Chapter 65
Chapter Sixty-Five
Hailey
Rage contorted Allison’s face as she reached out and picked me up like I was little more than a kitten. She threw me across the room, and I slammed into the shelving packed with explosives. She was going to blow us both to smithereens.
She was in front of me again, and I scrambled away.
I couldn’t outrun her, but I needed to buy Syke a little time.
“This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard,” I shouted at her.
“Poor little angel, so sad because she had to take a holiday from her job for a couple of weeks because she has no loyalty. Boo-fucking-hoo. You might be an angel, but you don’t know shit about love.
Look where you are, lying down with filth, a false idol for drug addicts and zealots.
Maybe if you weren’t such a teacher’s pet, you wouldn’t be in this position. ”
She screeched at me, grabbing me again and holding me high off the ground, her hand around my throat.
“You are insignificant. You are barely an insect to me, and your death will be forgotten in an instant, even by your so-called mates.” She looked me up and down.
“A convenient fuck, an easy hole that can be discarded in a decade when they are bored.”
“Do you kiss the archangel’s rings with that mouth?” I taunted in a rasped whisper, pain blooming in my face even as my vision started to go dark. “What will your archangels say when you have to tell them you killed a human out of jealousy?”
She sneered at me. “I wouldn’t be the first.” She squeezed harder. “You can ask the creator if you ever get to meet him. Oh wait, you won’t because you fucked a demon. Say hello to Lucifer for me.”
Syke materialized behind her, pressing a knife to her throat. “Drop my soul chain, or you can tell him yourself.” The blade was so dark, it seemed to suck in the tiny amount of light in the room like a sponge.
Allison stilled. “You wouldn’t.”
He pressed it tighter to her throat. “Mohan himself gave me this blade. Trust me when I say I could chop you into a hundred pieces, and no one would mourn you.”
She dropped me but spun in the same instant, knocking the knife from Syke’s hand. My eyes couldn’t keep up with their fight, but they banged into walls and the shelves filled with explosives. Fuck. We were all going to go up in a kaboom of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails.
They moved so fast that they were just a flash of light and dark in my vision—good and evil but flipped on its head.
I couldn’t keep up with their bodies, only hearing grunts of pain from both.
I could see that knife though as it got kicked around the room.
If I could get it, I could defend myself and Syke.
The commotion brought the humans to the top of the basement stairs. Fuck, I needed that knife.
I crawled across the floor, barely dodging the battling angel and demon, reaching for the knife.
When I gripped its hilt, I nearly dropped it again.
It was frigidly cold, like a shard of ice, and it seared my skin.
I wrapped my hand in the skirt of my dress before grabbing it again.
It offered minimal protection, but I knew in my soul that if Allison got this and stabbed Syke with it, that would be the end of him.
There was no way I was going to let that happen. Not now, not ever. The other humans came stomping down the stairs, but then they stood there, also unsure about what to do. What help could they offer now?
“Get the girl!” Allison screeched then grunted as Syke landed a blow. The members of the movement circled around me, though they still stood clear of the fight. I edged around the room, staying on the other side if I could.
“We should get out of here,” Ben said, eyeing his workbench. “This place is going to blow if they hit something wrong.”
Someone punched him, and another guy leapt toward me. He was older, maybe fifty. “I knew your daddy, little girl. Fucked your mama too. Hell, maybe you’re mine. Want me to be your daddy?”
Eww.
“He’d be disgusted that you sullied his bloodlines by fucking creatures. I see their mark on your back like a common animal. You disgust me. Bitches like you deserve to be put down before you welp more little half-breed bastards.”
I didn’t know what he was trying to do, but I didn’t give a fuck what my father would think. “I hope my father’s corpse is getting face fucked by a weremole right now. I don’t give a fuck what he’d think about me,” I panted. There was shouting upstairs.
“Police!” Like the cowards they were, they scampered back up the stairs to run, but not before the redneck in my face punched me hard in the temple, making me see stars.
The distraction was all Allison needed to get the upper hand, shoving her hand into Syke’s chest.
My own chest constricted, like it was my heart she was holding. “No!”
Lifting the knife, I lunged at her, jamming the blade in her neck.
I’d never stabbed anyone before, and I thought it would be difficult, but it slid in like a warm knife through butter, like it enjoyed the taste of angel blood.
There was no resistance at all, and Allison reared back, gasping for air with wild eyes before falling to the floor.
I stumbled toward Syke, my heart still aching like her fist had been in my chest, and fell to my knees beside him.
“Ended up… saving your… self,” he rasped out.
There was a huge hole in his chest, and I covered it with my hands. “I’m going to save your ass too, so you better not fucking die, you hear me, Syke?”
“I hear… you. Love you…”
I held my hands against his chest, though I didn’t know what kind of wound it was. It was bleeding, but inside his chest was just blackness. “I love you too, so you need to stay with me, okay?” I looked up at the door. “Help!”
Help! I screamed psychically too. If the guys were close, they’d hear me now.
There was the sound of heavy footfalls across the floorboards upstairs as people ran toward the basement. “Hailey?”
I let out a sob of relief at the sound of Louis’s voice. “Down here!”
They were here. My guys. My family. They flew down the stairs, and I was in Louis’s arms between one heartbeat and the next. “Syke,” I told him, and he nuzzled my throat.
“We have him, baby. We have you both. Fuck. Hailey. Fuck.” He was panting against my throat. “I thought we’d lost you. Fuck.”
Otis was there, pulling something from the tactical pack around his waist. He slapped it on Syke’s chest, and then Ilyas scooped him up in his arms. He kissed me as he strode past. “Hailstorm,” he murmured, hesitating.
“Get him help,” I ordered, my words desperate.
He nodded, fighting his instincts.
I looked at Otis, who was hovering. “Eric?”
He pressed closer to me, wrapping both mine and Louis’s bodies in his big arms, then he let out a shuddering sigh. “Eric is fine. He’s banged up and worried, but okay.”
Finally, I let myself collapse into their arms and cried.
I cried and cried and cried as adrenaline leaked from my veins and left me a trembling mess in their arms.
It was over. I was safe.