Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
“Is that the one with the freaky wings?” one of the four vampires Zuri could see from where she was still face down in the gravel asked. Well, she couldn’t see them but she could see their boots.
“No, that’s the other witch,” another male said.
Zuri tried to get her elbows under her chest and leverage her weight. Tried anything to get herself off the ground, but all she managed to do was shred her forearms and elbows. Was that the piece of shit who tried to kill them in the hospital? Zuri couldn’t remember what he sounded like.
“This is the one,” he said with a tone that had to be followed by a serpentine flick of the tongue, a grotesque leering. “Get her up.”
The thought of hands on Bambi’s body, rough and unwanted and hateful, gave Zuri the kind of insane strength that made women flip cars off the fucking road with their bare hands. With a scream that grew from the very center of her being and broke through her lips like an ancient curse, Zuri grabbed her umbrella and jammed it as hard into his leg as she could manage from the awkward angle. She’d hoped to get him in the groin, but the side of his knee was enough to make him falter.
Falter but not fall. He cursed, yanking the umbrella out of her hand hard enough to pull her arm out of its socket. Pain shot hot and electric from her wrist to her shoulder, but she didn’t let it slow her down. Trying to use his momentary distraction to her advantage, Zuri shifted her weight to one side, desperate to at least roll over. To see what was happening.
“Oh, I’m going to have so much fun making you pay for that,” he vowed like he was spitting on her.
Zuri stopped struggling. Not because she was afraid, but because she’d been letting her anger cloud her judgment. Physical strength wasn’t going to get Bambi out of this. She didn’t have the focus to tap into his deepest fears—not with his boot making it impossible to take more than a shallow breath. But maybe she could confuse him.
What better time to try something you’ve never done than when Marisol’s safety hangs in the balance? She grimaced, the pain radiating through her right arm nearly debilitating. And then she heard Bambi’s whimper, and she was sure she’d gnaw off the fucking arm to get to her.
Reaching back again, pain blurring her vision and sending a spike of nausea straight through her, Zuri grabbed the ankle that wasn’t using her as a footrest. He laughed at her, but only for a moment. Magic born of the primal need to survive erupted from her body. She was in his mind, ignoring the vitriolic hate, and making him forget. Forget why he was here, forget why he was standing on her. Forget his name, his life, his purpose. She willed him to see only a thick, gray fog.
The moment he took the slightest bit of pressure off her back, Zuri braced herself on her left arm and scrambled to her knees. Balance lost, he stumbled back and away from her. Zuri’s vision doubled with the pain screaming down her spine, her right arm hanging terrifyingly low.
“James! What the fuck?” Hospital Fuck, his face visible under his hoodie, looked at Zuri like she was the monster. “I told you not to let her fucking touch you!”
Good, he hasn’t forgotten what I can do to him .
But James was gone, falling all over himself while he ran in one direction and then another. And then there were three, Zuri thought with all the vengeance that had ever been felt since the dawn of time.
Three of them . Shit .
“Zuri, please don’t! They’ll hurt you,” Bambi begged, half her face chalked with dust so that her tears made a mark down her check.
Absolutely fucking not. Zuri bared her teeth, prepared to do what the hell she could while two vampires descended on her. She’d never gone into two minds at once, but she was going to do it today.
Movement like the subtle rustling of fall leaves fluttered in Zuri’s peripheral vision. It was a fraction of a second before the two vampires advancing on her were gone.
Gone?
Her brain couldn’t keep up with the blurs around her. When she blinked, the two vampires were crumpled against each other on the ground, horrifying, gaping holes where their throats had once been. Swallowing to stop from puking, she turned to Marisol.
“Don’t kill him,” Marisol shouted to Elena’s vampires—three of them openly ready to perform the only justified vivisection.
“Yeah, don’t kill him,” Zuri agreed, stomping toward them. “Let me do it.”
As she neared, she realized Marisol was shielding Hospital Fuck with her body.
“We should take him alive and get information,” Marisol said entirely too rationally. “Please.”
