Chapter 29
“Dani, you don’t have to do this!” My words were a slur. I was pretty sure I had a concussion. I scrambled to undo the tie around my middle, my stomach roiling with every move. She turned to me while James sat up behind her. My heart broke seeing blood drip down his cheek.
But his chain was missing.
We had a chance of making it out of this.
“I’ve come too far to back down now,” she said. I dropped the rope around my midsection, but as soon as I made to stand up, Dani’s foot connected with my abdomen. “Sit down!”
The chair rocked back at the force, but I kept it from toppling over backward.
Dani spun, setting her sights on James. He blurred to his feet, dodging a swipe from her crucifix.
With his powers at full strength, she couldn’t keep up.
She disappeared behind me, and my heart sank as I heard the clattering of glass from the bar.
Dani had hopped up onto the rail. Bottles scattered across the bar top, rolling across the surface and crashing to the floor.
Some broke, but a Disaronno bottle landed at my feet.
I reached for it as a whoosh sounded behind me.
Heat washed over the back of my neck, and I twisted, a jolt of pain ripping through my head.
Dani had produced a lighter from somewhere, and the booze-soaked bar and floor instantly burst into flames.
I struggled to stand, still stuck to the chair. Fuck. My feet were tied. I heard a strangled cry and whipped my head in the other direction. The churning in my gut was easy to ignore in the face of what I saw.
James cowered in the far corner of the bar.
Firelight flickered over his pale face, his eyes wide in terror.
With a bone-chilling chuckle, Dani hopped down from the bar.
I kicked and bucked, trying to worm myself free of the ropes.
They gave—but too slowly, damn it! Dani stalked toward James, but that meant her back was to me.
I bent over and loosened the ties. I almost threw up in my lap, but I didn’t care.
The flames spread at an alarming speed, devouring the alcohol-soaked carpet.
Dani held a bottle of vodka in her hand, a stream of liquid waterfalling to the ground.
Flames followed in her wake like some twisted, inverted shadow.
James backed into the corner and eventually sank to his knees, the heat and fire robbing him of his usual confidence.
Sweat plastered my shirt to my skin and ran down my forehead, stinging my eyes. The sight of James growing weaker by the second was like a knife to my heart.
If I could only reach him. I’d… I don’t know what I’d do. I was so weak, even blinking required effort.
I cast about for anything I could use as a weapon.
Dani neared James, her crucifix held in front of her like a gun.
I couldn’t watch, and I looked away. As I did, my eyes alighted on the liquor bottle next to my feet.
I kept a careful eye on Dani as I slowly reached down to grab it.
I was desperate to move faster, but I didn’t want to alert her.
I hissed at the hot glass against my palm, but gritted my teeth and pushed through.
I stood, using the back of the chair for support.
Whatever drugs Dani gave me—mixed with the concussion from the metal shelf—rendered me next to useless.
James cursed, and I snapped my head up—too fast. I swayed, but managed to remain standing.
Dani stabbed James’s chest with her crucifix. His face contorted in pain. I could almost see the life draining out of him. He convulsed, but even those weakened to tremors as the fight went out of him.
She was killing him.
I had to do something.
I weighed the bottle in my hand. It was heavy enough to do some damage. I crossed the room as quickly and silently as I could. Dani had James’s chin in one hand, her other keeping the crucifix locked against his skin. He met my eyes.
“Ryder, no,” he croaked.
I cursed as Dani looked over her shoulder. I wasn’t close enough yet, damn it! In a panic, I did the only thing that came to mind: I threw the bottle. Dani yelped, dropping the cross from James’s skin to raise her hands against the incoming threat.
James collapsed. The bottle glanced off her arm, and rolled across the floor. She dove for it.
I stumbled to James’s side, kneeling to snatch the crucifix.
I needed to get it as far away from him as possible.
Next to me, Dani rose to her feet and brandished the bottle.
Backlit by the roaring conflagration behind her, she seemed nothing more than a towering silhouette looming over us. She raised the bottle to strike.
Uh-oh.
I had a fraction of a second, maybe less. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan.
I reacted.
As she swung down, I surged forward with the last of my strength and struck with the only thing I had available.
The sharpened end of the crucifix plunged into her chest, biting through skin and crunching sickeningly off bone.
