Chapter 19 Run #2
“You’re okay,” Cass soothed, as she stroked her hair. “It’s going to be okay, we’re going to get out of here. I will not let him hurt you again.”
Adriana nodded, letting Cass help her to her feet.
She quickly dashed to her room, packing her rucksack with a few things from her drawers, her Tales of Daemonium, and the necklace from Striga she kept locked away in her bedside table.
Once she’d finished, she joined Cass and ran out the door, leaving their apartment, leaving their lives behind.
Adriana stood outside the train station whilst Cass went in to buy their tickets. She wanted to remain outside in the fresh air for as long as possible before she had to sit on a stuffy train for hours.
Cass had called her cousin in Scotland on their walk to the station, informing her of what had happened and what she had seen in her vision, before throwing both of their phones in a bin.
Thankfully, Cass’ cousin had accepted their request to stay with her for a while, just until they worked out what to do next.
Adriana knew what they would have to do.
They’d have to go on the run forever, but not the same way she had been running before.
She’d been able to live her life staying under the Courts’ radar, but now they would have to be completely isolated from society, something Cass had rejected.
Cass had chosen to leave her family to create a life that meant something to her. And now Adriana had ruined it.
She felt awful that Cass had been hauled into this mess, and so she planned to leave her at her cousin’s and sneak off in the night.
She had no idea where she would go. It wasn’t as if she had anyone she could turn to; she had no family other than the Romillys.
The only friend she had was Mitchell and there was no way she could ever go back to see him, not after attacking Nicolai in his club. She would be alone, forever.
She fidgeted with the sleeves of her long brown coat, pulling them down as much as possible to cover the dark markings, but her fingers were still visible.
She made a mental note to ask Cass to get her some gloves before they got their train, only now realising she hadn’t packed any when they’d rushed out the flat earlier.
As she continued to tug at her sleeves, she noticed four men staring at her from across the road. She checked that her powers weren’t showing, making sure none of the shadows were following her like they had earlier. She could find no reason as to why they’d be looking at her.
They began to walk towards her, one of them pointing directly at her. She was sure she’d never met them before, but it was clear they seemed to know her.
As she turned to go inside the station to find Cass, she knocked into a tall figure standing in her way. He grabbed her arms and spun her round to face the four men that were now crowded around her.
The bald man that had been previously pointing at her stepped forward, looking her up and down. “That’s the one, that’s the slut I saw leave that perverted club. She’s the cross-breed filth they were after.”
Adriana took in their appearances, only just noticing the matching cream coloured trousers and shirts they wore with a logo on the right breast pocket. It was a tree on fire—the mark of the Liberators.
“I say we just kill her now,” the one standing to her right said. “Do it in public, make a statement.”
The bald man looked at him with annoyed disbelief, smacking him round the back of the head. “Are you fucking mad? Even our guys in the police couldn’t get us out of those charges, not yet anyway. Besides, this one’s special. The scum in that club are after her, which means the boss can use her.”
He reached out to touch Adriana’s hair, pushing a strand behind her ear. She twisted her face away from him before staring at him with as much fury as possible, her eyes shifting from their usual blue-grey to black.
“I would get your hands off me if I were you,” she snarled at him, her voice steady and calm.
They laughed at her, clearly believing she was no match for them, but the man holding her from behind tightened his grip around her arms.
“Is that a threat, little lady? Are you threatening me?”
“Merely a suggestion. I don’t need to resort to threats.”
The bald man pulled a knife from his back pocket, keeping it low between them and pressing the tip against her stomach.
A few people walking past had noticed them; some of them shouted at them to leave her alone whilst others stood there and watched.
She realised the majority of the ones who stayed silent were also dressed in the Liberators uniform.
Adriana knew that their numbers were growing, particularly in London, but there had to be at least twenty of them around her right now. She had only ever seen one or two at most in town, and they were often kicked out of places for wearing Lucas Rook’s logo. But this? This was an ambush.
