadily to her feet. Silver watched her with an expression so gentle, so forgiving, that it was all Felicia could do to not fling herself at her and hold tight like a child. But Silver and Tom were hurt and she was the only one left, so she needed to … what? Felicia pushed herself to keep going and not fall apart. She needed to tie up Enrique and clean up before any humans arrived.

  The pack car, up several levels, had towels in the trunk for when you got muddy out hunting. And Felicia thought she remembered seeing zip ties in the in-case-of-breakdown toolbox. And her phone. Her phone was up there too. She could call the pack and … explain all this. Somehow.

  No one could get here immediately, anyway. Felicia guided Silver’s hand back to her side and curled her fingers down. Even if the blood wasn’t flowing now, better safe than sorry. “Stay here, I’ll go and get…” She gestured up the ramp.

  “All right.” Silver’s lips quirked and she removed her hand from her side. She crossed to where the knife had tumbled from Enrique’s hand, picked it up, and stood over him. Felicia gave a ragged laugh and started running upstairs.

  She was almost to the car when she heard voices. She pressed herself behind a pillar, cheek against the dirty concrete, and tried not to pant harshly. She couldn’t let herself be seen like this, covered with splatters of Enrique’s blood.

  “You check the office, I’ll see if their car’s still here.” Her father’s voice.

  “Papa?” Felicia’s knees tried to collapse, but she needed them to work, needed them to run up the last ramp to where he and John had stopped by their car in surprise.

  She threw herself against her father and clung to his solidity as she sobbed. “Papa, I did everything wrong…” She pressed her cheek against his chest. John’s footsteps receded as he ran down the ramp, following her trail.

  Her father smoothed her hair, movement hitched every so often when he hit a sticky spot of flung blood. “All right, puppy. We’re here now. We’ll figure it out.”

  Felicia drew in a shuddering breath and a few thoughts drifted back in. “How did you get here so fast…?” It hardly seemed real, now Felicia thought about it. There hadn’t been enough time for them to have driven home to find Silver gone before coming here.

  “Silver doesn’t call me Andrew. Only Selene does. And I knew if she was hiding it, something was wrong. We got the address from Susan and came straight here.”

  Felicia nodded and tried to use the heel of her hand to wipe away some of the mess blood and tears and snot had made of her face. “He’s—Enrique’s out right now, but we should still go tie him up soon.”

  Her father exhaled in a low laugh and helped her wipe with the side of his thumb. “Enrique? Were you the one to take him down? Good job.”

  The praise made Felicia feel even worse. She wouldn’t have had to do a good job fighting Enrique if she hadn’t screwed up in the first place. She shook her head wildly. Her father cut off whatever he’d been going to say and pulled her into another hug. Felicia pressed her face into his chest again, like maybe the world would go away for a while and leave her alone. She knew it would all be there, angry and betrayed, when she got back, but for now she wanted to let her father hold her and pretend otherwise.

  21

  Silver wished she could do more to help her cousin, and then Dare when he returned with his daughter, but she couldn’t see anything properly. Mist caressed the surrounding world with clammy tendrils, like it wanted her to be jealous that it could touch those things and she could not. At least the people stood out: Felicia bright, hard to look at with the draining flush of her anger; Dare warm and familiar and so comforting if she had let herself run to him; and the young roamer, a twisted mess of pain and the arrogance that had led him to make threats, to hurt To
m.

  She didn’t run to Dare, because Felicia needed her father more than she did at the moment. So angry, too angry, and wobbling at the edge of incorporating that into her core and her voice for good. That was not a way to live. “I wonder if Dare sees his reflection in her,” she murmured, low, to Death, who had only recently returned from prowling around and around the young man as Felicia hurt him. Was that how Dare had once been? Had his anger burned so bright?

  Death yawned, and his intent focus on the roamer vanished as if it had never been. His teeth still looked wickedly sharp, however. “I don’t see how he can fail to. If he’s smart.” He whuffed, like he rather doubted that last part. “He’s ignoring you.”

  “I’m standing, Tom isn’t, and there’s more than enough blood to go around. I’m not surprised he hasn’t noticed, and I’m not going to tell him until later.” Silver ruffled Death’s ears, because that seemed like a normal gesture and she was fast running out of things to focus on. She felt rather close to tears herself.

  “Silver?” Her cousin left Tom after helping him sit up gingerly and joined her. He ran a hand along her back until he had the length of her shoulders encompassed under his steady arm. She shivered and leaned against him. “Are you all right?” She flinched when he resettled his hand at her side, and his scent flared with sharp worry. “That’s your blood, isn’t it?”

  “It was never deep, and it’s not flowing any longer.” Silver bunched her good hand in his shirt when he would have left to tell Dare, held him there beside her. “His daughter needs him. One thing at a time.”

  Her cousin growled his protest but stayed where he was. “What happened?”

  “The roamer.” The name escaped her and Silver couldn’t muster the energy to begin to chase it. “He said he was from somewhere else, so I gave him permission to pass through. I could tell something had happened between him and Felicia, but then Portland and everyone and their omega were questioning my authority, and I didn’t pay as much attention as I should. Then Felicia was wearing tortured flowers and being disrespectful, and the cat…”