Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Elodie
The flash of Kenneth’s blade jolts me out of my startled daze. As he stabs down, I wrench out of his hold and duck low to ram the top of my head into his gut.
Uncle Nik said sometimes it’s better to run toward the danger than away. Take control of the fight.
Kenneth clearly isn’t expecting the headbutt. His breath spills out of him with a grunt. His knife only grazes my wrist.
But somehow it manages to slice right through the base of my flexible leather gloves to nick my skin. A sting radiates up my forearm.
Doubling over, Kenneth staggers into a nearby tree trunk. I scramble away, palming my own knife and sliding my backpack off one shoulder. With carefully spaced breaths, I steady myself through the thudding of my pulse.
My gaze latches on to the weapon he’s gripping. The blade is twice as long as mine, with detailing that makes me think military grade—the kind of thing Nik might have given me if he thought I could keep something that size concealed.
Is it imbued with magic to enhance its cutting power? Where would Kenneth Hearst have gotten his hands on a knife like that?
Why in the nine circles of Hell is he attacking me at all?
“What are you doing?” I demand, shifting on my feet as he peels himself off the tree. “Why are you doing this?”
In my reality, he was a victim. He didn’t seem hostile in this world either.
Kenneth doesn’t answer me, just sets his face with determination beneath the tufts of red hair that poke from beneath his hood.
He’s only got a few inches on me, and his slim frame probably doesn’t weigh much more than mine.
Now that he’s lost the element of surprise, I can’t imagine this will be a difficult stand-off.
If only it made sense.
He can’t be attacking me because I didn’t immediately chat about my dad’s workplace with him, can he? Surely this hostility isn’t completely unrelated to Other Elodie’s death—a classmate going off the deep end over the mildest of rejections?
Kenneth throws himself at me with a little more strategy this time, lunging straight at me and swerving the way he assumes—rightly—that I’ll dodge at the last second.
I whip up my knife to clang against his and whack him across the head with my magically weighted bag hard enough to provoke another grunt.
He doesn’t fall back this time, though, just keeps coming, swinging his blade. I leap backward, farther out of the shelter of the trees. The moonlight glints off each arc of the deadly metal, and a twinge runs through the scars on my back.
Agony searing through my flesh, spiking sharper again and again with each plunge of the blade. Gritty wet pavement beneath my cheek; vision blurring with pain.
My lungs squeeze at the awful memory, and my feet skid on the slick grass beside the path. I whirl myself around as I slip, but Kenneth manages to slam his fist into the base of my hand.
My fingers spasm. My knife slips from my grasp and patters somewhere on the dark ground.
I fling my backpack in front of me as I grope for my only real weapon, not wanting to take my eyes off my attacker. My voice comes out rough with exertion. “Please, Kenneth. Tell me what’s going on. You don’t have to do this. We can figure it out.”
My appeal to him as a human being only tightens his angular features. His lips pull back from his even teeth.
He lashes out his foot faster than I’d have thought he was capable of and hooks it around my ankle.
I crash right over, rolling as I hit the ground to avoid his next slash. My shoulder jars against a rock. I swallow a hiss of pain.
Fire all through my back. Footsteps thumping away. A panicked yell; Asher dropping to his knees next to me.
No, no! my mind screams, even though the first boy I loved isn’t here, isn’t anywhere nearby. I flail out with more instinct than intent.
My heel smashes into Kenneth’s shin, and he trips to the side. But as I heave myself back to my feet, he’s already hauling himself around.
He’s too close, too fast. His knife rakes across my arm, drawing a scorching line through my bicep.
I bite back a yelp as well as I can and lurch farther away. Blood spills scarlet through the tear in my shirt, and more remembered images flood my head.
Asher sprawls on the asphalt. Blood flecks his lips, his hands. Saturates his back all the way through his purple blazer. His eyes stare forward, dim and vacant.
I shake the gory ghosts of the past away and launch myself toward the river. I need space, room to gather my magic and regain the upper hand.
As I sprint away, I hurl a hasty wallop of ephemera behind me. Kenneth curses under his breath and pounds after me.
I’m sure I’m pulling ahead of him in the first few seconds through the thundering of our footsteps. Then his shirt rustles with the movement of his arm, and something clunks against the ground.
A blast of magic smacks into me like a tidal wave.
I crash into the path, mud splattering my face. An ache radiates through my bones.
