by Nicole Thorn
Then a twig cracked from right next to me. The next thing I knew, the world became a swirling mess of green trees and gray sky as Verin whipped me out of the way. I heard a grunt before I even landed on my knees, a few feet away from where I had been. Verin had a woman pinned to the ground, his knee in her lower back, and her face pressed against the ground.
“You okay?” Verin asked, his voice tense.
I nodded, rising to my feet. Grass stains decorated the knees of my pants. “Good,” Verin breathed out. “I’d really hate to punish her for something I did.”
The woman struggled, testing his hold on. Verin didn’t budge, so she lay still. Her brown hair hung in her face, but I could see that she looked like a fairly young woman.
Zander and Jasmine came jogging up to us, having heard the commotion. Jasper and Kizzy followed behind them. They all relaxed upon seeing the situation had been handled. Zander neatly dislodged Verin, taking his place holding the woman down. I frowned at him, and wondered how mad Jasmine would get if I shot him in the shoulder with my crossbow. Probably very mad.
Dammit.
Zander flipped the girl over, and looked into her eyes. His voice sounded subtly different when he started talking. I had heard it that way before, when he Charmed someone. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Kindra,” the girl said.
“What are you doing here, Kindra?” Zander asked, all soothing, dark tones. It always disturbed me to see him doing this. It would be so easy for him to use that on us, and only his sense of decency kept him from doing so.
“Training,” Kindra said. “Or I was. Before that one came along.” Her eyes didn’t move from Zander, but they didn’t have to. We knew which one she meant. Now I wanted to shoot her in the throat too. I felt all kinds of violent things over Verin. That should’ve been more concerning.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Zander asked.
“I’m waiting for Argus,” she said. “He’ll come to get me soon enough, and then we’ll leave together.” She had a fondness in her tone that suggested all sorts of stuff, none of which actually helped us right then.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Kindra said as if that had been a stupid question. “He’ll come for me soon enough, and then we’ll finish what we’ve started.”
Kizzy and Jasper exchanged a look. What had been the point of all of this? We had come across three training camps in the last few months, and we still hadn’t figured out what any of them had been built for, or why they had been hidden in crevices of Washington.
“You have no idea where he could be?” Zander asked. “Haven’t seen him outside of this camp, ever?”
Kindra blinked. She cocked her head, eyes getting fuzzier as he poured on more Charm. “Of course, I have,” she said. She started naming places, most of which I had never heard of, but hotels and motels around town that I knew from when my siblings and I had been living in them.
“Which one did you see him at the most?” Zander asked.
She answered without hesitation. Her face utterly empty.
Zander looked up at Kizzy, and she nodded. She had her phone out, and typed furiously in her notes, getting all the places Kindra had named. When she finished, Kizzy tucked the phone away, and Zander leaned over the woman again. “Tell me how you and Argus met,” he demanded.
What?
“He found me a few months ago,” Kindra said. “Asked me if I wanted to earn my proper place in the world, and I did.” She smiled. “He’s going to make me exactly what I was always meant to be.”
Zander glanced up, and dropped his Charm voice. “That was before he had the fleece. She’s here of her own free will, which means we can kill her.” He stood up, taking his sword up in his hand. The blade gleamed in the dull morning light, and gave him an impressive visage. But he stood too close to Kindra to use it. He stepped back, getting some distance between her and him.
The Charm wore off before he could bring the blade down on her. Eyes wide, she scrambled to her feet with a surprising amount of grace. In the same movement, she pulled a dagger from her belt, and held it out in front of her. It looked puny against Zander’s sword, but what she lacked in weaponry, she made up for in determination. I lifted my crossbow, drawing a bead on her, and waiting for her to be unprepared.
“Kindra!” Argus shouted, stepped out from the woods. More than a dozen people stood at his back, but they all looked small compared to him, and the anger that he brought with him.
My little ragtag group all whipped around and gathered together. “Shit,” Zander said.
Verin didn’t say anything, but I could feel his fury. Like heat baking off him, and into me. I didn’t dare glance at him, for fear that the small army would come for us, but I wanted to. I wanted to squeeze his hand and tell him that it would be all right. He would avenge his mother, and then it would be over.
I couldn’t, though.
Before we could stop her, Kindra dashed forward, reaching Argus in a few strides. She didn’t even get to say anything before he put his big hand on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have said anything,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Kindra said. “I couldn’t stop talking.” She shot a glare over her shoulder at Zander. Being stupid, he decided to give her a jaunty little wave that only pissed her off. She turned around to yell at him, and Argus moved. His hand bit into her shoulder again, and her body jerked oddly. Her stomach bulged. It took me several seconds to realize what had happened.
He had punched her in the back. So hard that his hand went through her skin, but not through her body. I saw the impression of his knuckles against the inside of her stomach, like a warped baby moving around. My own stomach rolled painfully, making me want to vomit.
Eyes wide, Kindra started to slump. Argus let her go, and she hit the ground hard, on her side. Blood leaked out her back and soaked into the ground. I saw part of her that I would’ve rather not seen, including the brightness of bone against the darkness of blood.
