by Karina Halle
We reach the car, Max opens the trunk and I put my hand on his arm, pressing down.
“Wait,” I tell him. “There are people around.”
Max looks around. “I know. I can probably try and control some of them after the fact, but I can’t do it and fight them at the same time. And we need to fight them, Ada.”
“Or we could just leave. Now!”
He stares at me for a moment, hand hesitating around the sword.
But then his eyes flare up again as they go over my shoulder.
“Duck,” he says beneath his breath, and I immediately crouch down just as he brings the sword out of the trunk and swings it through the air.
A head slices off. Demon dust falls from the sky.
I pop back up in time to see the rest of the demons have found us and people on the street are freaking out, staring at us in horror.
“You take care of them,” I tell Max, meaning the innocent bystanders. “I’ll fight.”
I don’t wait for his response. I run forward to the next demon, flipping over it and landing on its shoulders, ripping its head off before rolling backward onto the ground, taking out another head with a swift running kick, using the energy to propel me around.
I take out another and another and another, bouncing around Royal Street, the traffic having come to a standstill, headlights highlighting everything I’m doing. Until suddenly they all go out, including the street lights, in a one-block radius and I know that was Max’s doing. We’re in the dark now. Easier to fight. Not so easy for bystanders to watch, or heaven’s forbid, shoot video.
I’m just pondering that in horror when suddenly I’m taken out from the side, tackled to the ground, a snapping mouth trying to rip my shoulder off.
Max appears, wielding the sword above me, slicing its head off and I roll over and up, getting out of the way as two more come running at Max from behind.
“Look out!” I scream.
Max doesn’t even have to look. He meets my eyes for a moment, the flames growing, and then he spins around, sword out in one hand. Takes both their heads off with one go.
Okay, so if he’s serious about being in love with me, then I’m lucky as fuck. Nothing could be hotter than this, watching this man expertly wield a medieval-looking sword in the middle of Royal Street, decapitating demons left and right.
Be still my fucking heart.
“Ada!” he yells at me.
I spin in time to see a demon lunging at me.
I go to the ground, just as the swoosh of Max’s blade passes above, killing the demon. Seconds later, he turns around stabbing another one through the eye.
Demon dust covers the whole street.
He pulls me up to my feet. “You okay?” he asks.
I nod, looking around.
People are staring.
Lots of people.
“I think you need to fix this,” I tell him, nudging him in the side.
I try to grab the sword from him to take back to the trunk, but it’s so heavy I can’t even move it. What is this, like Thor’s hammer?
“Go to the room, grab what you can,” he says, not taking his eyes off the crowd of people.
I don’t want to leave him, especially when I’m sure more demons are on the way, but I think he needs to concentrate and I certainly don’t help if I’m around.
I turn and run, knowing I have to be quick.
Nineteen
“Don’t cry. With my toes on the edge, it’s such a lovely view.”
– I Appear Missing
I run up the street to the hotel, up the staircase to the room. I burst in through the door and try to think of what to grab. I can’t handle both suitcases and I don’t want to screw him over, so I open both, throwing half my shit out of mine, then throwing in half his shit.
I run to the bathroom to grab our toothbrushes, my makeup kit, and I pause in horror when I see myself in the mirror.
My hair is a rat’s nest of blonde, my face is covered in blood, as is my dress, long painful-looking claw marks running over my shoulder to my chest. On my arms. On my legs. My back.
I almost start crying.
Not because of pain.
But because for the first time I’m realizing how close I keep coming to dying. How dangerous this job is. Maybe I would have realized it earlier if I had remembered my time in the hospital in San Francisco, but right now, it’s hitting deep.
I look like a feral animal, fighting for her life.
And I also look like a warrior.
Fighting for the man she loves and who might possibly love her back.
Yeah, I like that one much better.
I dip my finger in the blood and draw some lines under my eyes, like the football players would do if they were in my line of work.
Then I throw our toiletries in the suitcase, zip it up, grab my purse that’s been hanging on the coat hook, and I’m out of here.
I run out of the hotel onto the street just in time to see the Super B zip up to the curb.
I drag the suitcase out, Max getting out of the car to open the trunk, just as his eyes go wide with flames.
I turn around to see a demon coming at me.
I grab the closest thing I have, my wallet on chain purse, wrap the chains around my fist and then swing like crazy, the purse colliding with the demon’s face and knocking him back a few feet.
Then I kick him against the brick wall, grab his head and with a scream, pull his head off. I’m back at the car before the first dust falls.
Max throws the suitcase in the trunk while I climb into the passenger seat and then he’s beside me, putting the car in drive, pulling out onto Royal street, going faster than anyone should.
I look over my shoulder to see if anyone is following, but so far no one is. Then I look down at my bag. The metallic leather is covered in blood and demon dust.
“Oh no,” I cry out softly.
“Anything important in it?” Max asks as we go peeling around a corner.
“Just my wallet and phone.” I take them both out on my lap. They seem fine.