“Tell me, if I leave my knife inside you, will your body heal around it?”
Adriana shut her eyes, clenching her jaw as she tried to remain calm. She could feel the man’s warm breath against her face and had to fight the urge to gag.
“No answer? Let's find out, shall we?”
He pulled his arm back, holding the knife tightly in his grip as he aimed to thrust it into her stomach.
Adriana broke free of the larger man’s hold, using her heightened strength and speed to tear his hands away from her, and she sent an elbow into his abdomen.
She seized the bald man’s wrist, bending it at an unpleasant angle until he dropped the knife and fell to his knees.
Before she could reach for the blade, she felt someone grab the back of her hair and pull on it painfully.
It seemed the larger man behind her had recovered quicker than she’d anticipated.
Without thinking, she pressed her palm to his face and called upon her Elementai magic. He cried out as her fingers, ignited with small flames, burnt into his cheek. Adriana turned to watch him stagger back, clutching his face in pain and screaming obscenities at her between his whimpering cries.
The three other Liberators advanced on her simultaneously. She pressed her hands together before pulling them apart, pushing her palms towards them as bursts of light beamed into their eyes, partially blinding them.
She ducked as one of them recklessly swung for her and sent a gust of wind towards another, knocking him off balance to the floor. She caught the next blow aimed at her, her hand closing around his fist, and threw him to the side where he landed a few feet away.
The third one circled round her, not making any moves to advance but not running away either. It was as if he were toying with her, and Adriana realised all too late that it had merely been a distraction as she heard the scrape of a blade on the floor behind her.
She turned, realising the bald man had picked up his knife and had been aiming to stab her square in the back. As she tried to move aside, the man struck faster than she’d anticipated, the knife lodging itself into the front of her shoulder
She cried out in pain and swiped her arm sideways, her nails extending into sharp talons as she cut across the bald man’s neck.
He stumbled back a few steps before he collapsed on the ground, his hands clutching his throat.
It was a deep cut, but not deep enough to kill him instantly. He would bleed out slowly, painfully.
Adriana stood over him, her black eyes looking down at the growing pool of blood as he stared back at her with pure hatred. She had never been looked at like that, not since she had killed Jonathon.
Everyone stood completely silent around her. She looked up to see the spectators standing still, all the Liberators holding their phones up as they filmed her, capturing the monster in the act.
Her talons retracted back and her eyes returned to their regular colour as she held her hands up, trying to show them she was not a threat.
As her arms lifted, she felt the pain in her shoulder from the knife that was still inside her.
She went to pull it out but before she could reach it, one of the nearby Liberators swung their fist across her jaw.
She fell on her side, the knife lodging itself deeper into her shoulder and protruding out the back.
She bit down on her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out in pain as two of the Liberators started to kick her back, her head, her stomach—anywhere they could.
She didn’t fight them, she didn’t even roll away, she just let them hurt her as she stared at the bald man, his eyes boring into hers as the light within them slowly faded… until it extinguished altogether.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as the other Liberators closed in, their phones angled at her face to capture her tears. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I’m sorry.”
She could hear a few members of the public fighting with the Liberators, but she didn’t pay any attention to them.
Her mind was shutting down and her body was giving up.
She couldn’t do this anymore, she couldn’t be this monster.
The exhaustion of running and hiding for over a century seemed to finally catch up with her in that moment, and she let her powers die down inside her.
No more.
Suddenly, the kicks stopped as the men were thrown away from her. They screamed in surprise as their bodies were lifted by a strong wind and thrown back against the nearby wall.
Adriana felt a pair of hands hook underneath her arms and pull her to her feet, before they wrenched the knife from her shoulder. She gasped at the pain and clung to her arm, pressing on the wound to stem the bloodflow.
“Come on, Addie! Get up, we’re getting out of here.”
Adriana looked up to see Cass in front of her. She grabbed her hand and the two of them ran away from the station, using the fight that had broken out between the Liberators and the public as cover.