Chapter Thirteen Aria #2
Sucking in a breath, I crept forward as I pulled the gun from my pocket while I kept myself concealed against the wall. My heart pounded so loudly I was afraid they could hear the beat of it.
My own terror gripped me, thundering through my veins in a surge of adrenaline.
The gun shook between my quivering hands.
I hated that I couldn’t see. That I felt blinded. Unprepared.
“Think right here is exactly where I’m supposed to be.” Pax’s voice was carved in animosity.
Menacing laughter rolled from one of the men. “Seems someone is looking for death.”
“Nah, I’m just looking for some pathetic fucks who think controlling women actually makes them something special.”
The second he said it, mayhem broke out. A rushing of feet and a pummeling of flesh.
It came from all sides.
Grunts and shouts and the scraping of bodies.
Anxiety beat through my thready pulse. Maybe Pax was right. I was so out of my comfort zone. Had no clue what I was doing, even though I knew I had to do something.
Tiptoeing forward, I pressed my back against the dumpster as I slowly skated around so I could see.
Pax was embroiled in a battle.
Kicking and punching and slashing a knife at the three men who surrounded him, all of whom were doing the same.
“You think you can come around here and disrespect us?” one of the men snarled, lunging forward and lashing out, the metal of his knife glinting beneath the hazy light.
The blade nicked Pax’s wrist.
It didn’t do anything but set him aflame, the man a fire that raged.
“You sick motherfuckers are going to bleed,” Pax growled as he spat a wad of blood onto the ground at their feet from a wound that gaped on his lip.
The first man I’d seen chuckled a dark sound as he wielded his knife.
“Ah, you see, it’s fools like you who come around here thinking they can edge up on my territory.
Saw the way you looked at my girls. You think you can have them?
Can promise you one thing—you won’t be walking out of here tonight. ”
He glanced at the other two guys and gave a jut of his chin in Pax’s direction. “End this piece of shit.”
He said it as if Pax were trash.
Expendable.
A problem to be disposed of, and he was going to take pleasure in watching it happen.
The two men obeyed while their leader looked on, slowly encroaching on Pax, who they began to back into the wall.
Pax seemed to comply, angling back, both his hands stretched out as if he were surrendering, though one still held on to the knife. “No need for that. I’ll just go.”
Except I could see the look in his eye. His intentions. Something neither of the men recognized through their arrogance.
They laughed. “Gonna make it easy on us, yeah? What’s the fun in that? Think we’ll take our time cutting you up.”
Only as soon as one of them took him by the wrist to bend his arm behind his back, Pax attacked.
It was a flurry of movement as he spun around, twisting out of the man’s grip and taking hold of his arm.
Pax held a knife in the other hand, and he jerked the man forward and drove the blade deep into his stomach.
Pax had already whirled around and was behind the second guy, taking him by the forehead and dragging the knife across his throat before anyone realized what had happened.
Both dropped to the ground in two quick thuds.
Motionless.
I fumbled through the dim light to turn off the safety and cock the gun.
I leaned against the dumpster, trying to catch my breath. To keep calm. To see through this madness.
With my back plastered to the rigid metal, I forced myself to move closer, my feet scuffing along the cracked sidewalk and up to the very end of the dumpster so I could peer around it.
Thadeo, the man who’d been in the girls’ thoughts, stood between me and Pax with his back to me, and Pax was already hurtling around to take him down.
But he froze in his tracks when he found Thadeo pointing a gun in his direction.
“Motherfucker, you’re gonna die.”
There was no time to think it through. No time to contemplate or judge.
I shouted, “Pax, get down!”
I thought maybe he’d already sensed I was there. Anticipated the command. Because he dove to the ground at the same second that I pulled the trigger.
A shot rang out, the crack pinging and echoing against the buildings for what felt like an eternity, and I squeezed my eyes closed as blood splattered across my face.
When I opened them, I found Thadeo was frozen in place.
I stood behind him. My hand shaking and shaking.
He remained there for the longest time.
