Chapter 24 – Ava Jade #2
I ran in that direction, trying to listen to the far-off sound of the bass to guide me.
It was almost impossible to hear it over the sound of my own breathing. And the thudding of my pulse pounding in my ears made it hard to distinguish one from the other.
Shit.
I rounded a boulder, crouched down behind it to listen again, holding my breath even though it made my chest burn. There.
More to the east.
I jumped back to my feet and was thrown forward, a whistle the only sound before I hit the ground, the air leaving my lungs in a pained gasp.
Dirt and blood filled my mouth and the pain came all at once.
An increasing pressure in my shoulder that was reaching a volcanic eruption size breaking point.
Still gasping for air, I twisted my head and came face to face with the arrowhead protruding from the fleshy bit of skin connecting my right shoulder to my torso.
Blood dripped from the black metal tip and on a stomach twisting glance back, I saw the rest of it, sticking out the other side. Wood fletching and speckled feathers.
Holy shit.
They shot me.
Good thing I was a lefty.
The shooter’s footsteps approached and even though it went against every instinct screaming in my nerve endings, I rolled to defend myself, snapping the wooden back of the arrow on the ground as I threw my blade, brokering no fucking mercy.
The wound in my shoulder protested in blazing agony and white spots flashed over my eyes as I pushed myself to my feet.
The blade embedded in the stag’s eye, and he fell, thrashing wildly on the ground. The mask saved him from the extra inch of the blade that would’ve been his death. Too bad I’d have to waste another because he was making way too much fucking noise.
I went to draw my last blade, but my hand came up empty, and I cursed, searching the ground for it, but I saw no glint of steel on the dark mulchy ground.
“ Would you shut up ,” I hissed, reaching for the last resort.
The blade Corvus had given me. The one I still wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
I guess now was as good a time as any to consecrate it unless I wanted to tear the blade from his eye and risk him screaming bloody murder before I could slit his throat.
A loud knock made me jump, and I spun to find the stag fucker knocked out by the boulder, his body limp and blood running down his mask.
He’d thrashed so hard he knocked himself out.
I resisted the manic urge to laugh, snorting instead, wondering offhandedly if my own blood loss was getting to me because that had to be the funniest shit I’d seen in a while.
Did that make me crazy?
Guess it didn’t matter.
“Okay, then,” I said, and before I could think too much about it, grabbed the metal arrowhead and forced it out of my shoulder with a grunt. Nausea rolled in my stomach, and I swallowed back bile, kneeling on the less sore knee to tear another strip from the hem of my tattered Prada dress.
Becca was going to kill me for ruining it.
I used the swath of overpriced fabric to tie tightly around the wound, winding it under my armpit and pulling it tight with my teeth. Not my best patch job, but it would have to do.
I hesitated before leaving the half dead stag, fingers itching to retrieve the blade sticking out of his eye.
Odd, how I felt absolutely no remorse for permanently blinding him, but all the guilt in the world for leaving that blade where it was to hopefully prevent him from dying out here in the dark.
He looked young. Strong. What if he was like my guys?
He could have his reasons.
Just as I had mine.
Try not to kill them, Grey told me.
I made no promises, but this was me trying like he asked. Fucker better appreciate it because my shoulder hurt like a bitch, and my left hand was happy to dole out revenge.
With one last groan, I took off again, slower this time. Methodical. Focusing more on keeping quiet and hidden than covering ground. Since the latter didn’t seem to be working out for me.
One blade left. I’d have to use it wisely with four more goons stalking the woods looking for me.
I followed the sound of the music upward, which seemed odd since I thought the road was the opposite way. Unless my sense of direction was just completely screwed at this point.
The trees ahead thinned out and more moonlight pushed between the trunks, making their shadows slant down over the ground like black bars in a ghostly cage.
I shivered, my mouth falling open as the view ahead opened up.
I knew exactly where I was.
Gripped with a sense of foreboding, I pushed my aching legs to move me the rest of the way up the slope to its ledge and stared out over the lake.
Moonlight kissed the rippling black water seventy feet below me, and to my right, maybe a mile as the crow flies, the Docks perched on wooden stilts over the lake. Pulsing with music and light and life .
So close.
So fucking far.
