by Cate Corvin
My father’s killer.
Dad may have lived for years afterward, but he’d given his life for her that day. Just like he said he would.
I lost my father that day, not a week ago due to complications of his paralysis. I loved him, but I would always remember him as he’d been before, not the shell he’d become.
I didn’t blame him. I didn’t even blame Sharon. I blamed the cowardly cops that had stood idly by in the street rather than do their jobs and protect the innocent man inside. I was too young to be smart enough to get their badge numbers or file a complaint, but I wasn’t too young to make up my mind about what I was going to do with my life.
As I sat in the hospital with my father, I vowed on his life that I would become a police officer. And once I had that badge, I would never stand aside out of fear and let innocent people pay the price for my cowardice.
“He was so proud of you, Zara. You’re everything he ever hoped you would be.”
A few more hours, and I was finally alone at his grave, having gone back after everyone left my house. I was moving out of it soon, leaving it for my aunt and her children to live in while I got an apartment in the city. I’d said my goodbyes to the place, but now I needed time to say goodbye to Dad in private.
I spent the rest of the day at his grave. I apologized for the last conversation we ever had. I promised to be better than the cops that had let us down. I promised to never be the girl I’d been that day, someone so self-centered that she let bigoted comments slip out.
When it was time to go, I blew him a kiss and walked to my car. One last look at his grave showed me something I never would have expected. A woman was standing beside his grave, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. It had been nearly a decade, but I’d never forget her.
Sharon.
The woman my father had loved wept openly, and I fought the urge to go to her side. The initial flare of anger was quickly replaced by empathy. She’d lost him, too, and in a far more permanent way than I had. Now that I was older, I understood that she wasn’t to blame for what happened that night. She was a victim, too, and if I had to guess, I’d bet she was still locked in her prison.
She glanced my way and caught me staring, her body stiffening. She probably thought I was going to come rushing back and yell at her to get away from my father, that everything had been her doing. Instead, I raised a hand in farewell. It was a gesture of shared sorrow, of forgiveness, and of healing.
Her hand went to her chest, then covered her mouth as her sobbing intensified.
With a heavy heart, I left her to her grief and headed out with a renewed sense of purpose to save anyone I possibly could from a fate like that.
He loved you, Sharon.
I hoped she knew.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We ran back through the tunnel this time, and I grew more confident with every step as I felt my internal crystals hardening again, leaving me as bulletproof as when I was first made.
It was no longer my skin I was worried about, though, even though Gio remained in constant contact with to extend his shield. It was knowing that even though I was immune, the hybrids had a leg up on all of us.
I couldn’t think about the potential for losing them, though. All my focus had to be on getting Angelique out of there alive.
“He took her through the lab,” I said as we stepped back through the torn-off door. The silence was unnerving. “This way.”
I cut towards the hall Kreslin had led Angelique through, and the soft buzz of Gio’s shield vanished from my skin. I’d barely turned my head when I felt the shockwave of a Topaz’s power blast through the air behind me and Gio went skidding backwards.
His shield caught the worst of it, but the hybrid who stepped from the shadows looked like he meant serious business. I didn’t know this one, but he leveled another blast at Gio, who raised his arms to absorb it.
“Keep going!” Gio grunted as he took the brunt of the blast. “This guy has no idea how badly his day is about to be fucked up.”
Leave it to Gio to be full of bravado when all of us were on edge.
Damien didn’t give me time to argue. He gripped my elbow, almost dragging me through the lab as the sound of crumpling metal screamed through the air behind us.
Sawyer took his place on my other side, the two of them creating a shield around me. We passed several glass-windowed lab doors, but all of them were devoid of life, and by the time we hit a carpeted hall that looked like a scene out of an office park, Sawyer’s hands were humming with unspent energy. He’d learned the combat magic of a Topaz quickly… but maybe that was because he’d had to.
A dark shape charged through a door, smashing into Sawyer and sending him flying into a wall. Damien shoved me ahead as Sawyer blasted the hybrid in the face, sending them both reeling backwards.
