CHAPTER 36 FAE #3
The man barks out a scream. I use the distraction to catch him off guard and rugby tackling him to the ground.
The momentum makes my teeth clatter in my jaw and we both collide with a loud thud.
I manage to get the upper hand, pinning him to the ground by his legs as he thrashes beneath me.
Gritting my teeth I try to make my way up his body, but pain from a punch to my face explodes in the side of my head.
I growl before hitting his kidneys four times with as much power as possible and he freezes just enough for me to finally get up to his chest. Using my left knee, I press into his groin for maximum pain and a distant part of me dances in delight at his cries.
My chest heaves as I try to get his wiggling body under my control before wrapping my hands around his throat.
“Die!” I cry out like a war cry, before gritting my teeth so hard I’m scared they’ll break.
“Die, you fat fuck!”
His nails dig into my arm, but I hold on keeping my elbows locked.
His legs go first, then his hands but I know I need to hold on. My breath comes out in sharp short pants as I look up to see Quinn standing stock still with a look of fear across her face.
Thank God she’s okay.
I breath another sigh of relief, before flopping down over the dead man’s chest breathing in deeply to try and get control of my pounding heart. Another crack makes me look up and I gasp as I see another shadow come towards us.
“Quinn, watch out!” I bark but she doesn’t move.
For half a second my brain tries to warn me of something.
It’s like my instincts should flare but they don’t.
They are dulled by grief and fury and the lingering echo of a door slamming shut in my face.
I’m not sharp. I’m not steady. I’m just lying here with my heart split open pretending I’m still the lethal assassin they trained me to be.
An arm slides around from behind me as I am still staring at Quinn and her assailant. My head tries to move to look but they lock my body with their arms across my chest. The move is practised and precise as they press down on my bruised ribs causing my breath to falter.
I try use my body to buck out of the hold, but it happens too quickly and I’m immobilised.
Then I feel it.
A sudden sting hits the side of my neck and the unmistakable rush of something cold slips beneath my skin.
The cold doesn’t stay cold for long. It turns warm beneath my skin, then hot, then something altogether wrong as it threads through me, slipping into my bloodstream like it belongs there.
I can almost feel it travelling, as a slow and deliberate invasion winding through veins, curling around muscle, unspooling me from the inside out.
My skin prickles.
Then my limbs.
My fingers lose their certainty and my strength drains so subtly I don’t notice until I try to move my arms and they no longer feel like mine.
My eyes grow heavy, my lashes drag as though someone has stitched weights to them.
The barn lights smear at the edges, Quinn’s outline bleeds into the dark, the world softening in a way that feels dangerously peaceful.
No. Not peaceful.
Wrong.
My heart begins to pound harder, slamming against my ribs as if it understands what my fading mind is only just catching up to. It beats and beats and beats, trying to outrun whatever is coiling through me. The ground shifts beneath my body like it’s turned to water.
I find Quinn again with my gaze and my foggy brain is shocked as she seems unaffected secure and steady as she was before. That’s when it hits me. Clarity despite my clouding brain.
That fucking bitch.
“You really should’ve stayed home.”
“Fuck you,” I say, or try too anyway.
I’m not sure what they hear, but I will remember her laugh for the rest of my life.
However long that is.
Maybe on another day I would have fought harder. Maybe on another day I would have broken bones and drawn blood and made them regret ever laying a hand on me. Maybe on another day I would have twisted free and turned this into a massacre.
But it isn’t another day.
It is today.
The day I split my own heart open and called it protection. The day I chose his life over mine without hesitation. The day I finally proved that loving him means letting him go.
Maybe… maybe it was always meant to end like this. Not in fire. Not in glory. But in quiet sacrifice. At least now Roman will be free. Free from my Father. Free from the threat. Free from me. My life has always been currency, if forfeiting it buys his, then so be it.
But…what if it doesn’t?
My head feels too heavy as my vision blurs whilst Quinn comes back into focus.
All this time I though I was saving him…but what if I wasn’t? What if I didn’t just give myself up but gave him to a monster instead?
The thought hits too late. It’s sharp and suffocating as the darkness drags me under.
What if this sacrifice isn’t just mine… but his too?
I don’t know what Quinn has to do with this but what I do know is she’s standing in the middle of something she won’t walk away from.