“She’ll be fine,” Eva whispered, “Jason might be a complete ass, but he’s deadlier than either Owen or Eric.”
Eva was trying to be reassuring, but her words fell well short of the mark. Jamie’s chest seemed to collapse into itself as Allyra and Jason walked into the Arena.
Once again, they didn’t acknowledge the crowd or their opponents, and when Marcus called a start to the fight, Allyra and Jason took a couple of steps forward and then stopped abruptly, waiting for Owen and Eric to come to them.
“What are they doing?” Gemma muttered. “They should move—run or hide or something.”
“Hiding didn’t work out so well for Elisha,” Pete said sardonically.
Owen slowed his progress and started to prowl around Allyra, reminding Jamie of a hyena circling wounded prey. Owen shouted out a taunt to Allyra, but she didn’t bother to reply, her face a perfect picture of disdain. It only seemed to enrage Owen further.
Owen rushed Allyra, but she stood her ground, and at the last second, she sidestepped lightly out of his way. Owen struggled to stop his forward momentum, reaching out to one of the columns for support. But Allyra didn’t push her advantage, simply waiting for Owen to right himself and turn back to her. But this time, when he looked at her, there was something new in his gaze, as if he finally recognized her for what she was—a worthy opponent.
The fighting, once it started, was so fast it was hard to follow. Owen used every bit of his Inferno Gifted speed, but somehow, Allyra was just as fast, easily twisting and dancing away so that every one of Owen’s punches sliced through nothing but air. A small but dangerous smile had worked its way on to Allyra’s lips. It was a smile that seemed alien on her, and though Jamie tried to push it aside, a small voice in his head wondered if she might actually be enjoying herself.
Allyra and Jason fought with clinical precision and practiced ease that did nothing to feed a crowd that was baying for more death and bloodshed. The fight was terrifyingly one sided. Jamie didn’t know if it was because Owen and Eric had fought once before and were tired. Or whether Allyra and Jason were just so much better. But the result was the same—the fight ended without any fuss and with a complete lack of excitement. It simply came to an end with Allyra and Jason walking from the Arena without so much as a backward glance, leaving Owen and Eric battered, bloody, and unconscious, but both still breathing and without any permanent damage.
It had been a display of skill and strength. If Jason was ruthlessly deadly, Allyra had shown herself to be his equal in every way. Jamie tried to shake the memory of the smile on Allyra’s face as she punched Owen into unconsciousness, but it seemed to have been permanently engraved into his mind.
“Shit…” Eva breathed out quietly. “That was—impressive.” She turned to Pete wide-eyed. “You should’ve taken the bet—I think the odds on Allyra might be shortening considerably even as we speak.”
Pete shook his head in disbelief, seemingly at a loss for words. “I didn’t know Allyra had it in her,” he said finally, throwing a worried look at Jamie. Perhaps seeing the shocked expression on his face, Pete hurried to fill the ensuing silence. Turning to Gemma, he said, “Your brother might actually have some competition for the crown.”
Gemma nodded and grinned quickly. “Well, he certainly deserves to be taken down a few pegs though his ego may be too huge to even see Allyra and Jason as actual competition.”
The voices of his friends seemed to fade into the distance, and all that Jamie could see was Allyra slamming her fist, over and over, into Owen’s face while the smile on hers grew. What had The Five Finals turned her into?
“Jamie!”
The sound of his name being called out jerked Jamie back into the present. “Yes?” he replied.
“Eva was asking what kind of training you put Allyra through over December,” Pete said. “And could you share it with us?”
Jamie shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on the dark tunnel through which Allyra had disappeared. “That wasn’t us,” he said slowly before snapping his eyes to Eva. “You know Jason—what is he turning her into?”
Eva seemed reluctant to meet his eyes, and when she did finally, her own were filled with a horror that matched his own.
“He’s turning her into a mirror of himself—a remorseless killer,” she said softly. “You need to stop her before it’s too late.”
Chapter 27 – Allyra
Numb. She felt numb.
Allyra looked down at her hands. She seemed to be looking at them through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. They were covered in blood—Owen Fan’s blood. Her fingers were sticky with it, but she felt it distantly, as one might feel within a poorly remembered dream.
It didn’t seem real. None of it did.
“Here,” Jason said, his voice echoing through her mind. Too loud and too bright.
Jason set a glass bowl filled with water and ice in front of her. Her fog-filled mind didn’t know what to do with it.
Numb. So numb.
Jason looked at her carefully, and in a moment that seemed to stretch indefinitely, his sharp indigo eyes bored into her. Finally, he took her hands gently and submerged them in the icy water.
Allyra let out a gasp as the cold hit her, shocking some of the numbness away. Suddenly, the horror of the fight became all too real. The water in the bowl stained red, washing
