27. Rose #2
His gaze narrows on it and I feel his power intensify. The wave of power is so strong that it’s holding me in place and I’m screaming, trying to move.
Because he knows. He either knows or he fears it, he fears that this might be the thing to undo him.
“To think I wasted all my time on you,” he says with an ugly sneer. “Perhaps I should have done the world a favor and killed you along with your parents.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I manage to say, each word broken. “I would have just come back.”
The blade starts to shake in my hand from the strain, poised just above his heart. My instincts tell me exactly where to plunge it and I’m grunting, gasping for just one single push of strength to come through.
“I’m starting to think that I didn’t just come back for Valtu,” I go on with a growl. “I also came back to kill you.”
Then with the memories of my parents in my heart, the ones that he killed and the ones that he stole from, I scream and drive the blade of mordernes right into his heart.
The blade sinks in with a snap of cartilage and I watch as Bellamy’s face contorts from the pain, his power wavering slightly.
I don’t know what it’s going to do, if anything, and from the intensely curious expression on his face, I can tell he doesn’t either.
But the knife is all the way in and blue lightning is radiating outward like electric veins, coursing through his body and limbs.
“You fool,” he says to me. “Do you know what you have done?”
“I did exactly what you taught me to do,” I answer.
Then I let go of the blade, all my energy spent and drained, and just when I start to feel my world go black and cold, everything springs back to life with a WHOOSH.
I’m suddenly bombarded with sounds and movement again, everyone back in motion like they’d never been frozen at all.
Valtu is choking Atlas, only to have Atlas disappear into thin air, Solon is biting a hunk out of a witch’s neck.
The shopkeeper who helped me up is looking around wildly for me, and people are still screaming and shouting and running, clouds of yellow and orange spice rising up in the air.
And at my feet lies Bellamy.
On his back with the blade sticking right out of his chest, his mouth open, face bent in horror, the only thing in the market frozen in place.
He’s dead.
I bend over him to make sure but his eyes are empty and I can smell death on him like he’s wearing cologne.
“Fuck you,” I say and then spit right on his forehead. “That’s for Leif.”
The thought of my brother’s name makes me wonder where he is.
He’s not here in the market with the others, so maybe he’s back in the industrial area.
God, I hope so, I hope my parents were able to find him—not only find him but save him.
What if Bellamy was right and Leif won’t go with them willingly?
But my thoughts about Leif are cut short because a child next to me starts to scream and point at Bellamy and I realize that I look like a good old-fashioned murderer.
I’m about to yell at the others to suggest we get the fuck out of here before the cops show up when suddenly I feel someone at my back and my neck is burning and I reach up to find barbed wire placed around me like a noose.
“Help!” I try to scream but the noose tightens, the spikes piercing my skin, warm blood trickling down my neck, and I hear Atlas at my ear.
“Should have known you’d steal my blade,” he seethes, his voice ragged and wild. “You’re going to suffer for what you’ve done, bloodsucker.”
Atlas yanks at the wire and I scream, blood spilling down my neck as the spikes go in a few more inches, through muscle and bone and if he pulls again I’m—
With a deafening roar, Valtu appears just in time for Atlas to let go of the wire in surprise.
Valtu slams into him, knocking Atlas back, and they go flying onto the ground.
I stagger backward, my fingers at my neck, hating the feeling of pulling these spikes out of my skin, scared to know the damage it created.
Valtu is in full-on rage mode now. He’s bellowing like an animal on top of Atlas, both of them coated in a layer of sumac powder, like a dusting of blood. I expect him to start bunching him or biting but Valtu just lets out a primal scream and places his hands on Atlas’s head.
He twists Atlas’ head back and forth and then with an insane amount of power, Valtu rips his head right off the body.
I gasp, forgetting about my neck for the moment. People scream.
Valtu staggers to his feet, looking like a beast, holding the witch’s head by a fistful of hair. Blood and gore spill to the ground, the shattered vertebrae trailing out the end. He nearly ripped his whole damn spine out.
“How did you know how to kill him?” I ask, wide-eyed and breathless. Despite the violence I’ve seen, nothing prepares you for seeing your lover physically tear someone’s head off their neck as easily a flower off a stem.