Nauseated from both the effort and the sticky blood gushing over my hand, I barely felt the weight of the bottle absorbed by my shoulder.
Dani’s mouth was open in shock. Her eyes rolled back into their sockets and she toppled to the ground.
Weakly, I held my hand out to James. My eyes watered from the smoke and heat. James, too, struggled to keep his eyes open, his movements slow and pained. “Ryder, get out.”
“Not without you.” I coughed as smoke filled my lungs, bile rising in the back of my throat. I swallowed it back down, determined. “I don’t have it in me to fight you on this.”
“I can’t,” he gasped.
“Take my damn hand, now!”
His eyes widened, albeit slightly, and he grasped my outstretched fingers. His grip was so weak. I hauled him to his feet—which I shouldn’t have been able to do. I threw his arm over my shoulder and we hobbled toward the front door.
I reached for the handle, but recoiled. The metal was practically steaming.
In desperation, I shouldered the door, and like something out of an action movie, the glass shattered.
We burst through the doorframe, glittering fragments crunching beneath our feet, smoke and embers swirling out around us and into the freezing air.
I was panting and wheezing, desperately trying to stave off nausea long enough to get James away from the burning bar. I led him to the parking lot where I finally let him go, helping him sit down. I could tell his strength was returning, though slowly.
James watched the building burn, tears standing out in his eyes. I followed his gaze, and only then realized how painful this was for him. It was the second time Liz had been consigned to the flames.
All I wanted was to collapse, but I wasn’t done yet.
“Stay here,” I instructed. I moved, only to be brought to a halt by his hand around my wrist.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have to save Dani.”
“Ryder, no. It’s too dangerous.”
I cupped his jaw in my hands. “I’ll be okay, I promise. But I have to try.”
Unable to stand the haunted look in his eyes, I took off back into the burning building.
As though fate itself intervened, flames licked up the walls but left a clear path between the front door and Dani.
I tore off my shirt and covered my mouth with the fabric.
I still coughed, my eyes watering as I picked my way across the room.
I leaned down to scoop her up, fighting not to lose consciousness.
God, she was heavy for such a tiny woman.
I half carried, half dragged Dani out of the bar—barely.
I set her down about fifteen feet away from James, unable to continue.
I limped over to my vampire, letting myself fall to the pavement beside him.
I coughed, trying to expel the smoke from my lungs.
I could hardly breathe; worse, my lungs felt hot and tight, like I’d inhaled the sun.
I put my head between my knees, heaving.
As my vision dimmed, I felt James’s hand on my chin, turning me toward him. “Look at me.”
His lips pressed to mine, tongue darting out to swipe across the seam of my mouth.
At first I was surprised, but as I inhaled through my nose, I was relieved to find I was able to take in a full breath.
After our lips parted, I took a few seconds to focus on my breathing, and the pain slowly faded quite a bit.
“Are you all right, love?” James asked.
I opened my mouth to speak, but it wasn’t words that came out of my mouth. I turned to the side and vomited all over the pavement. James peeled my hair away from the soot, blood, and sweat that caked it to my skin, holding it back while I puked. He rubbed circles across my back until I finished.
Once I was certain I wouldn’t be sick again, I sat back and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. “Sorry,” I whispered. It was all I could muster. My throat burned, my lungs and abs aching with the mere effort of breathing.
“Don’t be sorry. I think that’s an appropriate reaction to everything you’ve been through today. I guess my saliva can only do so much.”
I looked over at Dani. The front of her shirt was stained with blood, and she hadn’t yet moved.
I gulped. “Is she…?”
“Alive,” James supplied. “But—”
“James.”
He was interrupted by the approach of three people.
The already frigid temperature dropped another twenty degrees.
A man stood in the middle, a woman to either side of him.
They could have been triplets. All three had the same snowy white hair and blood-red eyes.
The women wore white dresses that cascaded to the floor, a slit up the side giving a peek at their skin as they walked.
Though the man was the most intimidating, he was the most casually dressed of the three, wearing a white button-up with khakis.
He looked like he’d just come from the office, of all places.
Sure. Nine-to-five, drop in on a vampire-slash-hunter battle, pick up milk on the way home—as you do.