“Okay, then throw away the bag.”
“It’s Chanel,” I cry out. “I saved up for a year, it’s from the spring ‘18 season!”
He gives me a stern look. “Ada.”
I sigh and roll down the window. Toss the bag out of the window.
“Another one bites the dust,” I say. “So, now what?” I ask him, looking him over. Compared to me, he looks totally untouched except for some demon ash on his leather jacket which I quickly brush off. “I guess we’ll have to throw our clothes out too.”
“Soon as we get to a safe place,” he says, his jaw tense, the car still going faster than it should.
“You think we’ll be followed? By demons or news reporters?”
He grimaces. “I took care of what I could. Anyone I could see, I made sure they didn’t see anything.”
“What if they filmed it on their phone?”
A quick smile. “I thought of that. Told them that we were filming a movie, just in case they come across it.”
I laugh. “Let me guess, the most fun you’ll have at the movies this summer,” I say, in my best movie trailer dude voice.
“Something like that.”
“And do you think it’ll work?”
“It’ll work. I may have missed someone, but if they don’t have anyone to back up their story then…”
He trails off.
Eyes glued to the rear-view mirror.
A spark in his right pupil.
Shit.
I look behind me just in time for headlights to blind me and for a car to ram up into our bumper.
“Fuck!” I yell, my neck nearly getting whiplash as we’re thrust forward against our seatbelts. The car almost spins out, but Max moves fast, hands deftly handling the steering wheel, keeping us steady.
He slams on the gas, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s a crazy reporter or a demon, but I’m going to go with the latter.
But we’re not on a highway in Oregon right now. We’re in the middle of New Orleans, and while I have no idea what district or ward we’re in, it doesn’t look great. People live here. People we can accidently run over.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask, staring behind me at the headlights. I turn around just in time to see us screaming through a red light, nearly getting hit ten times over, horns blaring.
“Ahhhhhhh!” I cry, covering my eyes with my hands.
“I need to get us to a less populated area,” he says, shifting gears.
Alright, well a less populated area in New Orleans doesn’t sound all that safe, however, it’s probably safer than the demon behind us.
Max takes a sharp right and we go wheeling around, and then burn it down what the sign says Louisiana Highway 39, heading southwest.
The neighborhoods get darker.
The houses abandoned.
The traffic dying away.
Max rips us off the main road and down a side road, the Super B bouncing over potholes.
It’s totally deserted here, all the houses boarded up, no streetlights, no life.
But when I look behind me, I don’t see the car anymore.
“Ha!” I cry out, giving Max’s shoulder a triumphant shake. “Whoo hoo! We lost them.”
He grins at me, then looks out my window as we gun it through an intersection.
Eyes turn to flames.
And then everything happens in slow motion.
We’re hit from the side.
Another car slams into us.
Bumper to my door.
The sick crunch of metal.
The shattering of glass.
My body rag-dolled.
My head loose on my neck.
The car rolls.
And rolls.
Roof crunching on the ground, punching in inches from my head.
Momentum spinning it round and round, I’m up, I’m down, until it comes to a violent stop.
The seatbelt cutting into my chest until it just gives away.
I’m propelled forward, out of the windshield, glass breaking all around me, in my mouth, my ears, my hair, and I’m flying, flying.
I don’t feel it when I hit the ground.
But I do.
I’m on the ground.
Gasping for air.
Nails in the pavement, clawing for life.
It feels like all the weight of the world is on my back, pressing down, telling me to stay down, to give up, to give in.
But if I do, I die.
And then Max dies.
Max.
Max!
I press my palms into the damp concrete, glass cutting into them, and push myself up, trying to get to my knees.
It’s hard. It’s so hard.
Easier to stay flat.
To give in.
I take in a breath, my lungs feel broken.
I look up.
There’s a car facing us.
One headlight in the darkness.
It’s the car that hit us.
And a woman is stepping out.
She looks fine.
Of course she’s fine.
It’s Michelle.
A cry dies in my throat and I look behind me at the Super B, smashed up against a tree. The trunk is open, the sword and my textbooks strewn across the road, peppered with glass.
“Max!” I try to scream but I can’t, it comes out in a puff of air.
Oh my god, tell me he’s okay, tell me he’s okay.
Please.
I keep staring at the car, the steam rising from the crumpled-up hood, waiting for him to stir, waiting for him to step out and face Michelle and make everything okay again.
But he doesn’t.
No one steps out of the car.
And deep inside me, the energy drains.
It wasn’t just my own energy that I was carrying with me.
It’s his too.
And he’s bleeding out of me.
I gasp, trying to breathe, and then a laugh makes me remember.
I see Michelle by her car, leaning against it like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“I told you to stay out of his way,” she says.
I try to shake my head, but my brain screams in pain, the world tilts. I can’t see out of one eye.
“You,” I say hoarsely, throat raw. “You did this.”