Even in the initial daze, I fling myself to the side and retaliate with a bolt of my own magic.
If my attempt had hit Kenneth in the head, it’d have stunned him for a moment. But I didn’t have time to really aim. It strikes him in the shoulder, only making him stumble as he hurtles toward me.
Then he’s on me, his knife slicing through my shirt again even as I block his arm with mine. The blade doesn’t quite pierce my flesh, but the wound on my bicep throbs.
I knee him in the thigh, barely missing his crotch, and throw a spurt of hastily collected ephemera at his eyes. It collides with a burst of energy he just aimed at me, the two effects dissolving into useless sparks.
I grope for more magic—and another body barrels into Kenneth, yanking him right off me.
The two figures tumble together across the grass. As I pull myself into a crouch, a familiar voice growls alongside the smack of a fist. “That’s the last time you touch her, asshole.”
Salvatore pins Kenneth to the ground and punches him in the jaw. Of course it’s Salvatore—maybe I should have expected him to come flying out of nowhere like he has twice before. I didn’t realize he was watching me even late at night.
I straighten up, my chest heaving, and snatch my fallen backpack. I fell just a few steps from the river, near a pedestrian bridge that arches over the churning current. The roar of the water fills my ears.
Blood dribbles from Kenneth’s nose. Salvatore brandishes his switchblade, and I’m abruptly sure that knife is going to cut something much more vital than he did with the Beacon Prep guy who hassled me.
A protest bursts from my lips. “Wait! Don’t kill him.”
I need Other Elodie’s murderer alive at least long enough to confirm that he is Other Elodie’s murderer—and why. I need that more than ever now that I’m faced with a guy I had no clue might have wanted me dead until five minutes ago.
I’m not getting any answers if Salvatore slits his throat.
Salvatore stays his hand, but his voice radiates frustration. “Why the fuck not? He looked ready to murder you.”
“Just—just restrain him. I need to know why this is happening at all.”
Kenneth squirms beneath Salvatore, and the bigger guy lets out another growl. “I say we bleed him out and let the police figure out the rest from his fucking corpse.”
That does sound like a very Salvatore sentiment. I’d be on board if this crime wasn’t so much bigger than he knows.
“Can’t you—” I start.
Kenneth twists again, with a crackle of magical energy that slams into Salvatore’s jaw like an uppercut punch. As Salvatore’s head snaps backward with a groan, Kenneth manages to shove him to the side.
The skinny guy heaves to his feet and dashes for the bridge. His steps thump onto the wooden boards that form the broad walkway across the steel structure.
I throw myself after him. Salvatore snarls and hurtles forward too.
But Kenneth isn’t actually trying to flee. He must just feel he’s in a better position with higher ground.
He pivots at the center of the fifty-foot arch, poised like a troll looking to gobble us up. I’m already tossing out a ribbon of ephemera to trip him.
My magic sputters off him instead of snagging his ankle. He’s got some kind of protection imbued in his clothes too.
The two of us are still charging toward him. He swipes his knife at me, making me dodge toward the steel railing.
It was only a feint. Salvatore leaps in to shield me, but Kenneth must have expected that. He’s already whipping around out of range of Salvatore’s weapon, aiming a more powerful jab at the other guy’s side.
A cry breaks from my throat, too late to warn Salvatore. Kenneth’s blade slices through his jacket and tee as easily as it did my shirt, carving a gouge across his ribs.
Salvatore yanks himself away, gritted teeth bared. He spares the briefest glance toward his ruined clothes: the leather split, blood seeping into the paler fabric of his shirt beneath.
He brandishes his switchblade. “Fuck you. This is my favorite jacket. Let me fucking kill him, Elodie. I’ll carve him up until he’s dog kibble.”
I grimace, easing to the side to try to help him take Kenneth down. “Can we stick to knocking him out for now? Give him a concussion if you want, as long as he can still talk.”
If we come at him from opposite sides, will that give us the advantage we need? The bridge is several feet wide, which gives us some room to maneuver.
I don’t like how prepared Kenneth seems to be, though.
Salvatore doesn’t wait for me to circle my attacker. Without confirmation of my request, he lunges at Kenneth with the full force of his massive frame.
I jump in anyway, swinging my weighted bag at Kenneth’s head. At the same moment, he fishes a small object from his pocket and throws it toward Salvatore.
