37. Arrow
Arrow
I woke up feeling too awake.
I gasped for air as the past released its grip on me for the present to grab me instead. I felt disoriented and jittery. My necklace and its obsidian pendant were on fire on my chest and around my neck. Every single one of my senses were a raw, exposed nerve. They were so heightened that they were sensitive and overstimulating to me. I was too aware of everything.
Which explained how I was able to smell her before my eyes fully noticed her.
There was a woman standing right next to the bed near me. She was by every definition a big bitch . She had to be at least five feet nine with more muscles and curves than Quinn or I had. She was dressed in all black with a mask and a hood over her head. The only thing not covered was her eyes. I could only make out her side profile, but she was a black woman with eyebrows that I knew took a hot minute to do and eyelash extensions that made her resemble a Muppet. Her eyes were almost indiscernible, but I could make out blue contacts as she looked away from me. She was enveloped in one of those loud celebrity perfumes that made my head spin in my current state. I could hear the woman’s heart beating rapidly.
Her grip was tight on a glistening red dagger. It pulsated darkly with some otherworldly magic that I had never seen before, swirling like smokey ruby shadows around the blade. I knew that magic. I had seen it before. It was so familiar. Although I had no idea where I knew it from exactly, I knew one thing for certain down to my bones:
It was deadly.
I could feel it. I could taste and hear it even. It radiated lethality. Something deep within me roared in rage at the weapon, having been asleep but wide awake now. In the face of the weapon, my teeth and claws lengthened. I growled quietly at it. The dagger was aimed inches from me, right above my heart. It wouldn’t take much effort to plunge it in.
I pulled my eyes away from the weapon to look at what had the woman distracted and looking elsewhere. Behind her, hundreds of crystal shards floated in the air angled at the assailant. It was shattered glass from the balcony door and mirrors within my room. I could even see the stones I had picked with Quinn on the beach. They were as close to her as the dagger was to me, seemingly connected. Actually, it seemed like they were drawing closer now that I noticed them.
The woman was so hypnotized staring at the jagged glass so close to stabbing her that she didn’t notice that I was awake. I decided to use that to my advantage. I softly and quietly pulled the sheets back from me. Then I kicked the fuck out of her with all my might. She flew backward. The glass shards caught on her clothes and scratched her to high heaven before she landed on the vanity across from the bed. The furniture collapsed under her weight. Considering her size, I was surprised I was able to kick her and it make any difference.
“Sweetness? Are you okay?”
I turned to see Quinn sitting up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. I didn’t have time to admire how adorable she was. My voice came out as a hiss. “There’s someone in here.”
Quinn’s drowsiness immediately disappeared, her eyes becoming alert within an instant. I watched her scan the room before landing on the woman trying to recover. Quinn threw back the covers and leapt to stand in front of me protectively in a blur.
Her voice boomed through the room as she asked. “Who the fuck are you?”
The mysterious woman looked up from the pile of broken glass and shattered pieces of the vanity around her. There were shards of glass protruding from her shredded hoodie and jeans. But her skin was healing quickly and pushing the glass pieces out in the process. When she took in the scene, she chuckled darkly.
“What’s so fucking funny?”
“You know, I didn’t think you could become even more of a dumbass than when we were together,” The woman said, standing up.
I didn’t need to see Quinn’s face to know that her eyes were as wide as mine were at the implications of what the woman had just said. Quinn stiffened. “Zaria?!”
“Ding ding! Give this girl a cookie!” The woman, Zaria, took off her hoodie and her mask. She smirked. “Did you miss me, lover?”
“You do not call me that.” Quinn’s voice was full of venom as she spoke. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Well, you know I will never shy away from a job on an island resort. This is nice, by the way.” She walked around to survey the room. Her scroll seemed innocent enough, but her walk reminded me of something I had seen when Simone had made us watch Shark Week. Sharks swam parallel to size up their prey while also swimming closer to them. I got out of the bed to stand behind Quinn. “Maybe this is a good racket. Dating the assignment to get close enough to get the job done. Then enjoy the bougieness afterward. I would call it genius, but that is definitely not you.”
“Zaria—” Quinn growled.
“Honestly, when I got the call, I couldn’t believe it. The infamous Quinn Garcia, daughter of Mr. Deadly Diego ’Safari’ Garcia and the Killer Queen who’s never failed a mission, laid up with some hussy ? Oh, I had to see it with my own eyes. Sure enough, here you are,” Zaria sneered. “You can practically taste the sex in here.”