“He created this,” she says. “Put up a fuss at the last minute. But don’t worry. He won’t now. You know, the greatest power that we have is convincing someone that they aren’t worthy of being alive.”
With a burst of anger, I push myself up on my feet, unsteady. My shoes are gone, I’m barefoot on glass, one dress strap snapped.
I’m nothing compared to her.
I have nothing.
I can’t defeat her without Max, and the more I think about him, the more I try to hone in on him, the more I can’t feel him.
He’s faded away.
He’s dead.
Again.
He can’t help me now.
Grief strikes me so hard that tears spring from my eyes, like someone punched me right in the heart.
I throw my head back to the night sky and scream.
I scream in a place that no one will hear me because they’re screaming too.
“Give it up,” Michelle says. “Lie back down and close your eyes. Maybe you’ll end up in the same place as him.”
And then I close my eyes.
Nearly sink to my knees.
Because it’s easier to give in sometimes.
It takes a lot to keep on fighting.
And sometimes it takes more than we can give.
But I need to save myself.
If not because Max would have wanted me to, but because others would want me to. My grandmother. My mother. Perry, my father. Dex. Jacob even. Maybe Jay.
I can’t give up now.
Not when there’s so much to live for.
And I have so much left to give.
“No,” I tell her, the words coming out guttural. “Fuck that.”
She frowns, letting out a breathy laugh. “Where do you get your nerve?”
“I was born with it,” I tell her.
Then I turn around.
Lunge toward the sword lying between me and the car.
Crouch down, wrap my hands around it, feel the weight.
Close my eyes, concentrate on the energy flowing out of my hands and the energy from the sword flowing into mine.
Max’s energy.
I open my eyes.
I know I have flames in them.
My sight is on fire.
With a roar I lift the sword into the air, swinging it around, and then I’m running at her, sword raised.
Michelle doesn’t even have time to react.
I take a swing like I’m in Little League again, and this time instead of disappointing my father, I let that sword crack like a bat.
A demon head for a ball.
I get her right across the neck, just enough time to see her eyes go wide in surprise, turning from black to white. The blade cuts deep. Her head turns to ash, crumbling in front of me, just as the rest of her does.
I stare at it falling to the ground.
Hold the sword in my hands.
Thor’s hammer, indeed.
But I only saved myself.
I didn’t save him.
I drop the sword and start running to the car.
I get to Max’s side, look in through the shattered window.
He’s lying there in his seat.
Seatbelt still on.
But his head is slumped to the side, blood running down the sides of his face.
More than that, he’s flickering.
He barely even here.
His body keeps fading in and out.
“Max,” I say, voice choking, panic taking over. I struggle with the door, finally opening it and I throw myself at him. My hands pressed against his face. He’s
solid one minute and the next it’s like my hands keep sinking through.
“No, no, no,” I say, moving my hands over him, trying to give him my energy. It coughs and spurts and the flow is weak, like it’s not enough.
“Please, please,” I tell him, trying to touch his brow, his hair, his cheeks. I try to lift him up, to look into his eyes. “Max!” I scream.
He stirs, flinches. Opens his eyes briefly but they see nothing.
“Max!” I yell again. “It’s me. You’re here. I’m here. You’re safe.” Maybe I was half-dead for a bit there when I was thrown from the car, maybe it was enough to sever our connection, to drop him off in the deep end.
But he closes his eyes again.
“Ada,” he says, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Leave me. Save yourself.”
“No,” I tell him, trying to shake him awake as he fades. “No, no! I did save myself. I did it. I used your sword. I got her. I’m saved. You’re saved. Let me save you.”
He’s fading faster now.
Oh my god.
No.
Please.
“Max,” I gasp, tears choking my throat, trying so hard to not give in to the horror, to the sorrow. “Max, please! Don’t…don’t!”
I put my hands on his shoulders.
They sink right through until I feel the back of the seat.
“Noooo!” I scream. “No! Please! Stop! Stop, come back to me! You can’t leave me, Max! You can’t leave me!”
Tears are streaming down my cheeks, my whole body shaking, soul to heart, and I don’t know what to do, I can’t lose him, I can’t let this be it. “Please, please, please.”
Let this be a dream.
Let this be undone.
Let me be enough.
“Max,” I sob, leaning against him, leaning into him, leaning through him until I’m against the seat and there’s nothing left. The energy inside me is draining, draining, swirling, going down, running away. “I love you. I love you. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” I crumble up on the seat where he once was, collapsing in on myself. Somewhere, in the deepest parts of me, I still feel him.
It’s like that black space that was inside him.
And instead of seeing that tiny kernel of me, it’s a tiny spark of him.
“Please,” I cry out, fingers digging into the seat. “No. Please. Come back. Don’t leave me. We have so much left. There’s too much left.”
My jaw screams in pain with the force of my tears, and I can’t see anything but a blur, and my heart and soul are crying out and I need him. I love him, I need him, and he made me a promise he wouldn’t leave.