Even with the Hayward’s and Hector’s obvious skill, the number of men Troy had brought along couldn’t be overcome. One would be sent flailing into the outskirts to only be replaced by two more. It was like trying to damn the Amazon with a few twigs.
“If you don’t let me go right now,” I warned, watching William take a fist to his jaw “I’m never going to speak to you again.”
Paul let out an unimpressed sounding whistle, pulling me further from the warzone. “What, are we back in junior high or something?”
“Dang it, Paul,” I yelled, stomping down on his foot. He didn’t even flinch. “Quit treating like I’m some damsel in distress.”
“I’m supposed to protect you and that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said, but before I could argue back, a body torpedoed towards us. The man crashed into us with an impact that sent us flying backwards, suspended in the air long enough to feel like we were flying. We barraged through William’s tool shed, splitting wood and garden tools before thudding to the ground. I glanced over at Paul who had a look on his face that made me think of a cartoon character with stars orbiting their head. He was fine, save for a few cuts and scraps that would heal in a few minutes time.
The man who’d charged us marched through the entryway Paul and I had just created in the shed. He headed straight for Paul who was still trying to shake away the stars.
I flipped off my back, grabbing for the shovel laying beside me on the way up. I lunged in front of Paul, gripping the shovel like a bat, and swung for the fences. The man’s midsection took the hit, sending him flying backwards. He somersaulted through the air, crashing to the ground several yards away—no need to worry about him anytime soon.
“Damsel in distress?” I tossed the shovel to the side, giving Paul a hand up.
“More like damsel of destruction.” He gave his head a final shake. “So you can hold your own in a fight. That totally turns me on,” he said, sweeping his pants clean. “But you’re not going out there in the middle of that cluster f-bomb.”
“Watch me.” I shot him a glare, before gunning for the exit.
“Not a chance.” His arms ringed around me, wrestling me back into the shed.
“I’m warning you, Paul Lowe,” I snarled, twisting back and forth like a wild animal.
“Oooo, I’m so scared.”
“Final warning.” I stopped scrambling about in his arms, ready to deliver the next one of two actions, all contingent on Paul.
“And this is my final warning to you. Behave or—”
His words were vanquished by my fist. His grip had loosened just enough when I’d stopped struggling that I’d had just enough wiggle room to bring my right arm around into his jaw.
“Crap, Bryn.” His arms left me, probably moving to examine his face which I’d hit no harder than a Mortal-strength punch, but I didn’t stop to turn around to apologize or make sure his face, or ego, weren’t too damaged.
I flipped through the hole in the shed, breaking into warp speed one stride later, with only one destination in mind. I heard Paul’s footfalls rush after me, but I wasn’t worried he’d get to me before I got to William.
He was surrounded by eight men, fending them off with strategically placed strikes and ducks timed right before a hit could connect, when I leapt over the circle of men around him. I pressed my back into his, at least able to protect half of him, as I drove my palm into the neck of the nearest man. He sailed through a window opening of William’s house, which had been fully consumed by fire and smoke. Nothing of it would be left standing in an hour.
“Thanks for saving me some,” I said, barely tilting my head back to him. He froze, his back going rigid against mine, as if just realizing I’d joined the party. One of his hands grabbed mine, in the most natural kind of way. There was destruction surrounding us and this touch—his touch—faded it all away. It was a moment like this that made dying the next moment acceptable.
I noticed two men charging for me, but I didn’t respond. That would have required me removing my hand from William’s and if it meant dying to keep it planted in his, I was just fine with that.
The men were a lunge away from crushing me and my only response was a squeeze of William’s hand, my inaudible good-bye. The men’s heads suddenly collided together before they were tossed to the side, Paul taking their spot in front of me. “If we survive this, you are so in trouble.”
“What about protecting her did I not make clear?” William hollered back to Paul, pulling his hand away.
“This girl’s got the meanest right hook I’ve ever met,” Paul answered, reaching for his jaw.