The sound of an arrow being notched into a bow had me dropping to the ground, crouching to find my attacker, crow handled blade lifted, pinched between my thumb and forefinger.
He stepped out of the shadows of the trees to my right, unfurling to his full height like he’d been there this whole time. Waiting. Like Diesel St. Crow knew it would come to this. Here. Right now.
“You aren’t throwing,” he crooned, inclining his masked head to the blade in my fingers.
“You aren’t shooting,” I countered, swallowing hard.
“Not yet.”
Nothing in my periphery. No one else was here, but they would be soon. This cliff side ran the whole way around the lake, there was nowhere else for them to go.
Diesel, moving slowly, removed his mask from his face and discarded it on the ground, taking a deep breath as though it’d been suffocating him.
“Do you know how many bodies I’ve buried in these woods?” he asked, lifting the crossbow in a way that told me he knew very well how to use it. Maybe almost as well as I could use a blade.
I leveled out my breathing, deciding not to play his little game of intimidation. He was either going to shoot me or he wasn’t, the rest didn’t matter. I needed to keep my eye trained on his trigger finger. If it so much as flinched, I’d throw.
And wouldn’t it be some kind of irony if Diesel St. Crow was killed by a blade his own son put in my hands?
“I’ve lost count,” Diesel admitted after another moment, shifting to his left a bit, making me readjust my position to counter him.
He grinned at my movements, interest piqued.
“But there’s one,” he continued. “Buried right there.”
His gaze indicated a spot only a few feet from where I stood. “His name was Foley, and he begged for a spot on my crew. I gave him a chance, and do you want to know how he repaid me?”
“Not really.”
His lips twisted into a cruel smirk. “He was going to betray us. He was going to take down my son.”
Something in my stomach fluttered, and I worked to clamp it down.
“Do you want to know how he died?”
“Let me guess. Crossbow?”
Diesel shook his head. “No. When I caught Foley in these woods, I fought him man to man. No weapons. Just fists. It was personal, you see. No one hurts my family.”
A pang in my chest at his words made my brows draw together and my grip falter for a second before I was able to recover.
“I’m not what you think I am,” I said in a low whisper, meeting his stony gaze, but the words sounded like a lie even to my own ears. And Officer Vick’s face flashed in my mind’s eye, making my throat tight.
When he didn’t say anything, and I heard the muted sounds of movement approaching, I chanced looking away from Diesel and into the trees, trying to judge how much time I had left before I was fully surrounded.
I was fucked.
Was this his plan all along? Keep me pinned here until his minions could get to us? So that he could have one of them kill me. For him to be able to keep his hands clean of my death?
Idiot . I should have run.
I still could if…
“ Uh, uh, uh, ” Diesel chided, seeing what I had planned in the jerky movements of my gaze. “They’ll be here any second. There’s only one way off this rock that might end with your survival.”
His cold stare tracked to the water below and back.
“Why not just shoot me?” I asked, my stomach already fluttering at the prospect of the long drop. There were rocks down there, too. Big ones. And smaller ones. It would be a small miracle not to hit any of them.
He hesitated, his hands tightening on the crossbow.
He couldn’t, I realized. He wouldn’t risk alienating his sons for good. He could let someone else do it, though. Or he could let me jump and hope the rocks below would do the job for him.
They might forgive him for that, in time.
“Make your choice, girl,” Diesel snarled, his tension rising as the others closed in. “Do it now.”
I inched closer to the ledge and a piece of stone chipped off under my foot, falling down to smash into another rock protruding from the waves below.
“And if I survive?” I asked, swallowing, my blood singing with what I was about to do.
Diesel tipped his head to one side, not understanding.
“If I survive, will you stop trying to kill me? Will you give me a real shot at passing these trials?”
He frowned, considering my requests, and maybe, my chances of survival.
“Perhaps.”
Fuck.
It would have to be good enough. There was no time left.
“There!” someone shouted, and I sheathed the crow blade, backed up, took three running steps, and launched myself from the edge of the cliff.
The ground vanished and my body dropped like a stone, hurtling through chilled night air, my hair flung back from my face.
I tried to right myself, knowing feet first was the only way that wouldn’t result in injury, but at the last second, the wind shifted and I turned, flipping until I was face down, staring at rock and water and my impending death.