Argus held his hands out, one dripping blood to soak into the ground. “You wanted to find me. Here I am,” he said, the biggest smile on his face. Light hit all his tattoos oddly, making them look three dimensional. All those eyes suddenly appeared to be watching us.
My heart pounded hard as they began to peel off his skin and float around him. They each glowed a different color. That one blue, this one green. That one somehow managed to glow black, making it look like an abyss. A white one shone against the sky in a vibrant outline.
Right. A giant covered in eyes. Had I really thought that they would’ve somehow been less real because they looked like tattoos? They floated everywhere and watched us. Argus’ eyes, the ones in his head, looked different now too. They reflected the color of each tattoo that floated in the air. I found it hard to look at him with that confusing swirl of color.
But not Verin.
Oh, no, not Verin. He had been standing next to me the entire time. I had been aware of his slowly growing rage, and the way it pressed against him. Aware that he couldn’t stop thinking that this bastard had killed his mother. He had murdered her in their own home, when Verin hadn’t been there to protect her.
He had held himself still for as long as one could hope for. And now he didn’t want to do that.
Verin exploded forward, trailing curses behind him. My crossbow shot up in the next second, but I couldn’t track anything through the blur of movement. I had seen a dozen soldiers coming in behind Argus. I hadn’t seen the other dozen soldiers that had been behind them until all of them suddenly poured into the clearing, and came for me like bats out of hell.
“Don’t kill anyone!” Zander shouted. “We don’t know who’s innocent!”
The sheer number of people separated us. That whole ‘don’t kill anyone’ thing was a lot easier when they didn’t try to kill us first, I decided. One of the men elbowed me in the stomach, and I went over backward, landing on my hip. While the pain shot through me, I twisted around, try
ing to aim with my crossbow.
A man landed on me. His weight so heavy that all the breath went out of my body. I scrambled, but couldn’t find a good angle to punch or kick him, so I ended up mostly flailing and squirming to get away.
His hand came down on my throat, squeezing. He leveraged himself up, smiling down at me. Only the movement gave me some space between our bodies. I reacted without thinking, shoving my knees up with all the muscle power that I could manage. They didn’t go into his groin. That would have been too helpful. Instead, I ended up getting him in the inner thigh. His instincts kicked in, and the guy went to protect his manhood, letting go of my throat.
I scrambled, getting out from under him. Without thinking, I brought the butt of my crossbow down on his eyebrow. He screamed in pain, but didn’t pass out, so I brought it down again. And for good measure, a third time. He stumbled away from me, and I rushed to my feet. He still hadn’t fallen
Priming an arrow in my crossbow took concentration and time, but I managed to do it before he got back up to his feet. Keeping in mind what Zander had said, I didn’t shoot him anywhere that would kill him. I shot him in the hip. Painful, and he would probably feel it for the rest of his life, but he’d live.
He screamed, going down, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I could look around me again. I saw so many bodies. I could hear grunts and groans. Eyes looked down at me from everywhere. Curious, I primed another arrow, and aimed at the sky, at the white eye that shone iridescently. The bolt flew, and went straight through the eye. I didn’t think anything happened until I saw the streak of dark red that burned through the gray clouds, and heard the shout from somewhere off.
I took out a third arrow, and locked stares with a blue eye.
CHAPTER THIRTY:
Returned
Verin
I wanted them all dead. Everyone around me that dared to fight me or those I brought with me. I cared so little that they might’ve been innocent, because I saw them stare with bloodlust at my family. It may not have been real, so I had to spare their lives.
For now.
A woman ran at me, and I slammed my palm against her temple. She went down hard, but she would live to see another day. I went easier on the humans, but everyone else got a little extra. They’d recover fairly quickly, so it was hardly on me if they bled a bit more than they needed to.
Argus; we needed Argus and that fleece he’d stolen. Once one of us had it from him, we could stop this entire fleet of people. It would just be a matter of actually getting it. Getting it, and then cutting off Argus’ head. Better yet, maybe some torture would be good. He made my mother’s death quick, but I wouldn’t do the same for him. No, I would draw it out, and I would make him scream.
A fighter had his eyes set on Juniper as she aimed her crossbow at the sky. I noticed the little target she went for, and how she wouldn’t notice a body coming at her.
I took the man by his wrist, and bent it until I heard a snap. He screamed, and I kicked his leg out from under him, making his dagger fly out of his reach. He shouldn’t have been able to hurt anyone from the ground, with a broken wrist and probably a broken leg. See, I could be a good man when I wanted to be.
Juniper shot her arrow, and it stuck in the eye she aimed for. I smiled, feeling the shot taken at Argus. If Juniper hurt him, I could live with that. I would rather it come from me, but I would settle for her.
I saw how careful Zander acted, mostly just picking people up and tossing them backward. A hard landing wouldn’t kill anyone if they didn’t hit their head, so good on him I supposed. He tried too hard to uphold his morals, in a life where it would’ve been too complicated to do that. He didn’t want to be a killer, but he would need to kill sometimes to protect those he loved. Unfortunate, but that made it no less true. Loving someone wasn’t always this perfect and pretty thing. It hurt people.