“Go, Zara!” he shouted, and Damien and I began to sprint. My heart was racing a million miles a minute, unable to comprehend what would happen if Gio or Sawyer lost their battles.
Focus on Angelique, kill the motherfucker who started all this.
I repeated my mantra as we flashed past empty rooms and locked doors. Damien finally skidded to a halt when we caught a flash of blonde hair.
Angelique stood in the middle of a conference room, her arms crossed over her chest defensively, but fear shone out of her blue eyes. Nolan and Sebastian stood at either shoulder, with two other hybrids behind her, and Nolan had a weapon aimed at her head. It was a handgun unlike any other I’d seen before.
“Good of you to join us,” she said haughtily, but her voice trembled. Then she dropped the act. “You should’ve just gone, Damien. You could have gotten her away safely.”
I shoved past him, my jaw jutting out as I glared at Nolan. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on her.”
The tables were turned. Maybe not quite even, given that he had multiple stonehearts, but now that I was no longer turned to mush by the hypersonic emitters I wasn’t going to cower in front of Nolan.
The tiniest smile cut through Nolan’s hard features. “Already have.”
Angelique’s gaze shot to him, bright with fury. “You had better kill me, Nolan, because if you don’t…” She let the threat hang unsaid in the air between them. After a fraught second of waiting for Nolan to pull the trigger, she turned her attention back to us. “Just go, Damien. Take Zara and go. Kreslin isn’t going to let me walk away after this.”
My Emerald squared his shoulders, gripping his own gun as he eyed the hybrids. I knew he was thinking about how best to take them down, but Nolan chose that moment to completely blindside us.
“Today’s your lucky day, Miss Clarté. We don’t give a fuck what Kreslin wants.” Nolan gripped her shoulder, his fingers lingering on her skin before he shoved her into us. “We’re leaving, and you’re going to stay the fuck out of our way.”
Angelique almost fell over, but I caught her and helped her straighten up.
I glared at Nolan, but he had eyes only for Angelique as a real smile finally crossed his face. “Rest assured, I’ll be seeing you again very soon. Both of you,” he growled, and she blanched.
He strode forward, leading his hybrids, and paused in front of me. “For the cell treatment,” he said, and held out the strange gun. I took it with numb fingers. “You’ll find him at the end of this hall, but I wouldn’t dawdle.”
With that, they were gone in the direction we’d come, leaving an astounded silence in their wake.
“He could’ve defected while I was a prisoner,” I muttered, examining the gun. It had electronic components built in above the grip and an oddly-flared barrel. “Those assholes just kept kicking me while I was down.”
“They had to,” Angelique said breathlessly. Her eyes were wide and dazed. “Kobalt keeps hypersonic emitters around their necks. This was his only chance.”
I didn’t have time to wonder how exactly Angelique knew Nolan or why she was so willing to trust him. If I’d read between the lines, Kreslin
was trying to escape, and there was no way I was letting him out of this prison alive.
“Well, let’s go fry this bastard.” I waved the gun in the air, guessing the exact reason Nolan had given it to me. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a hypersonic Harvester gun.”
Damien looked at the gun askance, but he didn’t argue. “Kobalt’s got a helipad,” he said. “We saw it when we were coming in.”
“Weren’t you worried about them seeing you?” I peered into the hallway, finding it empty in both directions. Nolan hadn’t wasted time getting out of Dodge.
I looked back over my shoulder to find Damien watching me. “We weren’t all that concerned, no. Our only priority was getting you out, and Gio was ready to rip anyone in our path to pieces. Our chopper is on the far side of the island.”
I suppressed a shudder. No wonder no one gave a shit what went on here, in Kreslin’s very own private torture-island paradise. Not only that, but there would’ve been no way for me to escape even if I had made it out of the cells. I’d just sink to the bottom of the ocean like, well, a rock, and god only knew how far from the mainland we were.
I didn’t have to point out that Gio had clearly ripped a few people to pieces already, but some of that was almost definitely Sawyer’s handiwork using his new stoneheart.