“You calling me a hussy seems kind of rich.” I crossed my arms. “What does anything that Quinn does have to do with you?”
“I don’t understand who told you to speak, bitch.” Zaria’s eyes narrowed on me.
Quinn blocked me from her view. “Who called you? What the fuck are you doing here, Zaria? I will not ask you again.”
Turning back to Quinn, Zaria’s smirk grew slowly, like a cat caught with a mouse in its mouth. “Oh, look at Safari Junior. It’s so cute when you are just like your father.”
Quinn bristled. I put a hand on her arm reassuringly. Zaria was trying to push her buttons, and it was working. At my touch, though, Quinn relaxed ever so slightly.
“It doesn’t matter who called me,” Zaria said, bringing our attention back to her. “But you know why I’m here, lover.”
She pointed her dagger directly at me. “I’m here for her .”
I hissed. She was only two steps from us now. I shivered and gripped Quinn’s arm tightly. Here for me? What could she want with me? And what was the dagger for? How on earth was this even happening?
“What do you want with me?” I asked.
Zaria tilted her head, realization sparking in her fake blue eyes. “She doesn’t know about us, does she? Now, what is a relationship without honesty, lover?”
“ Zaria , shut the fuck up.”
“Quinn? What is she talking about?”
“Not at all what you think. She’s talking about what I do for work?—”
Zaria threw her head back and laughed. “ Work ? Is that what you call it? How ghetto.”
“I’m going to rip your fucking throat out and watch you choke on your blood,” Quinn snarled.
“Aw, are you flirting with me, lover? It’s just like old times.” Zaria smiled devilishly. “Maybe after I take out this bitch of yours, we can take a fuck down memory lane like before?”
“You are not laying a finger on her.” I could feel the muscles in Quinn’s arm coiled and prepared for anything. “I would love to see you try.”
“Now, now, Quinn. We all know who was the better fighter when we were together.”
“Yeah, because I held back so I didn’t kill you. Don’t worry, I have learned from those mistakes.” Quinn lunged at Zaria so fast that she was just a blur in front of me.
They crashed into the wall causing it to dent and crack from the force. The two of them moved so quickly I could barely keep up with who had the advantage. Still, there was a grace, fluidity, and practice to Quinn’s moves. She had done this before. Many times, at least. She was good at it. While Zaria lacked the same precision, she was still able to keep up with Quinn and even stay one step ahead of her. Quinn and Zaria left broken furniture and holes in the wall in their wake.
I was frozen watching the two of them fight. I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I go and get help? With all the commotion and noise, I would think that someone was awake by now. But that was only if they were here. When Quinn and I had gone to bed, it was still early and the group had only just made it to their first club. I had no idea where my phone was to check the time.
Even still, I couldn’t leave Quinn behind. I had done that once before with the energy vampire on my birthday weekend. My heart couldn’t bear to do it again. But what could I do? These two were blurring around my room at speeds I could barely keep up with. Meanwhile, my necklace was, for sure, burning a mark into me, and my back was starting to itch in a way that was becoming distracting?—
“Byrdie!” I turned away from the fighting pair to find Simone and Maisie at the door. They were both disheveled and sleepy-eyed, having clearly just gotten out of bed. But the scene before them was quick to wake them up.
“I didn’t know you both were home!” I said, relieved to see them.
“Yeah, we got in a couple of hours ago, I think,” Simone said. “Maisie heard the commotion. But when she couldn’t wake up Cody, she got me. When we couldn’t wake up Cole or the others, we knew something was wrong. What’s going on?”
“Quinn’s ex-girlfriend’s dying to meet me?”
The three of us jumped when Quinn and Zaria crashed into the bed, making it collapse into itself. Zaria was on top of Quinn now, straddling her. Quinn was trying to stave off Zaria from stabbing her. They both had torn clothes with wounds in differing stages of healing. Zaria smirked, full of snark. “Now, this is like old times.”
I growled loudly. A plume of jealousy blossomed in me, seeing Zaria’s position on Quinn. Zaria glanced at me for a brief moment. Her smirk blossomed into a full smile full of nothing but menace. “Aww, your new little girlfriend is feeling left out. We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Quinn roared. She punched Zaria hard enough to draw blood and send Zaria flying off the bed. Quinn turned to me, her face scratched and bruised but actively healing. “Byrd, you have to get out of here!”
