19. Briar
brIAR
I shove away from the car, shattered glass slicing into my feet as I step, but it’s nothing compared to what I’ve endured. The pain merely feeds the rage coursing through my chest.
They will not take me back.
“Go on,” Kael purrs, his hunger for their blood curling around my mind. “ Show them what you are. Make them bleed.”
Lyra’s softer voice coos, “Give them back everything they gave you.”
The world sharpens around me as my hands tighten on their hilts, ready to exact vengeance now that I have my soul weapons back. The gunfire is just a rhythm for me to dance through. Every heartbeat, every footstep, every breath of the men hunting us is a note I can hear.
With every cut I inflict, the memories tear open within me.
The mist and lights.
Terrance’s laughter echoing while he carved into me.
My skin and hair burned off.
Hot tears spill down my cheeks, mixing with the blood of the men I’ve felt splattered on my skin. Fury rips through my throat on a ragged cry as I slam a dagger deep into the neck of a guard, Kael’s voice growling a savage approval.
“Never again,” I spit, my chest heaving as I wrench him free and swing at the next man.
Screams rise around me in a flurry. Men stagger, clutching their wounds, collapsing beneath the weight of my grief as much as my vengeance.
I’ve been carved open and stripped down to the bone. Now it’s their turn.
“More,” Kael urges, brutal delight threading through the word as I snarl and bury him in the gut of a guard on my left. “Spill his entrails.”
“Don’t stop,” Lyra whispers, her voice trembling somewhere between exhilaration and grief. “They will never touch you again.”
I give in to the bloodlust, each strike faster and sharper than the last, fueled by weeks of torture.
The last of the screams near me fade out alongside their lives, the copper tang of blood heavy in the air in the wake of my destruction.
My own breaths are ragged pants in the silent night.
For a heartbeat I stand trembling, balanced between fury and grief, before I shove the latter down until only rage remains.
That’s when I see them.
Headlights glow from one of the most recent SUVs to show up, still idling and sending the sound of low vibrations from the engine. Inside, four shadows huddle behind the glass, weapons clutched but unmoving, their fear so thick I can almost smell it.
A bitter laugh claws its way out of my throat as I prowl toward them, my feet sticky against the ground where blood soaks the pavement.
“So, without the restraints and sedatives, you’re suddenly cowering babies?
” My voice is sharp and drips with mockery as I swing my daggers lazily at my sides, letting the moonlight glint off their bloodied edges. “Pathetic.”
I plant myself in front of the bumper, the white glare of their headlights stretching my shadow long across the ground.
Inside, rifles jerk up, frantic hands clawing to aim at me through the glass.
But I don’t flinch. With a snarl, I let the daggers fade into smoke and shadow, baring my hands.
Fury surges like wildfire through my arms, my shoulders, and my spine, until I feel like I could tear the entire world apart piece by piece.
I squat to grip beneath the front bumper and heave.
The SUV groans in protest as the frame crunches under my hands, and then the whole frame lurches upward, my strength and momentum rolling it onto its side with a thunderous crash that rattles through the night.
From inside, their screams for help are frenzied and broken…
the wondrous sound of men realizing they are already dead.
My laughter rips free before I mutter, “Fucking pathetic little ants.”
A rifle discarded on the ground catches my eye, dropped by an already fallen guard. I step on him to snatch it up, its weight solid and familiar. With one sharp motion I jump onto the SUV’s side facing the night sky and crouch near the window, staring down at them.
Inside, the four guards thrash, their boots slamming against the trunk door, their voices cracking as they scream, curse, and beg all at once.
“No one is here to answer your prayers,” I mutter, letting my lip curl back in disgust. “So, I guess I’ll be answering my own instead.”
I don’t hesitate, lifting my gun to line up with their heads and squeezing out four shots in quick succession. Each round punches through bone, their bodies jerking once before slumping atop each other.
I don’t linger in the silence that follows, despite wanting to revel in the blood and stillness of the bodies I’ve left in ruin. My fangs pulse with the desire to feed, but a shiver of disgust crawls through me at the thought of their blood passing through me.
I’d rather starve again than feel tainted like that.
I leap down from the overturned vehicle and break into a jog back toward the wreck of our own.