“We’ll make it back,” I promised. “But we’re taking care of Kreslin first. I’m not letting him live long enough to torture any more gargoyles to death.”
Damien took the lead even though I had the gun. “Let me take the heat,” he said, his fingers brushing mine as we moved. Angelique had left her high heels behind and was right behind us, determined to see this through. “There’s nothing Kreslin can do to me if he doesn’t have one of these hybridized stonehearts.”
Uncaring if Angelique saw us, I gripped his hand for real, lacing my fingers through his. “Watch yourself,” I said quietly. “I will not leave this island unless every single one of you is on that helicopter with me, understood?”
Damien’s bronze eyes flashed before he turned his gaze ahead. “Same goes for you, Zara. Don’t you dare take unnecessary risks.”
“No sweet nothings for me?” Angelique asked dryly from behind us.
I tossed her a quick grin, already feeling the heat of bloodlust for Kreslin Kobalt running through me alongside the adrenaline. “Angelique, don’t you dare die before we have a chance to have a girls’ night out. We have to dish about all your matches on Dicks and Stones.”
Our quick jog turned into a flat-out sprint as we pursued Kreslin. I let every ounce of my anger suffuse me as we ran, all the pent-up rage for being kept a prisoner alongside the fury at how much destruction he’d caused in his selfish crusade. He had a laundry list of crimes and gargoyles’ lives to answer for, and there was no way I was letting him brush aside the Stone Accords just because he was famous. Fuck that.
The hallway led to a large set of double doors and I charged right through them, bending metal outwards like an exploding flower. Bright sunlight made me blink, searing into my poor retinas.
The hangar was a large, open bay, and a small, red-and-blue striped chopper was outside in the sun. Kreslin Fucking Kobalt had a hybrid at his side, and he was tossing an olive-drab pack to what I know knew was a gargoyle slave he kept on a leash.
Knowing that wasn’t going to stop me from turning him into rubble, though.
I pointed the hypersonic gun right at him. “Hands up, Kreslin. This ends here and now.”
He froze in place, still holding one of the packs, and wheeled in place. Fury sparked in his eyes and his lip curled back over his teeth. “You made it past the hybrids.”
“It was easier than you might think.” If he didn’t know Nolan and the others had defected willingly, I wasn’t going to clue him in. “Your experiments didn’t mean much of anything. All those stonehearts ripped out for nothing.”
Beside me, a low growl escaped Damien’s throat and rumbled in his chest. He’d lost more than anyone to this psychopath.
“Put down the packs and step away,” I ordered, taking a few steps closer. I had no idea what the gun was going to do to him, but I wanted to be sure he was in range.
Kreslin looked over us with the desperation of a caged animal and jerked his head.
The blank-faced hybrid lunged forward, plunging in on Topaz wings. I raised my inner shield as soon as the blast hit and only slid back a few feet, but I heard a slam as Angelique was smashed into the metal bay doors.
Damien didn’t waste any time. He ducked to the side and lunged in at the hybrid’s side, gripping the other gargoyle’s shoulder and digging his fingers into the thin, stony skin of one of his wings.
The hybrid raised a fist to blast him with Topaz magic, but a sharp cracking sound filled the air as Damien ripped away the wing. It began crumbling at the broken edge even as the hybrid made a horrible choked sound, wrenching out of his grip.
Damien’s beautiful eyes were dark with fury, looking almost black in his rage. “You’re going nowhere, Kobalt,” he hissed, circling the hybrid with panther-like grace. “Almost everyone I ever loved is dead because of you.”
While he had the hybrid’s attention, I curved to the side and pulled the trigger, aiming at Kreslin. The gun hummed in my hands, vibrating so hard I had to use both hands to hold onto it.
A few beads of iridescent sweat broke on Kreslin’s brow, but he was focused on the hybrid. “Fucking kill him, Sergei!” he snapped. “Kill the Emerald!”
