by D. N. Hoxa
Taking my phone out, I tried to take a picture of the runes still burning on the floor, right in front of the place where I’d seen the hooded figure holding Gwendolyn in his arms before he’d disappeared in the fraction of a second it had taken me to blink. Fear gripped at my insides like never before. The smoke began to disappear through the open windows, and the man in the suit was shouting, calling for his master or for backup, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I needed to get the hell out of there, and I needed to do it fast.
I turned around and ran out the door. I’d barely turned the corner in the corridor when something hit me right in the middle of my chest. The little oxygen I had in my lungs left me, and I slammed hard on my back against the wall.
My ears rang and my vision took some time to return. When it did, I saw the face of a man I’d never seen before, so close to me I could slam my forehead on his nose easily.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, his voice thick. He didn’t seem bothered by the smoke at all.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked. Could this be the shifter I’d fought at Nana’s Enclave? Was it possible that I’d forgotten his face?
“I was told you didn’t Capture,” he said and grabbed my face with a huge hand. There went my plan of head butting him.
“Capture? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I was also told you were stronger than this.” He looked at me like I was nothing but a piece of garbage. That was enough to clear my head. I did what any sensible person would do: I kneed him in the crotch. He had it coming, standing so close to me like that with his legs wide open. He felt the pain, probably all the way to his bones because I didn’t hold back, and when he let go of my face, I followed my original plan through. My forehead connected with his nose, and he fell a step back with a muffled groan.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you’re lucky I can’t properly kick your ass right now,” I said and turned around to run away. He didn’t have the ring of the Ministry, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one of them. It didn’t matter, anyway. I needed to get out of that place alive because things had gotten much more complicated now. Gwendolyn Love was taken, and I’d been there to see it. Well, part of it, but it was enough to possibly grant me a meeting with Christopher Ford without me ending up arrested, if I played my cards right. I reached the elevator and pushed on the button like a mad woman until the doors slid open. Empty. The car was empty.
“Please, please, please…” I whispered to myself as I went down to the ground floor, hoping the Ministry was not there yet.
The elevator doors opened, and I was greeted with an empty hallway. Hope gave me some new energy as I coughed and gasped for fresh air, my mouth filled with the horrible taste of smoke from upstairs. I needed to brush my teeth badly.
But when I reached the main door, all thoughts of smoke and teeth brushing disappeared from my mind. I hadn’t been so lucky. Gwendolyn had notified the Ministry long before she met with me.
Now, they were all there, inside the Enclave gates with their cars and their big guns pointed right at me.
8
“Ruby Monroe, step outside with your hands above your head!”
I saw Ryan Dumont’s face among the sea of people who were there for the sole purpose of putting me down. I immediately moved behind the door to explore my options for the few seconds I had at my disposal. How the hell was I going to get away this time? No way could I fight twenty heavily armed magians—and possibly some humans, too.
Think, think, think…
The back door.
There had to be a back door. There was always a back door, and that would be in the back of Gwendolyn’s castle. Ha! Genius.
So I started to run back inside the house as I heard the footsteps of the Ministry magians coming for me. I went for the door farthest from the main entrance to my right. It led to a narrow corridor with another two doors at the end across from one another. The left one was the reasonable choice, so that’s where I went. The smell of food hit me as soon as I opened the door. Stainless steel kitchen appliances took over the majority of the right wall, while wooden shelves full of cans and fruit and herbs were mounted on the opposite side. Three people were in there. The woman was sitting in one of the three chairs around the counter, her sandwich halfway to her mouth when she froze at the sight of me. The guy behind her, washing dishes, was barely out of his teens, and the man in front of the oven with a ladle in his hand and a nasty red stain on his white apron looked about ready to start running.
If I said anything, I was just going to make matters worse, so I didn’t. I searched for an exit instead. The MM couldn’t be too far behind.
There was no door inside the kitchen that I could see, but there were windows leading to what I guessed was the backyard. I went to grab one of the chairs as the woman screamed, and threw it at the glass. It broke into a thousand pieces, and I was almost outside, when something hard grabbed my wrist and pulled me back inside the house.
A muffled scream escaped me. They’d gotten me. The Ministry had finally gotten me.
Except when my back slammed against the wall, I could see the man who had a steel grip on my wrist, and it wasn’t a Ministry magian. It was the guy from upstairs.
“Come the fuck on!” I said to myself and tried to knee him in the crotch again. It worked perfectly the first time, so I figured it would again.
I figured wrong. He’d learned from past mistakes, I’d give him that. He stopped my leg with his and leaned his head away, too, afraid I’d head-butt him again like I did before.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said under his breath, and it sounded like he knew me. “And by the way, you fight like a girl. That shit really hurt.” What a funny guy.
I analyzed his face for a second. His hair was the color of sand, cut shorter around his ears and longer at the top of his head. His thick eyebrows were almost too close to his brown eyes, the kind of brown you’d find at the bottom of a very old bottle of whiskey. Any other time, I’d have probably admitted that he was a very handsome bastard.
