Chapter 55
Electra
Fire streaks up one side of my body, carrying me back to consciousness with a violence that bleaches my vision.
When my lids pull open, it’s to the copper gleam of the hammered pans dangling off the ceiling-mounted pot rack.
I blink around the empty kitchen, expecting to find Gael lying next to me and Alexander farther away, but neither body stains the floor. The Hunters must’ve taken them. What of Dorian and Malachi?
My eardrums ring like someone’s slamming cymbals beside my face. Fucking Hunters… My fingers tremble as they scrabble over my leather jacket in search of my cell. I find Reeve’s switchblade, but no phone.
Of course they’d take my only means of communication, though I am somewhat surprised they didn’t take me along with it. Maybe Reeve convinced them to leave me behind?
Getting shot at has obviously made me delusional.
A sharp inhale travels down my chest as I remember Reeve’s phone. I go to seize it and almost black out when my fingers graze my left breast.
There’s a hole in the hide, and beneath it, something sharp and wet. I pinch it, then carry my shaky fingers up to my face. A glance reveals a shard of black glass covered in blood.
My eyebrows slant low as I try to make sense of what I’m hol—
Reeve’s phone.
Reeve’s shattered phone.
The sight of it…the realization that it somehow kept the Holy Hunter’s bullet from penetrating rattles me. How ironic that the man who entered my life to fuck it over involuntarily spared me from a much lengthier and painful slumber.
Also, how unlucky that, after having two phones at my disposal, I now have zero.
Unless it still works? I lower the zipper of my bomber to fish it out, but get sidetracked by one, pain, and two, a cylindrical casing.
I look the 9mm over, my marvel intensifying when I realize it’s intact even though my clothes and skin are torn.
I prod my skin, relief seeping through me when I don’t meet bone.
After pocketing the bullet, I exhume what’s left of my makeshift shield. I toss the blood-soaked debris aside, then roll onto my uninjured side and heave myself into sitting even though it feels like an elephant has taken up residence on my chest.
Getting vertical proves even more difficult. Using the island to hoist myself up, I grit my teeth and power through the pain, my vision sparking. When the kitchen swims back into perfect focus, I’m relieved to find myself sagging against the wall and not pancaked on the floor.
I picture all the ways I’ll take my revenge on Reeve’s people, but get sidetracked by the faint drone of voices from down below. Could our enemies still be here?
I tiptoe toward the staircase, arriving just in time to hear a familiar male voice say, “I bet you two grand that Boss walks out of here with the boy’s head.”
I think Boss must be one of the Caruso twins and that the Atlanteans downstairs—because those are Atlantean accents—must’ve turned against us, until a second voice chimes in, “Do I look dumb enough to take that bet, Otto? How about we wager where he’ll put the kid’s head on his painting instead? I call spiked to the wall.”
My heart trips before growing so hard it stops pushing blood around my body.
Those aren’t Caruso’s men; they’re Gael’s.