The fourth of Elena’s crew arrived with the vamp who’d stood on Zuri’s back like she was a doormat. She knew by the way he was slumped over the vampire’s shoulder that he was dead. Disappointment that she didn’t get the honor was immediately replaced by the satisfaction of retribution.
“We need to go,” the recently arrived vampire said, his face obscured by his hood like an executioner of old. “Now.”
“Take this piece of shit then,” Zuri said when she realized they were waiting for her to make the call. Like Elena had told them to defer to her in her absence.
Elena . Zuri’s stomach soured. Had she been ambushed again?
Hospital Fuck didn’t struggle when he realized he was outnumbered. Chicken shit. Zuri would never let herself be taken alive. Years of true crime binges had taught her to resist being taken to a second location with every fiber of her being.
“Zuri, your shoulder,” Bambi said when she was suddenly standing in front of her, her expression more concerned than afraid.
Woozy and nauseated, Zuri swayed backwards before Marisol caught her by her good arm.
“It’s dislocated. I need to set it before it gets worse.” Her wide hazel eyes were still brimming with tears, still awash with a fear that Zuri wanted to swallow.
“Not here.” One of Elena’s guys tried to pick Zuri up, but stopped when her glare said touch-me-and-eat-a-wooden-spike.
Away from The Roads in the empty cement plant, Zuri was too tired to resist Bambi’s insistence that she do something about her shoulder. With the black SUV blocking them from view and all but one vampire standing guard, Bambi made her lie down on a disgusting picnic table covered in graffiti.
“You’re going to feel so bad when I walk out of here with a staph infection,” Zuri complained, fading adrenaline leaving her with nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.
Under the shade of a hideous tree that was probably invasive, Marisol appeared above her with an absolutely ridiculous little smile. She could have been fucking kidnapped or killed. Smiling was absolutely unwarranted. Zuri’s desire to return it was even more asinine.
“I’m sorry, are you the same person who just tried to take on a troupe of vampires on her own?” Her hazel eyes were vibrant.
I’m the same person , she thought, but I’m not sure you are .
Marisol climbed onto the table and kneeled at her side. With one hand on Zuri’s shoulder, the other gripping her arm just below the elbow, Marisol kept their eyes locked. “Take a deep breath,” she instructed in the steadiest voice. “Just trust me.”
“Are you sure you’ve done this before?” Fear of impending pain made Zuri’s body feel like an iron pulled out of the fire. Tight and hot and unbearable.
Marisol gave her a diabolical smirk. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it done hundreds of times.”
“ Seen it?—”
Zuri’s question morphed into a guttural scream when blinding pain tore through her upper body. With a swift, brutal yank, Marisol popped her shoulder back into place.
“Fuck! That feels like getting shot!”
Marisol left her hands where they were, helping Zuri cradle her arm to her chest with alarming confidence. She laughed. Laughed . “Have you been shot many times?” She let her gaze drift down Zuri’s torso. “I don’t recall any scars on your body.”
“Don’t you dare try to flirt with me right now,” Zuri warned, body thrumming in agony. “I’m hurting here, Nurse Ratched. You could have torn my damn arm off.”
“I can’t believe you’re such a baby.” Marisol leaned over her, wings shimmering into being until they were nearly opaque, white and gleaming. They didn’t so much blot out the sun streaming through the branches above her as much as they absorbed its light and reflected it in a prismatic display. “It’s really cute,” she whispered as she neared Zuri’s mangled shoulder.
“Call me cute again, Bambi,” Zuri tried to threaten, but it sounded too much like I’m so glad you’re okay and I don’t want to lose you .
“ So cute,” she said as gently as her lips grazing Zuri’s shoulder.
When Marisol pulled her shirt down and kissed the exposed skin beneath her collar bone, the warm electricity of her lips pulsed into the angry pain. Soothing it. Relief rolled over Zuri in gentle waves.
The moment Zuri felt whole again, Marisol put a warm hand to her cheek and held her in her syrupy gaze. “Better, baby ?”
“Shut up,” Zuri rasped, barely audible over her pounding heart.