blood fled with my first kill.
One of them jumped on my back, its razor teeth sinking into the flesh of my left shoulder. Muscle and skin ripped. My right hand swung sideways and buried a blade into its skull. It dropped away, taking some of my shoulder with it, and two more goblins quickly took its place. I killed them with fast slashes across their throats.
“Don’t kill her!”
My head snapped toward the familiar, tingle-inducing voice. Kelsa stood on top of the last Jeep, hands on hips, like the battle had already been won. She seemed unconcerned with the rate at which her warriors were falling. She bared her teeth and held out her hand. Light glittered off a silver chain and cross. I dropped one knife and reached for the gun still tucked in the back of my jeans. Bitch had my necklace.
I hadn’t seen it since the mall. I’d written it off as lost during capture. But Halfie-Alex had said Kelsa was at the jail while I was unconscious. She may have taken it then. One of the Halfies who captured me may have given it to her. The details didn’t matter. I wanted it back.
Teeth clamped around my right ankle like a bear trap. I shrieked, pulled the gun, and fired, splattering the goblin’s head against the pavement and my jeans. I yanked my leg free. A red-tipped dart struck the ground, barely missing me. Hell, no, I was not going to sleep again. Not this time.
Loneliness, that’s what I needed. Wyatt was shot. He could have died. That fear remained fresh and close to the surface, and I latched on to it. Focused on Kelsa atop the Jeep, and felt the familiar tingle of the tap. The power of the Break. Dissolution. Movement.
The pain was duller this time, likely due to the shorter jump distance. I gained my bearings quickly. On the Jeep roof, right behind Kelsa—exactly where I wanted to be. She was still staring at the fray, dart gun in hand, seeming unsure where I’d suddenly gone.
I smashed the butt of my gun against the back of her head. She dropped like a stone. The necklace fell from her hand and clattered to the Jeep’s roof. I rolled her over and knelt down hard on her arms, knees against elbows, until I heard one snap. She shrieked. Gleaming red eyes glared up at me, pained and slightly unfocused.
“You’re not so tough when I’m not tied down,” I said.
“I killed you once. I can do it again,” she snarled.
I popped the anticoag clip out of my gun and replaced it with the fragmenting clip. Snapped one into the chamber. “This isn’t going to be fast. You aren’t going to enjoy this, but you will remember it in whatever hellish afterlife your kind goes to.”
She spit in my face. Her saliva smelled like sea-water. I wiped it away, but the stink lingered. I reached back and placed the barrel of the gun against her foot. Her eyes widened. Lips parted in a fang-baring snarl.
Two goblin males slammed into me sideways. I tumbled over the roof of the Jeep and hit the blacktop on my back. The impact exploded oxygen from my lungs and left me dazed. A dark blur leapt from the Jeep. I rolled sideways, barely missing Kelsa’s landing — precisely where my head would have been.
I tucked and came up on my knees and fired a wild shot. It glanced off her right arm and took a chunk of flesh with it. She kept coming, too fast to shoot again. She kicked the gun out of my hand and followed through with a serious swipe with her left hand. Sharp nails furrowed across my ribs and belly. Agony flared hot and immediate. Blood flowed.
My high kick connected squarely with her nose. The crunch rang out, mingling with her scream. Her head snapped back, but she refused to go down. I dropped to one knee and thrust upward with my knife. She blocked it and her good elbow smashed into my ear and set my head spinning. She had my wrist in her hands and was trying to turn my knife against me. I fought, but I had lost leverage.
She hissed, baring her bloody incisors, and snapped at my face. I gave her a well-deserved head-butt that drove her broken nose a little deeper into her snarling face. She faltered; I wrestled the knife away and plunged it into her stomach. Putrid blood pumped over my hand. She slashed again with her claws, catching me across the left cheek. Pain ripped open with the soft flesh. I shoved against the knife handle, and she fell backward.
I was on top of her again, ignoring my own pain, operating on fury and adrenaline and a very selfish need for personal vengeance against this monster who’d held me captive for days. Who had tortured me mercilessly. Ordered me raped. Allowed me to die.