“Just wait until you feel mine,” William grumbled, his back twitching from whatever beating he was dealing out.
“Boys,” I said, in the middle of thrusting my forearm into the throat of the gorilla moving man gunning for me. “Can we do this later?”
“Gladly,” William answered, heaving a man over both our shoulders.
“Can’t wait,” Paul said, ducking as a refrigerator-sized boulder sailed at his head.
Two men, the giants of these monster-sized men sent for us, appeared in front of me. One cocked his neck to the side, the other popped his knuckles—a tad melodramatic if you ask me—before they launched towards me.
Still backed up against me, I wound my elbows through William’s. Needing no command, he bent forward, just enough so that both my legs were in position to punch into the breastplates of the charging Goliaths. My legs surged forward, my feet connecting with their intended targets. The sound of splitting bone was the only resistance the duo put up as they sailed away from us into the dark forest.
Two down, a seeming thousand more to go.
William shifted me back to the ground, just as another typhoon of men came down upon us. It appeared every last member of Troy’s army had diverged on the three of us and, with their swollen numbers, they managed to separate the three of us quickly.
I heard William call out for me, but I was so deep in concentration attempting to block the endless flood of arms and legs coming at me, I couldn’t conjure up a response. I was moving as fast as my Immortal body was capable of, but it wasn’t enough. Every second that went by, I felt more and more strikes make contact with my body.
Something pounded against my head, dulling the roar of screams around me to a muffled echo, and, for the first time since I’d been Immortal, blurred my sight so that colors and shapes were impossible to make out. I crashed to the ground, sounding like a ton of cinder blocks.
“Bryn!” William screamed, but I was so messed up, I couldn’t tell which direction his voice was coming from.
“I was hoping to kill two birds with that stone,” Troy’s voice was discernable and I guessed he was the hazy dark shape filling my field of vision. “Paul moved faster than you, but that’s alright. This was the birdy I wanted anyways.” Fingers stroked through my hair a couple of times.
I don’t know if it was a surge of adrenaline that helped normalize my senses, or perhaps Immortality was just that efficient in keeping us well-oiled machines, but my vision and hearing returned at almost the same time. Troy’s jilted smile was the first thing I saw, right before I heard William call out for me again.
This time I was able to make out which direction it was coming from. I looked to the side, managing to catch a glimpse of him through a sliver-sized opening between the dozens of legs around me.
He wasn’t fighting anymore, he was trying to shove his way through the men beating at him like he was a punching bag. I only saw his face for a second before it was swallowed by the ocean of arms and legs clubbing him to the ground.
“Move her out of here,” Troy instructed, aligning himself in front of my gaze. I twisted onto my side, going to crawl on my stomach to William if need be, but before I squirmed an inch, I was hoisted onto the shoulder of someone. My head thudded against his back, bouncing against it every other step he took in his sprint away from the fight.
“Go, Paul!” William’s st
rained voice called out. “They’re taking her!”
I didn’t hear any more because the man whose shoulder I was riding could’ve competed with a bullet in the 400 meter. The air around me was jetting over us, creating a slip-stream in our wake. No one needed to tell me what this Immortal’s gift was.
Barely a minute later, but for speed’s sake, we could have crossed the French border, we surged to a stop.
“Stella, where are you?” the man hissed into the dark night, shifting me to the ground.
“Right in front of you, you half-wit.” Dressed for what you’d think to be the social event of the decade, Stella sauntered towards us, leering at me the entire journey. She kneeled beside me, moving her mouth just outside my ear. “I’ve been looking forward to this day,” her feline voice purred as she ran her hand down my face. About mid-way down my jaw, her nails dug into the flesh, tearing down the line of my neck.
The warm liquid I felt follow led me to the conclusion it wasn’t only her voice that was feline. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Her hand gripped into the hollow of my shoulder and whatever power I had left in me drained out of me like water moving through a funnel. I wasn’t just powerless feeling, but empty feeling. Like I’d never known an emotion and I never would. Her laugh chimed several octaves higher than soprano-qualification. “What do you think of your first time with me? Nothing quite like it, is there?”
