Chapter 36 #2
Kieran heaved. “You’re faster than last time.”
“I’ve trained since last time. A lot. I just had to picture you at the end of this knife, and then I suddenly had endless motivation.”
Kieran pushed to his feet. He was barely standing, kept upright like a berserker high on pain and violence.
The crowd were looking at one another as much as the combatants now. In fact, Harper noticed that there were fewer of them than before. They had chipped away, escaping into the night as it became obvious to everyone other than Kieran that he was outmatched.
He dashed forward with a roar, the sound more mad than fearsome. Arms swinging, eyes shining, and teeth bared, while Maya just stared at him. She adjusted the grip on her knife.
A loud crack pierced the night. Maya screamed, spinning forward and falling to the ground. Her face twisted in pain as she clutched her now bloody shoulder.
Harper put a hand over her mouth. Her breathing stopped as Kieran came to an abrupt halt.
He spun toward the crowd. “Who did that!?”
No one spoke. Everyone looked around, uncertain, until their attention fixed on a redheaded man standing by one of the pickups.
Booker lowered the smoking gun. “She was mocking you, boss. I only meant to—”
“I told you not to interfere.” Kieran rushed to him and shoved the gun out of his hand. “This wasn’t your fight. She wasn’t fucking yours to take down.”
“I-I didn’t,” Booker stammered. “I only nicked her. I would never take a kill from you.”
Kieran glared at him. Then he huffed and turned around, looking back at Maya.
She was trying to stand. She pushed against the ground, collapsing under her own weight with every attempt. Pain raked across her face, her limbs trembling.
And she was looking at the cabin window. At Harper. While every other inch of her body screamed agony, her eyes only showed fear.
“Pathetic freak.” Kieran limped back to her. He kicked the knife from her hand, placed a foot against her bloody shoulder, and pushed down.
Maya cried out, fingers curling into the snow. Kieran nodded to one of the onlookers.
“Bring me a stake.”
“No!” Harper bolted for the door, wrenching free of Nell and Evie’s hold. Ignoring their warnings that there wasn’t anything she could do.
Harper didn’t care. It wasn’t sense driving her forward. It was a desperate need to do something that made her pull open the door and step outside, beyond its protective barrier.
The snow bit into her bare feet. The wind was ice, washing over her skin like rainfall made of needles.
“I’ll come with you!” she yelled at Kieran, making everyone turn towards her. “That’s what you want, right? You want me? Well, you got me. I won’t even struggle, just…” Her voice broke. “Please don’t hurt her.”
Maya was shaking her head. Saying something, but her words were lost to the wind.
Kieran stared at Harper. Then stepped off Maya’s back.
“There you are…” His eyes were soft now, a relieved smile blooming on his face. “I’ve missed you. So much. I never should have let you go, but finally… I found you. I’m sorry it took this long.”
He walked towards her, expression so elated that it shot past heartwarming into eeriness. The possessive adoration you’d show a beloved pet rather than a human being.
Harper put her hand on the doorway. “You have to promise to let her go. Let everyone else go. If you do that, then… then I’ll come with you. I’ll go wherever you want.”
“No…” Maya’s voice trembled. The fear in her eyes had heightened to terror, her attempts at standing still fruitless.
Kieran didn’t hear her. Or anything, it looked like. Delusional joy shined in his gaze. The look of someone who’d just had his dreams come true.
The wind turned. It rushed over the clearing, blowing in through the door and catching Harper’s hair.
Kieran stiffened. His smile froze as his eyes flicked to Harper’s neck. Her bloody neck, now marked by two circular fang marks.
Rage flared across his face. He spun back towards Maya.
“You bit her?”
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were locked on Harper, her head still shaking. Willing her to back away. To not look at what was about to happen.
Kieran held out his hand and caught the broken-off branch being tossed to him. It was the length of an arm, snapped off at an angle to make a crude spear.
“Don’t!” Harper ran forward, but someone grabbed her after only a few steps. They held her in place as Kieran put his foot back on Maya’s shoulder.
Her dark eyes glinted. Tears. Tears that Harper suffered herself, as her vision went blurry.
Maya tried to smile. But it was so far from the beautiful one Harper had fallen in love with. So far from the peaceful version she’d found an unparalleled safety in.
Kieran rested the tip of the stake against Maya’s back. Fire blazed in his pupils, dancing with wrathful intensity.
“You were never supposed to exist,” he said. “I consider it an honor to correct that mistake.”
He grabbed the branch with both hands, raised it into the air. And thrust it through Maya’s chest.
The world fell away. All sound vanished. Everything became a blur other than Maya’s pained, pale face.
Her body went stiff. And she didn’t look away from Harper. As though she wanted the last she saw of the world to be Harper’s eyes.
Her head dropped. And she lay still.
Harper felt her lips move. Felt sounds escape, but she couldn’t hear them. All noises were drowned out by blood rushing in her ears and her heart shattering into pieces.
Kieran made a gesture, and the arms around her vanished. Harper sprinted across the snowy clearing, falling to her knees next to Maya.
“Wake up!” She didn’t recognize her own voice. It was shaky and raw, as though she’d just been screaming, but she had no memory of doing so. “No. No, Maya, you can’t be… You have to wake up.”
She didn’t move. Her body was completely still. Her skin had lost all its warmth, instead taking on a sickly grayish tint.
Someone shouted her name. Evie and Nell, yelling for her, but she couldn’t make herself look at them. She just clutched Maya’s hand, staring at her and willing her eyes to open so this awful scene wouldn’t need to be accepted as reality.
“Come on.” Kieran grabbed Harper by the shoulders and pulled her away. She struggled, even though it was pointless. Even with how hurt he was, she couldn’t do anything against him.
“And the humans?” a woman asked. The same one who had tried breaking into the cabin.
“Bring one of them. Kill the other.” Kieran let out a low snarl. “I need a hunt after this.”
“You fucking bastard!” Harper punched Kieran in the chest. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you touch them, you piece of—”
He clasped a hand over her mouth, muffling her protests.
“Just be quiet, baby. It’s all over. You’re safe now.”
Something pinched her shoulder. Pain tightened over her skin, followed by a rush of lethargy. Her thrashing grew sluggish, her sight blurring with no tears to blame.
Someone yelled. Screamed. Loud pops of a firearm followed and then a heavy thud. Noises that were so close, yet so far away.
Harper didn’t even feel cold anymore. As consciousness drifted away, she fixed her gaze on Maya’s body. On her soft, delicate features and her limbs being buried by falling snow.
Maybe it was the darkness. Or her blurring vision. Or just desperation, Harper couldn’t be sure. But she saw more than the tragedy of the scene.
Right before her vision went dark, Maya’s fingers twitched.