We need to get the hell out of here before more guards show up, ones that might potentially be armed with that damned chemical mist. If I had to guess, these fallen guards were just surface-level employees–the ones Dante said don’t know about what’s going on beneath the ground level.
On hand instantly for Terrance to command, but no doubt he’s put together tactical hunter teams that are already on their way.
I take in deep breaths, every stride reminding me what’s at stake if I slow for even a heartbeat.
Elias stands next to the ruined passenger door when I reach him, pistol slack in one hand. His dark blue eyes are fixed on me like he’s trying to reconcile the girl bleeding in Terrance’s cell with the creature he just watched tear apart those guards.
“I had to stop shooting,” he admits with widening eyes. “You’re so damn fast, I was nervous I’d accidentally hit you.”
The air stills around me at that admission.
My fury falters, unraveling into a jagged mess of emotion that sticks in my chest, making it impossible for me to decipher.
His words should mean nothing, not after everything he’s allowed to happen.
Not after every time he stood by while I screamed in agony.
I stand rooted at his side, unable to scrape together a response. My body moves again only because my brain remembers we have to keep moving, feet carrying me forward on autopilot.
My thoughts spill out softly. “I’m not quite sure what to say back to that…given our history.”
The words linger in the air only a breath before the sound of his boots scraping over glass and dirt drags my attention sideways. A split-second later a gunshot cracks through the night.
Did he just shoot me?
My gaze drops to my chest, braced for pain and the warmth of blood spreading across my skin. But there’s nothing. No sting or bloom of red. My heart hammers against my ribs as I whip around, the truth colliding with me all at once.
Elias.
He staggers in the headlights shining at us, his pistol slipping uselessly from his fingers as his knees buckle. The hole through his chest is dark and glistening.
Someone tried to shoot me…and he stepped in front of the bullet.
For a heartbeat I can’t move, or breathe, or do anything but watch Elias crumple to his knees, his breath rattling in his throat with a wet rasp. The world turns black around the edges of my vision, and no sound breaks through the rush of my pulse hammering in my ears.
Then a grunt in the distance snaps my focus toward it. A wounded guard with barely enough strength to lift his pistol from his spot on the hill aims it shakily at me again.
With Elias crumpled at my feet, something inside of me snaps under the anger and guilt coursing through my body in uneven waves.
I don’t want to feel sympathy for him. I don’t want to think that maybe he’s trying to make amends for his complicit actions. I don’t want to think that he should have let me be shot, because I can heal from it and he can’t…but I do.
A snarl rips out of me as I launch toward the guard, his panicked eyes wide and unable to track my movement with his shaky gun.
My hand clamps around his neck, my fingers digging in deep, and with a vicious twist I hear the crack split the night.
I summon my daggers and slam Kael through his heart for good measure.
His body folds uselessly to the dirt, his head lolling at an unnatural angle. I stand over him, chest heaving as bitter emotions twine through me. I turn back and the sight guts me all over again.
Elias collapsed in the dirt, Callum slumped unconscious in the brush, and Dante sprawled next to him. All three of them are down, blood seeping into the ground like the world means to claim their lives as the prize for my escape.
I glance down at my hand as the ruby ring catches the moonlight.
I just need to make one choice. I can open the portal now and be gone in a breath.
So why do I hesitate and let my eyes fall back to the three of them?
“Fuck this,” I whisper to the night sky, voice breaking as my head tips back. “Why…why can’t I just leave you behind and call it a day?”
I’ve bled enough. Endured enough.
Kael and Lyra’s voices stir immediately, one dark with hunger, the other soft with grief, both pulling at the edges of me as I hover on the brink of yet another life-changing decision.
“Leave them,” Kael growls, his voice a deep rumble through my mind, thick with bitterness and scorn. “ They watched while you screamed. You own them nothing. Choose yourself and your survival, little one.”
My breath hitches, hot tears stinging my eyes as I stare at their broken bodies in the dirt.
“No,” Lyra whispers, her voice trembling but steady, curling softly around my fury. “ If you leave them now, you’ll carve out a piece of yourself that will never grow back. Loyalty and compassion have always made you who you are. To abandon them would be to betray who you really are.”