So still.
So silent.
Then he toppled to the ground, crashing with a thud with the rest of his friends.
Pax was on his feet and surging my way, arms frantic as they wrapped around me. “Fuck, Aria. Fuck.”
I couldn’t even respond. Couldn’t process the jumble of words he issued at the side of my head. “I felt you. Knew you were comin’. I was so fuckin’ terrified that you came here. But you’re safe. You’re safe.”
I could only stare at the man who lay slumped on the ground, limbs bent at odd angles. Could only process the blood that oozed out from the wound on his back and saturated the blue-striped dress shirt he wore.
Shock confounded before it began to quiver through me in spastic quakes.
“It’s okay, Aria. It’s okay. Stay right there. Don’t move.”
Pax pulled away, and I could barely comprehend that he was kneeling beside the body, patting him down, pulling out a wad of cash from his pocket and tucking it into his. He did the same with the two other guys before he was back in front of me.
“Come on, baby, we have to go.”
He finally jarred me out of the trance when he pried the gun from my tremoring hand and shoved it into his pocket. Then he grabbed that same hand and tugged. “We have to go. Now.”
He started to run, dragging me around the dumpster and up the sidewalk. I fumbled along behind him, numbness soaking me through, though that awareness spiked in the middle of it. A ridge that formed in the depths like a mountain rising from the ocean.
An earthquake.
It drew me back to the purpose I’d been meant for.
The two girls had moved closer, though they were huddled against the wall. The older one shielded the blonde as if she’d taken on a motherly role. Their eyes were wide in the night, orbs of terror that swam in shock and relief.
Though the voices still reigned.
“This means nothing,” the voice intoned to the brown-haired girl. “You think this is your chance? Don’t be stupid and run. You know your place. Where you belong. You’ll only end up worse off.”
The blonde shivered with the words that whisked through her psyche. “You won’t survive now. He was the only one keeping you alive. The only one who had the single thing that took away the pain. You have nothing now. Look how empty you are. How you’re nothing. Just a body to fuck. End it. End it.”
Gasping, I staggered to a stop.
Confused, Pax pulled at my hand as he turned to peer at me with urgency slashed deep into his expression. “We have to go, Aria. Right now.”
“I can’t,” I wheezed, and I yanked my hand free of his and moved toward the girls.
Drawn.
Hands burning with the need to do something. The energy a scourge that whipped and compelled.
“Stay back, you psycho bitch,” the older one spat.
Her bravery boiled beneath the alarm, and she shifted on her feet, fighting the impulse to run.
I suddenly threw myself forward, and shock blazed through her when I grabbed her by both sides of her face.
At the connection, a chill streaked through my veins, a fiery cold that scorched me from the inside out. I nearly wept at her pain, which ricocheted through me, hot flames that charred my insides and made me feel as if I were being burned alive.
Still, a frigidness curled within it as the darkness of Faydor flickered and flashed in my periphery.
A barren plane. Vapors and mist. Shadows rose and lifted and swirled through the wiry elms. The night thick, the sky low. Evil prowled across the lifeless ground.
Lightning flashed at the same moment that thunder cracked.
The woman flailed and thrashed, trying to break out of my hold once she came to the realization that I was actually touching her.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I begged as I tightened, the plea tumbling from my mouth as I tried to peer deeper into her mind.
And it was there, the dark shadow that toiled in a misty pool on the dried, fractured floor of Faydor.
The Kruen formless as it swirled and writhed, as it fed vile lies into her mind.
Within it, a slew of her memories raced to infiltrate, to become one with mine.
A tiny girl sitting on the soiled carpet of her living room floor, brushing her doll’s hair. Her mother coming out of her room in a skimpy dress. Her hand running down the little girl’s head before she pressed a kiss to it and whispered, “Be a good girl. Momma needs to go to work.”
The child at the counter in a dirty kitchen, dishes piled high in the sink, standing on a chair as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. The sour milk that she forced down anyway since it would be the only thing she would get to eat.