“Why? So she can get help?” Zaria slowly sat up. She spat out a mouthful of blood, but her smile remained dripping red. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one else is coming to that fat whore’s rescue. The house has been magicked to ensure everyone related to you stays asleep. I couldn’t have you calling for backup, after all.”
“You what ?” Quinn’s jaw dropped. “What kind of job is this?”
“The one where I get to have some fun for once.”
It all happened so fast then. Zaria darted toward me. Quinn was a blur of motion, already moving to intercept her. She pulled at her ankles to keep her in place, but Zaria had a grip on my own ankles. She yanked with a supernatural strength, sending me falling to the ground. I tried my best to kick and scramble away from her while Quinn tried to pull her away from me. Somehow, though, Zaria still managed to hit her mark. Searing pain tore through me. It burned and stung like acid in my veins. I didn’t know if there was poison on the blade or not, but it felt like I was being torn apart.
All I could do was scream.
“ No !” I heard Quinn yell. It was like a battlecry.
“I hope you enjoy that blade. It’s special just for you—” Zaria’s snark ended in a grunt before there was more noise and crashing. I couldn’t look for all the blinding pain. Why wasn’t I blacking out? This was too much to bear.
“Byrdie! Ohmigods, there’s so much blood and it’s… changing? What is going on?” Simone said as she and Maisie bent down beside me.
The blade! Get the blade out! It’s cursed! The voice in my head roared in pain along with my screams.
I reached down and tried to touch the handle. I immediately pulled my hand back with a loud hiss. It was covered in burns. I screamed again.
“Holy shit, did that just burn you?” Simone used her powers to summon water from my bathroom’s faucet to heal my hand like she had done before.
“The blade! It needs to come out!” I yelled through my clenched teeth as another torrent of pain struck me.
“Simone, this blade is magicked with some heavy power. I can’t decipher it, but I know that it has an essence that is hurting Byrd. I will pull it out, but you need to use your powers on the wound to get the magic out, okay?” Simone must have nodded to Maisie’s words because she spoke to me next. “Byrd, this is going to hurt like a fucking bitch. I’m so sorry.”
“Just get it out please!” I roared. The agony was killing me, and I wanted it to. I just wanted it to end.
Maisie gripped the blade and pulled it out. I cried out again as the blade was pulled out, but the venom or whatever it was from it remained flowing in my system and intensified for a moment. The flames in my blood grew, threatening to scorch me from the inside out. Just as I was ready to accept Death’s embrace, I felt coolness flood my system. The fires of pain from the blade died out.
But something else took its place.
“Simone? What is that? What’s happening to her?”
“I don’t know,” Simone said. “This isn’t me.”
I looked down. From the wound, there was no blood flowing. Now, the wound was… crystalizing? The blood hardened, becoming shiny and jagged. The same thing was happening to the burns on my hand as the blisters burst with quartz like crystals. I was mesmerized staring at the formation of them. When I touched them, they easily came apart like clumped sugar, falling to the ground to reveal perfectly healed skin underneath. The same happened to my thigh when I wiped the crystals there away.
As strange as it was, there was a beauty to it.
Suddenly, a strange tingling coursed through me like a shiver. It wasn’t that much different from what I felt facing off against the energy vampire. It started in my fingertips, spreading rapidly up my wrists and arms like tendrils of ivy unfurling toward the sun. The sensation was neither painful nor unpleasant. It was as if every cell in my body was waking up from a long slumber, stretching and reaching for something that I had thought was lost.
The feeling flowed across my chest toward my back. The surge of energy made me get on my hands and knees as it intensified. It felt like someone was carefully reopening the scars there. As gentle as whatever it was tried to be, it still made me throw my head back and cry out. Simone and Maisie reassuringly placed hands on my shoulders, but it did nothing to quell the sting of the old wings opening once more. It felt like thousands of cuts or like tens of hands clawing down my back.
Wait.
I remember this.
Mom’s murder. She had been hunted. She had used her lava and fire-breathing powers to protect herself. She had shifted. But, she had been murdered. Auntie Max and Pops would be murdered, too, later on. He was what Mom was.
What I am .
I had run from the hunters that day, the day when Mom was murdered. I had used my powers to save myself. I had controlled crystals. I could control crystals.
It was my power.
I had heard Mom when she died. I had experienced her final moments through the bond that we had. That day, that was the catalyst to make me shift when I wasn’t ready yet. It had almost killed me. We shared that bond because…
Because I was a dragon-shifter.
Finally!