“Who the fuck are you?” I spit, bringing the chakri in my free hand to his chest. No way could I escape his grip, but I’d cut through his arm if I had to, to get away from the Ministry.
“It doesn’t matter who I am, Tanana. I’ve come to repay an old debt,” he said and the brown of his eyes darkened with hate.
“Goddamn it, you fool! The Ministry is coming, and if they catch me because of you, I’m going to bury you alive!” I meant it. I absolutely would.
“Oh, no. Nobody’s going to catch you. You’re mine.” Goose bumps. The guy clearly had some issues, but his voice just now touched deep, deep, parts of me.
A heavy knock on the door at the other end of the corridor made me jump. The Ministry magians were already here, just a few feet away from me, and I couldn’t get away.
“Listen to me, I am not Tanana. You’ve got the wrong person here, and if you don’t let me go right this second, I’m going to cut your arm off.” I put my chakri on his bulging bicep and pushed it just so he could see how easy it would be for me to keep my word. My chakri cut him, but he didn’t even flinch.
“Liar,” he said. “I can feel your magic. You are Tanana Kaur.”
Another bang on the door. Why the hell were the magians not coming through already? Not that I was complaining, but it was just a wooden door.
A very dark-looking and kind of disfigured wooden door. Something was done to it just recently, and I could still see the edges of it smoking. I’d bet my good eye that this asshole was responsible for it.
Taking in a deep breath, I decided that I’d waited long enough. The man was going to lose his arm, and I was going to get the hell out of that place.
I pulled my arm back and swung my chakri, but he stopped me. He grabbed my forearm and slammed it to the wall, then put his elbow on the inside of my wrist so fast, I had no chance of moving. Then, he put his palm over my chest, and heat spre
ad over my skin in an instant. A Pyro—a fire spirit. Just my luck.
If I continued to try to fight him now, time would be wasted. The Ministry magians wouldn’t take forever to get through that burned door, so I decided to try to talk to him instead.
“Look, man, I am not Tanana. I’m looking for Tanana, but I’m not her. My name is Ruby Monroe. You might have even heard of me. See the patch?” I couldn’t exactly point at my face with both my hands held against the wall, but he got the picture. It was the one time in my life that I hoped someone would recognize me. “I’m not Tanana, but if I don’t get out of here right now, chances are you are never going to find her.”
He leaned closer to my face. I could almost feel the hatred in his eyes like a touch against my burning skin. I felt like I was on fire, but there were no flames there yet. He was a strong Pyro, much stronger than Sasha’s student, and it was easy for me to believe that he could literally set me on fire by the way his hand felt on my chest and by the looks of the door at the end of the corridor, which, by the way, the Ministry magians had almost broken down.
“Why can I feel her magic in you?” he asked.
Here I was, thinking that things like recognizing someone’s specific magic couldn’t be done.
“Because I inherited her Enclave and all her Guards are keyed to me.” I tried to move again, but he didn’t let me. In moments like these, I wished I had my magic more than ever.
“I’ve been follo—” I didn’t let him get any further. Using my special head-butting technique, I connected my forehead to his nose once more with all my strength. Waiting for him to start speaking was key in the success of this movement, but the blow wasn’t as strong as it had been before, so I moved quickly. I removed my hand from under his elbow and made a clean cut over his gut with my chakri. He let go of my other hand all by himself. I jumped to the side and kicked him in the chest just to get some space, but he didn’t go as far as I would have liked.
“If you’re not her, where is she?” he said, his hands raised, smoke coming out of his palms.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here right now,” I spit.
“Tell me where she is, damn it,” he insisted. “I need to find her.”
And I believed him. The way he said it left no room for doubt. “Join the club, buddy. But right now, I really—”
I let my guard down. Stupid, stupid mistake. He did to me exactly what I did to him just seconds ago. He waited for me to start speaking, and then he spun around and delivered a hell of a kick right to my jaw. If it wasn’t for the wall next to me, I’d have hit the ground.
Trying to regain my balance was impossible when heat suddenly spread all over my body, hotter than before. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me away from the wall.
“This isn’t over,” he whispered in my ear, and even the air coming out of him was scorching hot. He then pushed me forward with all his strength, and I hit the wall with my face again. This time, unconsciousness took me quicker than I could think: fuck, I’m screwed.
***
As soon as I came to, I knew I was going to have a headache for the rest of the day. Or night?
My eyes popped open, and my good eye proved me right. The ache began on my forehead and spread down behind my eyes like a grumpy dwarf was trying to dig them out with a freaking mattock. The air smelled of coffee and blood, though the blood scent was probably coming from me. I had to blink a few times until the view cleared, and when it did, I wished I hadn’t woken up at all.
I was sitting on a chair with my head down, chin pressed against my chest—the reason why my neck was also hurting like hell—and my hands were tied very tightly behind it. My legs, too, to those of the chair. My whip was gone from my belt loops, and I couldn’t feel my chakris around my wrists. The chair was made of wood, so I could easily break it. The problem was, I could barely feel my arms and legs because the fucker had tied the rope so tightly.