So payback wasn’t just a bitch, it was a bitch dressed in heels and Versace.
“You can play later, Stella,” Troy said, coming up behind us. “We’ve got work to do right now. Get her arms and legs tied,” he yelled back at one of the men rustling through the trees. “And Stella, I don’t have to remind you not to take a finger off of her for even the shortest second, do I?”
“The idiots, Troy,” she sneered, “are the males dressed in blah suits. Don’t insult me again or else you might get to know my touch.” She raised her eyebrows at him.
He chuckled, licking his lips. “Last I recalled, it wasn’t all that spectacular.”
Her eyes narrowed into slits, her fingers managing to drill deeper into my skin.
“Now this one,” he said, crouching beside me, “something tells me I could get very used to her touch.” I didn’t need to look at his face to know the lust that was formed around it. “If John wasn’t so eager to have her back, I wouldn’t be wasting time with chit-chat.”
“Stella, back away,” I said, trying to twist away from her to no avail. “Troy wants to feel my touch.” I eyed my challenge at him.
Troy grinned, moving aside to let a pale-faced boy who’d barely had his driver’s license when he’d been Immortalized bind my wrists with something that looked like shiny chrome barb-wire.
I gave Troy an unimpressed look. “You think that’s going to detain me? Isn’t that kind of like binding me with a wet noodle?” The boy moved seamlessly to my ankles, twisting the same thing around them in a figure-eight formation.
As soon as the boy moved away, I popped my wrists and ankles against the metal restraints I’d assumed would snap instantly. Instead, the metal only contracted around me farther, its sharp prongs bursting through my skin. A flash of fire singed over my skin where the metal ran. I yelped, sadly more due to the pain than the shock of it.
“What do you think of my little invention?” Troy asked, stepping back into view. “It’s my version of an Immortal-grade restraint. Convincing, isn’t it?”
I didn’t chance a response. I was still grinding my teeth from the shockwaves of pain and there was no way I was going to cry out in front of him again.
“Well, we better get going,” Troy said, more to me than the men around him. “Although it’s a shame we left so many Haywards still standing. Although they won’t stay that way for long.” He drilled his eyes into me, annunciating each syllable just so it fed the fury bursting in me.
Despite Stella’s debilitating hold, I felt the thing inside me I never wanted to hear from again flicker to life. Not quite as immediate as a light-switch, but close enough to make it dangerous. I felt it spreading through the far reaches of my body, bubbling to the surface of my skin, ready to erupt. All I needed was the shortest second of freedom from her and I’d no longer be an invalid Immortal, but the angel of death incarnate.
“Bryn!” A voice crashed through the woods, followed by a body breaking through saplings and anything that stood in its path from the sound of snapping and splintering. Paul’s voice was all I needed. Stella shifted in the direction of Paul’s voice, her hand loosening infinitesimally, but I was ready and waiting for it.
I popped my shoulder up, forcing her hand to break contact. Her face christened with horror before she readjusted it in place . . . but I was ready for her. For the first time since I’d learned what I was capable of, I wasn’t desperate to keep it contained. I was welcoming it, willing it to the surface. My skin was buzzing by the time her fingers curled back into my shoulder.
Her body bolted away from mine like she’d been electrocuted, blasting a boulder into smithereens as she shot through it.
So maybe payback was more the thing of sneaker-wearing oddballs.
I eyed Troy, still lying below him, bound up and unmoving, but I could tell from his expression it was like he was looking at something as final as the Council’s verdict of death. It was the first moment of exhilaration I’d felt in awhile.
“I’m going to enjoy wiping that smirk off your face the next time I see you,” he said, running his tongue over his lips. “Oh, the possibilities.”
“Bryn!” Paul’s voice was closer, nearly upon us, and it sounded like there were more bodies behind him crashing towards us.
