Smackdown
I opened my mouth to explain. Closed it. There was no excuse she would accept. I wouldn’t accept any in her shoes. And, strangely, I let out a breath of relief, because if Sellie had killed her boyfriend, I’d probably have fucked myself seven ways to Sunday and straight on ’til morning.
“A trap,” Sellie said with a sigh. He’d really believed it was going to work, apparently.
My heart actually eased a little from its jackhammer pace.
“Of course.” She gave us a bright smile. “You’d think I would let anyone know where I was keeping him, let alone someone I’ve known just days? I moved him last night.” She tapped her temple with the gun. “I’m a member of the vampire Mensa league and this isn’t my first rodeo. I’m pretty much an expert on this particular bull, actually.” She gave a little gesture and Ryann appeared behind her, expression haunted and eyes red.
So the nun hadn’t been at work—she probably picked up Zara through that secret passage and drove her here first. Clever, clever. If I lived through this, I’d have to learn to stop assuming vampires were stuck during the day—vampires with money, that is.
That was a pretty big ‘if’, though.
Another nod in Ryann’s direction and the nun pulled out a dart gun and shot Sellie before I had time to blink. He muttered something uncomplimentary about the two of them before slumping to the ground and narrowly missed whacking his head on the metal coffin. Ryann moved as if her steps were weighted, something much older and sadder in her expression than I’d ever seen in it before, as she walked over to scoop him up and heft him over her shoulder. She barely glanced in my direction before retreating for the door.
Shit. I was gonna die and not even the freakin’ Christian chick was going to save me.
“He told me things,” I said quickly.
Ryann’s steps slowed but didn’t halt.
“About Ellie. He says he’s awake in there. He knows what’s going on. When Sean sleeps, Ellie gets a reprieve.”
“You didn’t just betray me, you betrayed all of us by hopping into bed with him,” Zara said. “That’s not winning you any brownie points.”
“I’m telling her in case it’s helpful,” I said with a shrug. Why the fuck even bother?
Ryann continued the rest of the way out of the room and her steps faded down the hall, thumped up the stairs. The temperature of the room seemed to drop drastically, just me and the pissed off vamp.
Son of a cocksucking whore—I was in trouble.
Zara hadn’t put the gun away, but then she hadn’t shot me either. So...score?
“He said he’d give me the rest of the names,” I said in a low voice. “And where to find them. He knows more than he’s told you.”
“Of course he does. He’s also a fucking liar. If there are names and locations he can get you—which I don’t entirely buy—he’d never tell you. He would kill Nate and then kill you and you’re so fucking stupid, you think that he won’t. That I won’t.”
I tensed, shifting my weight. One on one, I could take her. Especially with my abilities. But she was six feet away, had a gun, and at the end of the day I was the mortal one. “And what happens after you kill me? Sean is stuck in your psychic’s body. He might be lying about all kinds of shit but I sure as fuck believe him when he says Rhys sees and hears everything going on, knows everything Sean knows, and I’m the only one who can exorcise him like I did the others.”
“Uh huh. And it didn’t occur to you to maybe exorcise him first and then ask Ellie about all this stuff that Sean knows?”
Oh. Hell.
She smiled unkindly. “Mensa, remember.”
I couldn’t let this happen. Couldn’t. I still had a mission. Zara might be on board now to stop this group who were out to get her too, but I couldn’t just let her do it. I couldn’t die knowing they still lived, couldn’t die until I’d brought justice upon them. If I did, then the last five years would’ve been a waste.
The slightest flicker of her arm told me she was about to shoot.
I acted.
We must’ve been close enough to the hot spot of Macamigon because the power slammed hard, bursting through me the moment I opened the flood gates. It poured like warm, slick oil through me and pushed at the air, rattling the walls and knocking Zara back. I darted forward, rushing through thick, red air, and went at her full force.
Too close to shoot, she clocked me across the chin with the heavy barrel of the Desert Eagle instead; my head snapped to the side. And then she smacked the left check. Then right. Shouting at me.
“You do”—smack—“not”—smack—“fuck”—smack—“with”—smack—“my”—smack—“BOYFRIEND!”