And he was sitting in front of me, untied, and with a coffee between his hands. He sat on a black sofa that had seen better, stain-free days, his elbows resting on his knees, his unblinking eyes never leaving mine. Not a drop of blood on him, which meant he’d showered because his nose had bled badly, especially the second time I head-butted him. But if he’d had time to shower, how long had I been out?
I closed my eyes and tried to regain control of my thoughts, my anger. It was fine. I was alive. The Ministry didn’t get to me. This asshole, whoever he was, had at least taken me away from them in one piece. The rest I could figure out as I went.
So I met his eyes again and cleared my throat, genuinely intending to be civil.
“I’m going to kill you slowly, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
The corner of his lips shot up. Oh, good. He thought I was being funny. It would make his demise much more satisfactory for me. Because I did intend to kill him, just as soon as I broke that chair first. I wasn’t one to go killing people whenever I wanted, but he’d crossed the line. He’d crossed a lot of lines.
“You’re going to tell me where Tanana Kaur is.”
“Sure thing. Why don’t you untie me first, and then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” The plan was to get him closer to me so I could attack quickly. I winked.
Could have been imagining it, but for a second, his ivory cheeks turned pink.
“Don’t play games with me, Ruby Monroe,” he warned. I pulled my hands up just to test the strength of the chair, then smiled. It was going to give easier than I thought.
“You know my name. It’s only fair that I know yours,” I said to buy myself some time. I wasn’t going to untie the ropes if my hands were still behind my back. What I needed to do was get up and slam the stupid chair against whatever was behind me, hopefully a wall. Less mess that way.
“Where is Tanana?” he demanded, raising his voice.
For what it was worth, he liked to stick to the point. Well, now was as good a time as ever, so I stood up on my shaking legs, and I tried to walk backward. Didn’t work—my legs were tied to the chair, so I just jumped as high as I could and fell on my back.
The chair definitely broke, but so did my back. Or so it felt for a long, excruciating second. Ignoring pain was a skill I had yet to perfect, but my survival depended on it this time, so I sat up as fast as my body allowed me. Trying to wiggle my hands under my butt so I could put them in front of me to untie the rope was torture, but at least the man didn’t try to stop me. He just held onto his mug and watched me with a very surprised look in his wide eyes. Guess he wasn’t expecting the show I just performed in front of him. I’d have felt like a fool, possibly even ashamed, but I was almost free and nothing could beat that.
I stood up, feeling better by the second, no matter that my arms and legs were still mostly numb. I still had to untie the rope from around my wrists, and I was willing to use my teeth to do it.
“You won’t be able to get out of here,” the man said, still sitting. Now that I was standing, I could see the table behind the couch, and my phone, Sasha’s picture, my chakris and whip on top of it. I could still use my teeth to untie the rope, but it was going to take me more time, and the man was pretty confident in his ability to keep me in that house or apartment or wherever the hell we were. The blinds were drawn in front of the windows so I couldn’t see.
With my head up, never leaving his eyes, I started to walk slowly around the couch and to the table. He turned to watch me but didn’t try to stop me. I grabbed one of my chakris and cut through the rope with ease. I felt a thousand times better in seconds. I put my whip around my shoulders, grabbed my chakris and stepped back. I could cut through his throat with just one throw. My fingers were still a bit numb, but I’d thrown my chakris so many times that I had no doubt I could hit my mark even on my worst days.
But I wanted to talk to him first.
“Who are you and what do you want with Nana?” I asked. No more games.
He slowly stood up but made no attemp
t to approach me.
“My name is Logan Haines and my business with Tanana is mine ,” he said, his voice never changing. “And you’re going to tell me where she is.”
“Or I could just make good on my first promise and kill you right now.” I showed him my chakris. “How the hell did you get into Gwendolyn Love’s Enclave? And how did you get us both out from the Ministry?” All things I could do without knowing, but I was curious. And buying some time so my hands and legs could fully function again.
“I have my ways,” Logan said, and it almost sounded like a growl. “I’ve come a long way to find you in her stead, so you either tell me where she is, or we can find out who’s stronger right now, and I can go looking for her myself.”
I looked at his hands. He was still holding the mug. Would he be able to throw flames at me faster than I could throw my chakri? The table was right by my side, and I could throw that up for protection if needed. The door was to my right, about five feet away. Even if I didn’t manage to kill Logan Haines with a throw, I was positive I could make it outside, hide, and wait for him to come out so I could make a clean kill.
“I don’t know where she is. She was kidnapped from her Enclave a week ago by your kind, so maybe you’re the one who should tell me where she and Gwendolyn Love are,” I said, my head filled with images of the creature who’d taken Gwendolyn Love, how he’d burned the floor with runes and how he’d disappeared into thin air, right before my eyes. I would bet my life that the same creature took Nana, and he did it in the same way.
And who else but a Pyro could burn hardwood floors with runes and cause that much smoke in a room?
For a second, Logan looked disoriented. “Whoever took Gwendolyn Love was not a Pyro,” he said, almost as if he was just coming up with this himself.
“I saw him,” I said with a nod. “There was smoke and there was fire, and he burned runes on the floor. With fire. No spell is that powerful or precise.”