“Time to move on out, boys,” Troy hollered at the men waiting around him. “See ya, beautiful.” He kissed the air in my direction before turning into a blur of light disappearing into the trees. Nothing but the rush of wind announced the departure of John’s army, disappearing as suddenly as they’d appeared. They were gone, but had anyone besides Paul and me survived?
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted at Paul as he ran full-bore my way, but the words wouldn’t hit him before he collapsed into me.
From some place deep within, those places we don’t even know exist until sheer need brings them out, I felt awareness come to the surface. I’d turned this death machine on with near the speed of flicking on a switch, I could turn it off as quickly.
Seeing Paul’s frantic form about to fall around me, I closed my eyes, stalling time. Stalling death. I looked for the switch, searching for it like so much more than my life depended on it, but the darkness swirling inside of me blinded my way.
I could feel Paul’s energy closing around mine when I found it. The switch flipped, followed by an internal sigh of relief, as Paul crashed to a stop against me. His hand went immediately for my cheek, the other searching over the rest of me for any damage done . . . although it felt a bit too explorative over certain areas of my body to be innocent in nature.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his eyes flicking away from mine every blink to search over my body.
I looked into his face, admiring the life and color that still flowed in it. A few months ago, I would have killed him, but somewhere along the way, in the midst of nearly killing William and thinking about and training my gift until I’d gone crazy in the head, I’d gained an understanding of it. Not quite a mastery, but a certainty I was on my way there. The gift was a piece of me, it didn’t define me, and it certainly didn’t control me. I was foolish to let it decide my fate, but leaving William would be the last mistake I’d let it make—although that was really the only mistake that counted and the one I couldn’t reverse.
Pushing this enlightened sense of self aside—at least for now—I answered Paul, “I’m phenomenal. How about you?” I tried sitting up, but he pressed me back down.
“I’m fine, well, actually, I need to tell you something and then I’ll be fine,” he said, leaning down over me. “And since you’re bound up with no
where to go, now’s as good a time as any.”
I wove my bound wrists under his arm. “This really isn’t a good time,” I said, lifting them in explanation.
“There’s never a right time with you, but you don’t really have a say in it, bossy. Since I’m the one without the wrist and ankle restraints, my word goes.”
“After tonight,” I said, glowering more with each word, “there never will be a right time with me again if you keep this whole chauvinistic cave-man act up.”
He rolled his eyes, unconcerned. “I had to come to terms back there that I might never see you again,” he said, his forehead lining. “That I might find you dead and I’d have to live with you never knowing how I felt about you.”
I’d just escaped one nightmare to find myself in another. This wasn’t happening. “This really isn’t the right time for this.” I shoved myself up to only be flopped back down to the ground. This time he straddled me with his arms, leaning in too close to let myself believe I was misreading his intent.
“So help me, Paul Lowe,” I warned through clenched teeth.
“Just shut up, Bryn,” he whispered, his breath breaking against mine. “Shut up for once in your life or I’ll have to make you.”
I closed my eyes, the only fight I could muster as he closed the remaining distance between us. His lips pressed into mine, warm and pleasant as the morning sun, and when they moved against mine with a passion that would have surely torn down the embattlements of many finer women, I felt nothing.
Nothing but skin coming in contact with mine. There were no tingles, no butterflies, no responses to affirm that I’d been made for anyone other than the one man I’d have to live my life away from forever.
He rested a final kiss on the corner of my lips, his breathing rushed and shallow. “Was that so bad?”
I sucked in a long breath, taking the time to compose myself before I went off on him. Opening my eyes, ready to glare into his, something off to my right caught my attention, where a shadowed figure was bracing himself against an ancient birch.
I didn’t need a ray of moonlight to cast over his face to see the expression covering it. His eyes were staring straight into mine and an emotion that was too extreme to decipher was etched onto his face. The intensity of it scorched its origination point. It could have been anger, it could have been sorrow, but whatever it was, I would never find out. He darted into the darkness, swallowed whole by the night.
Fallen Eden Page 20