Valtu frowns as if it’s a dumb question and gestures to the head in his hands. “Who wouldn’t this kill?”
He’s got a point. Still, holy shit.
“Little help,” Solon manages to say, and we look over to see him still being attacked.
“Allow me,” I say, taking my own blade out of Bellamy’s heart, then without more than a glance, I whip it toward Solon, who thankfully ducks out of the way. My blade goes straight into the heart of the other witch, where she screams and staggers until she drops dead.
“Two for two,” Valtu says with a growl. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to fuck you more.”
I grin at him, the adrenaline rolling through me. “Keep it in your pants for now.”
“Yes, please keep it in your pants,” Solon says, walking over and rubbing the back of his neck. “I managed to bite that other guy’s head off. Still not as impressive as you, Valtu,” he concedes with a smile.
Meanwhile I’m looking around us at all the chaos, the people screaming and stampeding away from us.
“Okay, now we need to go,” I say.
“I’ll try to compel who I can,” Solon says, glancing around as we start running toward the exit. “Valtu, try to do the same.”
“Bellamy said that they won’t remember the moments before and after this,” I say, running alongside them. “And that he did like an EMP thing to disable the tech.”
And from what I’m seeing as we book it out of the bazaar, past people tapping on their phones angrily or shaking their cameras, it seems that Bellamy was at least telling the truth about that.
With any luck, there will only be a few weird stories about what happened in the spice bazaar, but no proof of it happening.
Well, other than some dead bodies. But that’s not our problem.
“Do you think they’re really dead?” I ask as we burst out into the daylight, pigeons scattering into flight.
“If that goth cunt’s head can reattach itself, then I think he probably deserves to live,” Valtu remarks as we cut down a narrow alley toward the hotel. “As for Bellamy, I think you did it, Rose. I think you killed him.”
“Yeah, but we both thought you killed Saara when you lit her on fire,” Solon reminds him. “And you didn’t.”
Valtu gives him an annoyed look. “At least she’s not hell-bent on revenge and is leaving us alone.”
“For now,” Solon says.
“Then if she comes back, I’ll be quick to rip her head off too,” Valtu says.
“Look, Bellamy is dead,” I insist. “I won’t accept any other response. We found their weakness. Everyone has one.”
“Spoken like a true warrior,” Valtu comments. “I hope you’re proud of yourself because I sure as fuck am.”
Honestly, I think I’m proud but it all happened so fast that I’m having a hard time catching up to reality. I did it. I actually fucking did it. I killed Bellamy and his little witchy minions. I got the revenge I wanted.
Then why does it feel so hollow? Like it’s not enough? I was expecting this to fill me, make me feel whole, like the final missing puzzle piece. But there’s just this vague sense of accomplishment and a relief at him being gone and that’s it.
“I’ll feel better when I see Leif,” I tell them, shaking my arms, trying to dissipate the leftover adrenaline. We’re not running as fast now, and so far no one seems to be following us with news cameras and the like.
“We’ll get him back, Rose,” Valtu tells me. “This was just step one.”
“Have any of you heard from them?” I ask.
They both check their phones and shake their head. “No. But I’m sure they’re fine,” Solon says, though he absolutely has no reason to think that. What if my parents are battling the same kind of situation that we just did? We all nearly died multiple times.
We get into the hotel and go straight to our room.
We take turns washing the spices and blood off our bodies, crack open a couple of bottles of red wine, and we drink and we wait.
Abe isn’t answering his phone, neither is Lenore or my parents and I’m starting to feel really sick to my stomach.
I thought we could be popping open the champagne by now but—
Suddenly there’s a knock at the door.
All our eyes go wide and Valtu shoots to his feet, hurrying to the door, Solon and I coming after him.
Valtu looks through the peephole then opens the door.
On the other side is Lenore, looking as beat up as I looked earlier, hair a mess, mascara smudged under her eyes, and a bit of blood at her collar.
“Where is everyone else?” I cry out as she steps inside, the door closing behind her. “Where are my parents?”
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” Solon says, brushing past me and going straight to her, cupping her face in his hands. “Moonshine, what happened?”
Lenore gives him a shaky but reassuring smile and then looks at me.
“We found your brother.”