The last hit was harder than the rest, my jaw grinding uncomfortably when I moved it. A blink, shake of my head, and I recovered and dove, still not giving her any room. My hand locked in her glossy, smooth hair and slammed her face into the wall, muscles thrumming with demon energy. White drywall flakes puffed out and scattered.
I kicked the back of her knee. Hard. She elbowed me in the face.
Hard.
My eye smarted, watered, and possibly something in my face bled. The pain was lost in the pounding migraine taking over my head and adrenalin pushed me on. No, not adrenalin—hate. Fury. Because this fucking bitch was going to take away my chance to avenge my family. It didn’t matter if she had her reasons, didn’t matter if I’d tried to fuck her over—nothing mattered because my babies were dead and I was alive and none of it was fucking fair. I screamed and grabbed her hair again, giving it a yank and a twist.
Her heel struck my shin. I didn’t let go of her hair and slammed her face again. But she had longer arms than me and spun, locked on my arm, and jerked me forward; I hit the wall this time. My nose burned but didn’t feel broken—yet—and I choked on floating drywall.
Another yank jerked my arm, pain shooting up my shoulder, and I hit the ground, sliding on the carpet. Back of my head barked the leg of the side table; I ducked under, pressed my hands to the top, and heaved it overhead. Wood splintered when the table struck her.
She looked pissed. Blue eyes glittering, hair hanging in ropes over her pale face. Red light flashed briefly over my vision, graininess twirling again. My power had come fast, sure, but it was wavering. I sucked it in, pulling, fire tracing my body, and I let it go again. Air rippled and the force knocked her off her feet, slamming her into the wall. I clambered up, soles of my runners scraping on the carpet and giving me less traction than if I’d worn my damn boots, and launched myself at her. We collided, crashed, beat against the wall just as she started to recover, and I knocked her on the floor. I sank a knee into spine, popped a shot into her kidney. Or where I thought her kidney might be—
Airborne in a blink, flying across the room again. I landed on the shards of broken table, splinters jabbing me. Adrenalin gave my body a nice coating, pain tinging only in the corners and not full blown yet. I scrambled up, dove once more, this time shoved her face-first into the wall again.
Agony burned and blood flew; she’d twisted her head and sank teeth into my arm. Fangs. I grappled, fighting to get her down because of those fucking inches of height she had on me were too much of a disadvantage.
She kicked my side, the force—the shock—violent in its intensity, rocking through my torso so hard I felt it in my spine. Punched my head and I thought my neck snapped. I gasped and my vision flickered, demonic energy I’d been pulling on either weakening or I was losing my hold on it.
I slammed on the ground hard enough that my teeth rattled. My hands locked on her legs, knees digging into carpet, and I hauled her feet out from under her. The gun struck the ground and spun, glistening in the fluorescent lights.
Get up and MOVE, you dumb bitch!
Zara was down and I scrambled up, hands outstretched for the weapon. She grabbed my ankles and pulled. I slammed forward, knocking my chin on the hard floor and biting my tongue. Blood filled my mouth, spilled past my lips, and I spat it out. I blinked and my left eye was all puffed up, not working right.
But I got my hands under me, my feet under me. Got my heel in her face, too, and glanced back in time to see her head snap to the side. Panting, bleeding, aching—the fucking gun was just six feet away and I clambered up toward it.
Then the truck hit me.
I flew across the room, hit the wall, and crumpled in a heap, the lid to the coffin pinning me down. I coughed, something deep and wet and painful rattling in my chest. Maybe I cracked a rib. And maybe it pierced my lungs.
Maybe it didn’t matter because Zara had the gun.
The metal coffin lid was over one of my arms and my foot was bent kind of funny. Panting, glaring through my good eye, I waited. She stood over me looking no worse for wear. Her hair was messed, jeans had a smattering of what might’ve been blood, and a faint bruise curved under her cheek delicately.
“This is the part where I say, ‘I told you so,’” she said.
I braced. Hoped at least she wouldn’t tell Nicolette the truth.
She shot me.