Chapter 53 #2
The woman stood quietly, her fingers touching together in front of her, like she was praying. I tried to work out how much longer until they got here. If they got here. My only hope was to stall her. “Okay. Please, don’t hurt him. Tell me what it is you want me to do.”
“All you need to do is accept what you are, Amelia. Use your powers and you’re both free to go,” she said simply, as if she was asking me to pack the dishwasher.
“What? I . . .” I hesitated. I couldn’t say that I didn’t have them again, I knew where the knife would go if I did. I said nothing for a long moment. A cloud crept over the sunlight and a dark shadow loomed across the room like a cloak. The walls seemed to close in.
“Where’s Dahlia?”
“Never mind her.” She fluttered her hand in dismissal. “Move the book, and you both go home unharmed.”
I didn’t know how I was meant to do that. Worse still, I knew I couldn’t. Blood roared through my ears. I stared at the book, at the girl, at the knife. With no weapons within my reach, I had no options. Even if I did physically run towards the knives, with her powers, I knew she would stop me.
Adrenaline pulsed though my body. Everything snapped into focus and seemed to move in slow motion.
Goth girl raised her hand in the air, the silver caught the light from the window, sending a lethal sparkle shimmering down the blade. Her grip tightened.
I saw the fear strike BJ’s eyes, his nostrils flared, and his fingers wrenched around the arm of the chair like dead spider’s legs. Our fate was in my hands.
“Okay! Okay, stop!” I cried out. “Please, just stop.” I took a large step forward. Closing the gap between us, holding up my hands like I was surrendering.
If I could get closer and dive before the woman lifted her hand, maybe I could get there physically. Goth girl put the blade back down by her side. I looked at the book and tried to move it. Breathing deeply, I grunted with exertion and desperation. It stayed stock still.
If I attacked and wasn’t quick enough, they might stab BJ somewhere worse than the leg.
Like the neck.
Severing the carotid artery.
He would bleed out in minutes.
The lady tut-tutted, as if I were a small child who had disappointed her. She took a step towards BJ, placed her spindly, veined hand on his shoulder.
The girl slammed the second knife into BJ’s leg. His pained cries ripped at my heart.
“Stop,’ I begged, crying and shaking. “Please stop.”
“Move it, Amelia,” she snapped.
A slither of sweat rolled down my spine. “I can’t, I’m scared,” I choked. “Take me somewhere else. Let BJ go and I’ll go with you and I work at it until I get it. I promise.”
Her lips twisted tightly. “A witch is never more powerful than when he or she is frightened.”
The woman glanced towards the door and back to the girl. They exchanged glances, no words were spoken but they seemed to both understand something.
I twisted my head as I heard a man’s deep voice and footsteps bounding up the hall, the crunching glass on the floor, creaking floorboards. More were coming. The whole room vibrated under their weight, dust shook from the ceiling and walls, climbed into my nose and choked my throat.
Three men walked in. Meat axe kind of guys. The kind of guys who cracked screw top beer bottles open with their eye sockets. The kind of guys you hired when you wanted brawn not brain.
My heart thumped hard against the cage of my ribs. I couldn’t move the book. We’d seen their faces. I knew as soon as they realized I wasn’t a witch, the three men would kill us.
I might be able to outrun them, if I could get past them, but I wouldn’t leave BJ. My only hope was to get to the table, get a knife, and do as much damage as I could.
The woman wouldn’t stay for our murders. I judged she was the sort to get the real dirty work done by others. I’d have to wait until she left, and I prayed it would be enough time for the vampires to arrive.
All I kept thinking was: I can’t believe it would end this way, in a decrepit house, writhing in pain. If they killed BJ first, I couldn’t stand it. Sweet kind BJ, he didn’t deserve any of this. I felt the fear shift into anger, opening up inside like a broiling cauldron.
The men moved to the back wall.
“Move it. I will not tell you again,” she said sharply.
Goth girl collected a red handled blade. Raised it in the air.
BJ whimpered.
Time slowed. The darkness crowded around the edges of my vision and pin holed in a flare of light. All I could see was her, and that knife, like demonic teeth, splitting the air.
The rage and terror felt like a fog, so cold it burned, and it thrummed through my veins, filling every crevasse, every cell, every breath.
All I could think of was the knife. If I could get the knife.
I was going to stab her. I stared at it glinting on the table.