I yanked out the knife and ground down with my knee until her other elbow popped. She squealed—a sound unbecoming a leader. Blood coated her face, but wild, animal eyes still shone brightly through the mess. I pressed the tip of the knife against the underside of her chin.
The air shifted behind me. I slashed sideways with the knife and cut an approaching goblin male straight across the belly. It screamed and ran the opposite way, past where my gun lay, lonely on the pavement. Too far to reach. I wanted it so badly I thought the desire would rip me to pieces. I wanted to press the barrel against her foot, pull the trigger, and shatter it into blood and bone and muscle and goo. I wanted to do it with her other foot and with both hands. I wanted to take her a piece at a time, just as she’d taken me.
Only I didn’t have the time. Bloods and Halfies still battled in front of me. Humans and goblins battled behind me. At some point, the twin fights had mingled into a single war zone. And time was running out.
“You don’t deserve this,” I said. I gripped the knife with both hands and held it high above her throat. “You deserve a hell of a lot worse, you bloodsucking bitch.”
I plunged; she gurgled. Blood pooled from her mouth, down her cheeks and throat. I pulled the knife out and wiped it on her clothes.
I’d heard people say revenge is a dish best served cold. I had no idea what that meant, but I doubted it was meant to describe the chilly emptiness I felt at what I’d done. There was no satisfaction, no joy or sense of closure. It was just another kill. A notch on my belt.
“No!” Isleen ran toward me, easily dodging the few senseless goblins who tried to stop her. Rage painted her pale cheeks with orbs of crimson. Lavender eyes snapped and flashed.
I stood on shaky legs. My wounds ached and smarted. I didn’t back down from Isleen as she closed the distance between us.
“She was mine,” Isleen snarled. “She killed my sister.”
“And she killed me, so I killed her. Get over it.”
Bad move on my part. Covered in blood and trembling from head to toe, Isleen was so tightly wound from the battle raging around us that she was one pull from snapping. And it turned out my little retort was that final pull. She tried to punch me, but was sloppy about the windup. The blow glanced off my temple, more annoying than anything. I raised my knee and caught her square in the stomach. She doubled over. I jammed my elbow into the small of her back, and she dropped.
“Sorry about that, but I’m too busy to fight my allies,” I said.
I retrieved my gun and stuck it down the back of my pants. The second knife was lost. It didn’t matter; I still had one left.
The tide of the battle had shifted in our favor. With their leader dead, some of the fight had gone out of the goblins. They attacked with less fury. Small groups had pulled away toward the trees, wounded and bloody and lost. I spotted Wyatt on the edge of the fray, unharmed beyond the preexisting gunshot wound. His shirtsleeve was stained red, a severe contrast to his pale, sweaty complexion. He shouldn’t have been out there fighting, but he was on his feet. Tybalt stood close by, surveying the battlefield and speaking into a walkie-talkie.
The remaining Halfies, maybe a dozen, were in the process of retreating to the entrance of the Center. The Bloods followed at a distance, apparently not keen on chasing them into close quarters. The Halfies, however, stayed on the porch and made no move toward the door.
I had a bad view over the sea of bodies between me and the Center, some standing, most not. The Bloods surged forward. Something silver was lobbed into the air from the porch. The Bloods scattered—too late. It exploded on impact. A ball of fire billowed into the sky, consuming everyone within ten feet of it. Bloods shrieked in agony. Flames beat against a brand-new force shield that sparkled aqua blue.
The heat blasted across the paved lot. I raised my arms to shield my face. The actual fire dissipated quickly. Melted pavement and scorched bodies marked the blast zone. The handful of surviving Bloods retreated, joining the ranks of the Triad teams regrouping by the Jeeps.
I climbed atop the last Jeep, its roof a colorful palette of blood smears and skin bits. In the mess, I found the cross necklace, its delicate chain somehow unbroken—a small reminder of everything Alex had given up for me. I tucked it into my pocket, glad to have it back, and jumped to the ground.