I had to find Argus, right now. Too many people zeroed in on us to keep letting them live, and it would cost one of us dearly if we didn’t hurry. Looking back to make sure my family remained safe, I started going off to find who I searched for. Zander would keep Juniper safe for me.
With the mess of people all around, I couldn’t see where Argus had vanished off to. His eyes lingered everywhere, and we could only cut down so many. I avoided as many of the brainwashed people as I could, because I honestly didn’t know if I could keep up with not killing them. I wanted to do it, and I found it frustrating that they would just get away with this. I couldn’t see that they didn’t want to be a part of it, because the hate in their eyes looked too real.
He wouldn’t be far, because his protection surrounded us. The man would be nothing without his army to stand by him. I would be sure to take everything away from him that I could.
I trudged through the mess of people coming at me, trying to do what Zander did, and tossing them aside as opposed to using this lovely new weapon I had on me. My hands itched to use it on these people, but I held back for one reason. Juniper. She needed me to be better than someone who killed because it would make things easier. I used to be something other than this, and I would get back to that. I would be all the things she deserved to have.
“Boy,” someone called out to me. I knew the voice, because it had been haunting my mind for days. I turned to see Argus standing alone, a sword at his side and the tip in the ground under him. He had a smile, and he watched me. “Looking for something?”
My hold on the garrote in my hands tightened, and I pictured wrapping it around his throat. I wanted to pull until his head came off, letting him die in panicked agony. Fear. I wanted fear for him.
“I am,” I responded. “If you’d like to give it up and avoid dying like a coward, then hand it over and I’ll let you go.” Not true, but I didn’t mind lying to him on the off chance it would work out.
It didn’t.
Argus chuckled at the sound of agony around us. “Do you wanna know a secret?”
I stayed quiet, keeping my face blank as his grin widened.
“When you break a neck, the sound is so satisfying.” Heat bubbled in my chest, telling me to do something. Telling me that I needed to end him. “A loud pop,” he said. “Then the human body just kind of . . . slumps . . . ”
I couldn’t take it anymore, and I lunged at him without taking a second to think it through. I wanted him dead, and no other thought popped into my mind. He took from me something I could not get back, and left me with guilt and regret that would linger for lifetimes. I wouldn’t be able to think of my mother or father without knowing how much of a failure I had been to them both. My one job had been protecting her, and now she would forever be trapped in the Underworld. She would never see the sun again, and that was on me.
Argus swung his sword at me, and I caught the blade in the wire of my garrote. My strength beat out his, so I could hold his weapon at bay with mine, keeping myself from getting a slice to the shoulder.
With a great bit of effort, I threw as much force as I could into getting the blade away from me. He pulled his sword back, shooting sparks against the unbreakable wire. When he noticed that wonderful little fact, his eyes widened just a touch.
“A gift,” I said. “Would you like to see just how strong it is?”
I kicked him in the leg, and it gave me a few moments of distraction. I attempted to throw the wire over his head, but the man recovered before I could. He put his arm up to block me. Ah, not a smart move on his part. I pulled the handles, and crossed my arms.
Argus screamed when the wire cut into his arm. I smelled the blood, and I saw the gash opening up under the clothes on his jacket. It sliced through the leather, and right to his skin. I would have cut his arm off if he hadn’t kicked behind him.
My hold on the left side of the handle slipped, and the garrote slid off of him, whipping back to me. Instead of catching it and trying again, I got my footing back, moving away from him. I hadn’t been trained to battle, but he had. He would know how to beat me, even without my stre
ngth, so I had to get one up on him.
When he touched the damaged arm, I saw it. I saw inside of his jacket, something tucked against him. Fabric, that I could literally feel when I stood across from him. I felt the darkness connected to it, and the blood it spilled. I needed it from him.
Argus took up his weapon again, and we went for each other. While he swung, I ducked and got underneath him. He got nothing but the air, and I caught his leg in my wire, pulling it out from under him. Argus went down hard, face first into the ground under us.
The fabric stuck out from under his jacket, and I grabbed it as fast as possible. Soon, a yellow blanket slipped out of Argus’ jacket and into my hands.
I had it . . . I had the fleece in my possession, and Argus still tried to right himself. I could end this all in a matter of moments.
I shoved the fleece into my coat, to keep it hidden and to free up my hands as I went to get my garrote around Argus’ throat. I managed a hold on him before it all went south.
An arrow hit me in the stomach, making me move backward, falling away from the man I wanted to kill. An adult man had a bow and arrow aimed at me on the ground, and he’d taken away my chance to kill Argus. He started getting up now, and I wouldn’t be able to get my hold on him back.
I ripped the arrow out of me, anger making the pain feel less than it should have. I had the fleece, and I needed to get out with it. With that taken care of, we could figure out the rest. With as much force as I had in me, I stuck Argus in the spine with the arrow tip.
And then I ran.
My family still fought, and Zander had taken a beating. I saw no wounds of course, but the man had been covered in blood, but his girlfriend looked completely clean. Thankfully for him, mine did too.
“We need to go!” I yelled at them all as I ran.
“But what about the fleece?” Juniper asked.
I skidded to a stop at her side, smiling. “I have it. So, let’s not die then, huh?”