It was her or us. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
My body wound up like a snake.
I heard BJ cry out. I became vaguely aware of a thump from outside. At the same time, from inside, a sharp high-pitched scream split my ears.
BJ.
It snapped me back to awareness.
Inexplicably, the knife speared the girls shoulder. I didn’t understand how it got there, but I had no time to think of it because another sharp cracking noise came from outside. A familiar sound, the same horrid sound I’d heard when the deer’s neck was broken.
Help had arrived.
Unperturbed, the lady smiled. “Well done, Amelia.” She walked calmly towards the door. “Caron, with a C and an O,” she introduced herself. “We will be seeing you again soon.”
“More like B for bitch and bad fashion sense,” I responded bitterly, “and I suggest you fucking run.”
Caron’s laughter was silk and fire. Goth girl cried out as she yanked the knife from her arm and tossed it to the floor. Breathing deeply, she placed her hand over the wound. Blood seeped out through her parted fingers like a red waterfall, curtaining her hand.
I hoped it hurt.
“Take care of him when he comes,” Karen with a C and an O said to the men. Both women pulled the hoods over their heads and walked through the door. I didn’t think they’d make it to the car. I didn’t care.
The three men turned, pulling knives out of their belts. Ready to face something I knew they had no chance against.
My head beat with a raw, awful pain. I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
“You need to surrender while you can.”
The meat axe men smirked, as if I had no idea of what they were capable of, and I knew, it didn’t matter if they’d pulled out swords, or guns, the next few heartbeats, would be their last.
All I saw was a blur. Middle meat axe man was the first to go, his body jerked backwards.
He flew like a hapless dummy through the air and he hit the wall with an almighty cracking thud.
He crumpled to the floor. The knife that he’d held in his hand protruded from the side of his neck.
Blood ran down his throat onto the dirty, wooden floor, dust floated to the surface until it became a sickly, murky pond.
His eyes were wide with surprise, and pain.
He gasped and his fingers clutched at the knife.
Like an angel heralded from above, drawn forth as protector and guardian, Karson stood before me. On his face was fear, then relief, then rage. It all flashed past so fast I almost missed it.
One of the other men let out a roar of anger and charged like a dump truck. Slow, thundering steps.
Karson moved like lighting. Stepped to the side, snatched his hands out, twisting the guy’s neck with a loud snap. The terrible, repulsive sound slapped my ears. His body struck the wooden floor and he lay still, as lifeless as a store dummy.
Nausea swirled in my stomach.
Ethan moved in a streaked blur, so fast I only knew it was him because my eyes caught his just before he moved. Fury coated his irises. In no more than three quick heartbeats the other man was dead. His head sat at a horrid, deformed angle. I never even heard his neck snap.
Simultaneously, my eyes were drawn to the shadowy outline of the first meat axe, incredulously he was up and standing directly behind Karson.
He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a horror movie, bathed in sweat and white faced, the sunlight filtering through the window caught the vibrant shimmering spurt of crimson, flowing like silent death down his neck.
He held the knife that’d pierced him in his right hand, ready to slam it into Karson’s back.
Fear drove me forward. I snapped my arms up to push him away.
My fingers barely touched him, inexplicably his body flew sideways, and he hit the wall.
The sound was, ironically, like an axe slamming into wood.
He let out a shallow grunt and dropped like a shot bird as I landed on my stomach and slid along the floor.
Dust lifted and filled my lungs, my hip caught on a splinter of wood and burned.
I gritted my teeth to stop from crying out and scrambled to my feet.
He was on the floor, sprawled out, the blood spurting from his neck slowed down.
He coughed weakly, and blood splattered from his lips, like shimmering crystals.
He clawed at his throat, trying to draw breath, a look of pure horror on his face.
The spurts weakened until they were nothing but a thin trickle.
I watched, trapped by horror, as he took his last breath, in a pool of his own blood on the darkened, dusty floor.
A haze enveloped my brain. My ears rung like an alarm.
Bewildered, I looked at Ethan and then at Karson, then back to Ethan.
I couldn’t slow my breathing. I couldn’t slow my heart.
My head spun, my hip stung, my hands thrummed.
I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t drag the words out.
The sound of my swallow filled the room. I tried again.
“Did you throw him?” I stammered.
Ethan shook his head. “No. You did, Amy.”
I did what? How? No way, impossible, I barely touched him.