Chapter 21
Adria sat in the back seat with her mother. She watched as the people passed by her window on the sidewalks. Other families walked together. Fathers and mothers pushed strollers and wagons.
As far as Adria could tell, no one else had a special man that followed them around, like Jonathan did.
“They’re here,” Jonathan’s voice came from the driver’s seat.
Adria looked up to see his eyes staring at something in the rearview mirror.
Adria tried to sit up and turn to see what Jonathan was looking at, but her mother stopped her.
“Eyes ahead,” her mother said.
After a moment, Jonathan and her father unbuckled their seatbelts and left the car. Adria watched Jonathan pull on the barrel of his gun and press it into his back belt.
She wasn’t supposed to know about the guns. Her father made a point to hide them whenever she came in a room, but they were always around.
“Why does Jonathan drive us?” Adria asked her mother.
Her mother looked at her. Her face was full of warmth and after seeming to think, she ran her fingers through Adria’s hair and said, “It is because of your blood.”
“My blood?” she asked, pointing to her freshly skinned knee.
Her mother laughed. “No, silly, it’s because of who came before you.”
Adria scrunched her face.
Her mother tapped Adria on the nose. “Sometimes, the people before us choose our path.”
Her mother’s voice was soft, “Someday you will learn what walking in your ancestors’ footsteps means.”
Adria felt nervous. “What if I get lost?”
Her mother tapped her now healing, skinned knee. “You remember how you went too far from home and got this?”
Adria looked down at her freshly healed scab. She thought about a few days ago when she had gotten lost and fallen off her bike. Her knee had bled and bled, and it took Adria hours to find her way home.
“Well, sometimes we have to skin our knee in order to find our way back.”
At Adria’s expression, her mother laughed. “You’ll understand someday.”
Adria woke up to a soft hand against her mouth. Her eyes flashed open, finding Seth’s face. Her mother’s kind eyes fading quickly as Seth put a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet.
She strained to listen, trying to discern what had put him on alert.
Sure that she was awake and had understood, Seth moved. He was already dressed. She watched him take a gun out of the nightstand and silently cock it. When it was loaded, he offered it to her, but she shook her head.
He would probably be a better shot than her, anyway.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade, giving her that instead.
“What’s going on?” she mouthed.
Seth showed her his phone. It was a text from Eric.
Eric: We are not alone.
Well, if that wasn’t vague as fuck. Adria mentally ran through their situation. Elena, Bryson, and Kaydon were in a separate hotel. She had Seth and Eric with her.
“Does Bryson know?” she whispered.
Seth nodded.
Adria took in a steadying breath.
The silence stretched, and when no sounds followed, she moved towards the door.
Seth’s hand wrapped around her wrist.
“Eric wants us to wait,” he said, voice lower than a whisper.
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to wait?”
Seth cocked a smile and shook his head.
“Good,” she said, “because Eric works for me, not the other way around.”
Opening the door, Adria peeked into the empty hallway.
Everything was quiet, but as soon as she stepped into the silent corridor the sound of glass shattering hit her. Adria glanced back into the hotel room as two men in black crashed through the window.
Adria watched in horror as the two figures who had just breached their room stood up. Seth aimed and fired two shots, killing one instantly.
Footsteps thundered dangerously close, pulling Adria’s attention.
A figure was barreling towards her.
Getting her bearings, she braced for impact.
The man was about a foot taller than her and larger by far. No amount of training with Eric would have prepared Adria for the impact she felt when he collided against her.
The air was forced from her lungs, and when she landed on the floor behind her the knife fell from her hands as she struggled to catch her breath. Thankfully, her muscles remembered, and she managed to wrap her arms around his upper bicep, locking it in place.
When he pulled back his free arm to strike her, she kicked her hips up, throwing him off balance before rolling and changing her position. Instead of being under him, now she was at his side with his arm trapped.
He grabbed a fistful of her hair, and pain shot through her scalp as he pulled back. Adria moved her head towards the pain and twisted to face her attacker. She punched her palm into his face. It hit under his jaw and she heard his teeth crack together as his head fell back.
Letting go of her hair, he pulled back, bringing his fist with him. Adria tried to duck. She avoided the more punishing part of the blow, but his fist still connected with the side of her face, and a ringing started in her ears.
Adria felt her body moving as he rolled on top of her again.
His hips pushed painfully into her now injured ribs, and his hands wrapped around her throat.
She choked, and her attacker pressed harder. Black corners filled her vision, and her awareness tunneled on the man above.
This was it; she was going to die beneath an unkept beard and bad breath.
Two months of training wasn’t enough. She wasn’t strong enough to fight off someone twice her size.
Eric’s voice rang in her ears.
Size has nothing to do with it, Adria. It’s about momentum and using angles against your opponent.
She tried to press her pelvis up. But the man above her didn’t move.
Her body felt weak. She was acutely aware of the fingers gripping around her throat.
If she didn’t do this, she was going to die. Adria squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her heels into the ground.
Utilizing every muscle she had, Adria shot her hips up.
The body above her moved. It was only a little, but she had rocked him off balance and was able to suck in a breath.
Her eyes flashed open, and she wrapped her right arm around his left, while simultaneously swinging her hips, and grabbing her right hand, she locked his arm to her body.
Fresh air flowed into her lungs.
He kicked out, trying to free himself, but she had a good grip.
Swinging her hips back to center, she wrapped her leg around his left shoulder.
Pressing her body up, his arm continued to bow unnaturally.
Adria pressed into him harder and squeezed with her pelvis until she felt a sickening crack.
The man cried out as she snapped his arm in half.
Adria scrambled out from under him. Scanning the ground, it didn’t take long for her to spot the knife.
A gunshot rang out, and Seth appeared in the hallway, blood on his lip. He took in the scene before moving to press the barrel into her attacker’s temple.
“How many?” he said.
“Fuck you,” the lumbering man said.
Seth’s finger moved to the trigger, but Adria stopped him.
“Save your bullets,” she said as she grabbed the man’s hair and ran the knife across his throat.
Blood oozed out, and a gurgling sound escaped the man’s lips. Adria stared down at him, watching the light leave his eyes.