Something about this whole scenario sits real uncomfortable. Suspicion — already so restless inside me — thrashes violently and sends nervous energy through my limbs. I bounce my knees. Could it have something to do with that asterisk? Or simply because he was so difficult to get a hold of initially?
Grinding my teeth, I pull out my cell, and swipe up a text message.
Me: Find out anything yet?
The response comes fast.
Hank: Your sleeping spell’s pretty strong. Camp’s still out but will let you know when he comes to.
I send a thumbs up emoji. Something collides with the side of my head. Reality twists around me as I tumble, wrapped in nauseating blackness. Glass shatters and then I’m airborne. Pain, equal parts sharp and dull, batters my body. My spine slams into what has to be concrete. It scrapes my skin as I roll. My muscles throb. Blood splatters across my skin. A roar fills my ears.
When I finally come to a stop, something hard rams my ribs. Over and over it slams into them, unrelenting, breath robbing. Liquid metal fills my mouth. Bone cracks. Though the pain doesn’t let up, the spinning does, and instinct kicks in. Almost automatically, my hands shoot out as I grasp blindly for my assailant.
I catch an ankle. Blind with pain, I wrench sideways with as much speed as my aching body will allow, pulling the leg with me. Even with the static clogging my ears, I hear the distinctive sound of a body hitting the ground. Something, I think the heel of the free foot, slams into the other side of my rib cage.
Crying out, I burst into my phoenix shape, but only long enough to hover a few inches in the air. I spin to face my attacker. Blood loss forces me back to human form almost immediately. I stumble away from a woman twice my size in every aspect. Broad shouldered and almost as tall as Hank, she dwarfs me when she springs up in the sloped grass with surprising grace, a crooked smile on her angular face and a beauty mark under her right eye.
Before I can take in our surroundings, she lunges at me, fist first. I bob, but her knuckles catch my shoulder. Bone cracks. One part of my brain registers the agony, the sound of my own screaming, but the instinctive part blocks all of that out. I dart in the other direction, driving a punch to her gut with my good arm.
Pain shatters through my hand as more bones break against cement-hard skin. Contact sends vibrations straight up to my shoulder. Terror claws my insides, so loud that logical conclusions can’t get through. Stupidly, I try to strike again, this time hooking a leg around one of hers and shoving with all my strength. She hits the ground, but the bottom of her shoe collides with my nose before I can make another attack.
Stumbling backward, I lose my balance. Gravity tugs me down the small hill. I sink into blackness again, but only visually. Every rock and stick and root digs into my body. Then a hand closes around my wrist. The feeling of water floods over my skin, bubbling quiet wraps around me, a moment of painless alien peace.
It ends, but only for a single gasp before enveloping me again. Twice more I come up for air. On the third time, arms encircle me, easing me into what feels like cool grass. A hand cups the back of my head to prop it up.
“Fee, can you hear me?” Max’s voice echoes in my ears.
I gag on blood, squinting at him, at his obscenely beautiful face. Sunlight fans around his head. A funny little halo. Like the angels in those paintings some churches have. Only half conscious of the act, I lift an arm to touch his cheek. The simple movement sets stars exploding in my eyes. Then black bleeds across my vision again and this time, I lose my grip on consciousness completely.
SUNSHINE THINS THE darkness of my eyelids. Pure misery races after it immediately, and I moan. The sound chafes my raw throat. I blink rapidly, unable to see at first because of the light piercing through the branches of the trees surrounding me. Something moves across my vision. I flinch, then relax when Max bends over me, the pink backpack hanging over one shoulder.
“You’re awake. Thank the Fates.” He drags a hand over his face. “How bad do you feel? Because you look pretty awful.”
In pain or not, I chuckle-groan, then regret it instantly. “Thought you were supposed to be charming, water spirit.”
Max grins. “I just meant you look beat up. You’re still hot.”
This time, I stifle the laugh threatening to jostle my aching rib cage. “Thanks. Where are we?” I lift my chin to take in our surroundings better.
Noonish sun warms the small, grassy clearing we’re sitting in. Thick trees form a wall around us, blocking us from view, but I can still hear wheels on cement off to our left. We can’t be too far away from the highway in that case. Apart from this, birds chirp, small animals rustle bushes, and a quiet breeze winds through the branches overhead.
“Not exactly sure where I bamfed us,” Max says. “A—”
“Bamfed?” I ask.
Max grins. “My nerd-word for water spirit travel. We’re just a little off the road. I could’ve gotten us farther, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. That lady gave you a pretty bad beating.”
With an elbow, I try to push myself into a seated position, but pain throbs through my entire upper body and I collapse again. “Yes, yes she did. I think a few things are broken. Mind helping me get upright?”
“Hang on.”
Gently — much more gently than I would expect from a bounty — Max loops an arm around my shoulders, then slowly pulls me off the ground. Fire claws across my rib as he helps me scoot back into what feels like