What looks like a mere pebble rattles onto the bridge’s surface—and explodes with another whomp of magical force.
I stumble backward against the railing. The blast hits Salvatore worse, tossing him right off his feet and flinging him against the steel bars.
His head collides with the corner of the railing with a bang. I wince, clamping my lips against a gasp.
Salvatore staggers, reeling, and Kenneth doesn’t hesitate. With a more focused warble of magic, he heaves the bigger guy up and flips him right over the railing.
“Tore!” I cry out, and dart forward without thinking.
Salvatore plummets toward the river, but he flings out one arm and manages to snag a bar near the bottom of the railing. He sways, dangling from one hand.
Kenneth lifts his foot to stomp on Salvatore’s fingers. Before he can finish the motion, I shove him away.
My would-be murderer spins toward me, panting hard. He hurls a smack of ephemera at me, but I deflect it in time with one of my own.
He tackles me with his body instead, his knife arcing through the air. His snatching fingers wrench my hair loose from its bun and send pain lancing through my scalp.
“Why won’t you just die?” he grates out, the first words he’s spoken.
Frustration reverberates through his voice, so thick and caustic it sears away my doubts.
No, this isn’t his first attempt at offing me. He’s had it in for Elodie long before our conversation in the library.
I aim another knee at Kenneth’s stomach and twist to the side as well as I can. A wallop of hurled energy propels me back to the opposite railing.
I slip off my feet, my shoulder jarring against the steel bar. As my mind races, I make myself slump on the floor of the bridge.
Just a poor little billy goat. Nothing to be wary of here.
All I need is one moment with his guard down…
Salvatore’s breaths are becoming shakier where he’s still clutching the railing. How much longer can he hold on?
Kenneth stalks toward me. I tense as surreptitiously as I can.
He slashes down, and I shove up with a hasty swipe.
My hand closes around the wrist of his knife-hand. I twist it as hard as I can, hoping to snap his grip the way he did to me.
Kenneth clocks me across the cheek with his other fist. Looming over me, he presses his limbs against mine so I can barely struggle other than my one hand blocking his arm.
With a ragged exhalation, he manages to turn the blade so it’s pointed at my throat again. He leans all his strength—and a growing surge of magic—into driving the knife toward me.
My pulse pounds in my head like it’s a frantic bird trying to break free of my skull. My arm strains to hold Kenneth back, but somehow this guy who I always thought had middling skill at best is pushing aside all my strength.
In a matter of seconds, my muscles are going to give, and that knife will sink straight through my neck.
My forearm aches. I fight to drag air into my lungs.
Focus, Elodie.
My life can’t end like this. I have to find a way through.
I clench my jaw and make my last gamble.
I loosen my grip just for an instant. Just long enough to throw Kenneth slightly off-balance with the sudden loss of resistance.
The blade plunges down so fast it nicks my skin—and I slam my palm into his wrist again.
His hand bends, bringing the knife with it. I heave up toward him with all the desperation I have in me.
The blade veers to the side and around. With a sickening rasp, it plunges straight into Kenneth’s chest like it’s cutting butter.
A startled sound that’s almost a protest breaks from my throat.
Kenneth’s face goes slack. Blood patters down across my body in a pungent stream.
“You,” he mutters, his voice already frayed. “She was right about you.”
His body gives. I thrust him away from me, and he topples over on his side.
His hands grope aimlessly, the knife still protruding from his chest. His head lolls. More blood gushes across the boards beneath him.
A shudder wracks my body alongside the horror curdling in my gut.
Uncle Nik trained me in some key defensive techniques in case I was caught while on a mission, and I welcomed every bit of fighting strategy my Salvatore happily taught me. I’ve ended more lives than I can count on both hands.
But I’ve never killed anyone while looking them in the face before. Never shoved a knife into someone’s body directly.
Kenneth’s blanching face wavers before my eyes. I clamp my lips against a prickle of acid and the urge to vomit.
It’s over so quickly. Even as my stomach roils, his limbs go totally slack. A vacant cast I never wanted to see again hazes his eyes.
As I stare at him, confirming he’s gone, a faint glow seeps through my horror.
I didn’t get all the answers I wanted, and I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, not really.
But whatever his reasons, this douchebag is never going to hurt me again.
My relief lasts all of a split-second. A hissed breath carries from the other side of the bridge… followed by the splash of a bulky body tumbling into the water.