Sleeping on the couch while she listened for her mother’s return.
How those nights grew longer and sometimes turned into days.
The loneliness.
The fear.
The isolation.
The hunger.
How she’d had to learn to survive on her own. But that survival had come at a great cost. Her dreams and confidence slowly chipped away, every opportunity tarnished and bashed.
“These streets are your destiny. They’re in your bones and in your blood.”
Venom dripped from the Kruen’s voice, already twisting the circumstance in its favor. Driving her toward her ultimate demise.
“Thadeo is gone. You can take that control and make his world your own. You always wanted to be better. To achieve something great. Now is the time to step up and take his place. There are plenty of girls you could guide. Become their master. Look at Sophie, shaking behind you. So pliable to mold. Make her yours. It’s time. ”
Confusion bound her, her thoughts a whirl, the hope she’d had to escape this life flickering to life by the greed that was offered.
Yet her conscience fought against it. She thrashed as I tried to keep hold of her, and I focused on gathering the light.
Magnified it within me. That power that came from the ethereal. From a place I was sure I’d never truly understand.
It grew and grew while the Kruen continued its assault.
I let it go, and it flashed down my arms and through my hands. Her dark eyes widened in shock as she felt it pass into her.
The Kruen sensed my presence right before the bolt of light connected, and through my mind’s eye, I watched it rear up high in defense, its gnarled, gnashing mouth twisted in hate.
But it had noticed too late, and it was struck before it even had the chance to lash out.
It screamed, a piercing agony as it wailed.
And in a flicker of darkness, it disintegrated to dust.
“What the fuck did you just do?” the brunette rasped, gasping and choking as I released her and she stumbled back.
She wobbled on her heels, fumbling to the side before she sagged against the grungy brick wall.
As disoriented as I was.
Dizziness blurred my mind, the pain of the burn overwhelming.
My hands were singed and flaming red.
“Aria,” Pax attempted, but I forced it back, sucked down the exhaustion that threatened to bring me to my knees and instead hauled myself forward, my arms trembling as I reached for the second girl, grasping her face.
The girl shivered and shook in abject fear.
It was the only thing she’d ever known.
Her traumas were so great that bile rolled up my throat as I touched her.
So great that I felt as if a speeding truck had slammed into me.
Her memories nearly blew me off my feet and into the air.
Abuses so severe that I could hardly fathom them. This girl, who was only fourteen.
Her mother, selling her out to the sickest of society since she was a tiny child.
A girl who’d run away only to wind up here.
“You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t do anything wrong. Not one thing. You are good and wonderful, and you deserve to live. To find joy.” I said it as if I could counteract the voice of the Kruen that spilled its toxic deceptions into her heart and mind.
I searched inside myself for any strength left, through the reserves of my faltering spirit. Agony shot up my arms and flashed through my body as I struggled to hold on, as I begged her to look at me with those green eyes and see.
On the fringes of awareness, I could hear the siren. Could feel the anxiety that tore through Pax. But he only set his hand on my shoulder and murmured, “Hurry.”
It was as if his touch jolted a spark of it.
The light.
There was so little of it, but I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to magnify it the way I would in Faydor. To tap into the well.
I could only pray it would be enough.
“Please,” I said, not even sure who I was begging.
Valeen. Maybe myself.
Or maybe I was begging the girl, because she pushed herself forward and angled her face outward so I had better access to her cheeks.
Giving herself over, as if she were asking for the sickness to be purged.
And the spark glowed, a rising flicker that I turned all my focus to.
Building it and building it.
Before I turned it on the Kruen that writhed in a shapeless pool on the barren ground in Faydor.
And I wondered if, in my exhaustion, it didn’t feel the threat coming. Because it didn’t have time to take form when I expelled the energy in a blinding flash of light.
Whipping through time and space and realms.
A shock of energy that struck like a lightning bolt in the middle of the toiling pool.
There was only a squeal of outrage and pain before it was consumed in the flame.
A pile of ash.
And there was nothing left.
I collapsed.