Poor Sergei was outnumbered when Angelique joined the fight, aiming several punches at his back while he was looking at Damien. The Diamond was no great fighter, but she had pure, unadulterated anger on her side.
Then Damien inexplicably slowed down with a gasp, his face a mask of anguish, and the hybrid managed to land a solid punch on his jaw, knocking him aside. Angelique bent over double, tears streaming down her face.
The damn Sapphire was using his emotional magic on them. Whatever inner agonies they bore, I knew Kreslin was pulling them to the surface so all they’d feel was their deepest pain and sorrow coursing through them to take over their minds.
But my Damien kept fighting. He roared, pushing himself upright and charging into Sergei’s chest. They both went down, Damien striking the injured gargoyle over and over, so fast I could barely see the blur of his fists.
I crept up behind Kreslin, careful to keep the humming gun aimed at his back, but the Sapphire whirled around and struck me across the face as soon as I was within reach. Stars burst in front of my eyes as I reeled backwards.
He yanked the hypersonic gun out of my hands as I stumbled and slammed it into the ground before grinding his heel in the mess of plastic. “You’re not that sly, Ruby,” he said with a sneer. “I’m going to have Victor’s stoneheart, no matter what your boyfriend thinks. I’ve worked for far too long to give this up now.”
He didn’t remotely resemble the handsome TV show star and aspiring politician I’d known him as only weeks ago. Pure, cold loathing shone out of his eyes when he looked at me, as though I was a parasite tainting his precious stoneheart.
The hybrid managed to flip Damien, completely ignoring Angelique clinging to his remaining wing. My heart rose in my throat as Gio and Sawyer plunged in, both looking like they’d been through eighty brawls in the past ten minutes, and Kreslin’s shoulders tensed.
He dug in his pocket, ripped open his shirt, and slapped a small metal object against his skin under his collarbone, wincing as small metal prongs shot out and dug into him. A red light started blinking and sped up as I watched.
Whatever tech this was, I immediately knew what it was for. Sawyer and Gio stumbled. My partner’s hands rose to his temples, and Gio went down on one knee, his teeth gritted and eyes too-bright. The hybrid just moved faster as he tore at Damien, whose face was scrunched into a howl.
Kreslin’s emotional magic must’ve been exponentially stronger with that little attachment buried in his skin. Angelique broke away from the hybrid,
openly sobbing and crawling across the floor. Even I felt him now, the sadness and despair he was generating welling up despite my Ruby pushing back against it.
All I felt was a spiral of despair. I could’ve curled up right there on the floor and sobbed my heart out, my mind full of my Dad and how helpless I felt as he curled up on the floor, unable to move. All the times I feared for my life when Josh came home in a rage. All the people I saw who’d been savaged or killed by a force much more powerful than themselves, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I couldn’t imagine how they felt, unprotected by their own Rubies.
I gasped for breath against the solid lump in my throat, tears trickling down my cheeks. The hybrid landed a solid punch in Damien’s face, and drew back his fist to plunge it into his chest.
There was no way I could allow that to happen. I had to stop Kreslin. The Ruby in my chest was our only chance, I had to fight through and get to the bastard.
I launched myself at Kreslin, ripping his jacket into shreds and spinning him around. He slammed into the wall with a look of shock, and I slammed my fist right into the little blinking device in his chest.
With a sharp, electronic squeal, it crumpled and burst, the light going out as an electric shock traveled up my arm.
“Now, let’s see how strong you are without your toy, asshole,” I snarled. The gut-wrenching despair vanished almost immediately, Kreslin’s powers no longer able to penetrate the Ruby’s immunity. I backhanded him, watching his head snap to the side with a vicious sort of satisfaction.
He shoved me away, and the surprise on his face was almost comical. I figured Kreslin Kobalt had never been hit in the face in his life, and he didn’t seem quite sure what to do. Too bad for him he was about to experience a fight to the death. Cop or not, there was no way I could let him walk out of there alive. Not after everything he’d done and all the information he had. To let him live was to invite chaos that could envelop the world.