“Valoel, do you know why this is happening?” Tristan asked.
“I… no. Maybe the king—your father—will know?” She sounded scared. I had never heard Val sound like that.
“I’ll go and ask King Daligo, and then my parents,” Tristan decided. “Please: stay away from Abigail while I’m gone.” He looked straight at me. Like I cared what he wanted. I’d visit Abigail if I felt like it.
I didn’t feel like it, though. I didn’t want Val to think I had romantic feelings for her, so I didn’t want to be near her again anytime soon.
“I won’t take long, and I’m sure you can hold off on seeing her until I get back,” Tristan said aloud, as though he hadn’t heard what I’d been thinking.
“Wait, you didn’t hear what I just thought?” How could he hear my thoughts one minute and not the next?
No, did you think something?
Yes, I did.
“Maybe you didn’t want me to hear it?”
You’re a moron.
“I heard that.”
“Good. And I won’t be visiting Abigail because I’m going with you,” I told him. “The sooner we get rid of whatever is happening to us, the better. I don’t much like you, and the thought of you in my head makes me sick.”
“I’ll… I’ll just wait here,” Valoel said cheerlessly as Tristan snapped his fingers and we disappeared into the darkness.
SHADOW BOXING
Abigail
As far as I could prove, Gideon didn’t exist.
Logan tried his hand at finding some information on him, but eventually even he gave up after countless searches that produced exactly nothing.
I paced around my bedroom, and then I did something I’d done every night since Gideon had gone—I watered the rose he’d given me. It was still as fresh and beautiful as it was the day he gave it to me, but I felt as if its magic were gone because Gideon was gone.
I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, flipped my pillow over a hundred times trying to find a cool spot, stared at the walls. I was just about to give up and get out of bed for some air when I heard my mother screaming downstairs. I was up and out my bedroom door in an instant.
I flew down the stairs two at a time.
I was about to step into the sitting room when a bullet whizzed by my ear, so close that it touched my hair. I ducked back into the hallway, and at that moment realized I’d left my gun under my bed upstairs.
“I found the girl,” I heard a man’s voice say. “I found Agent V’s daughter.” Agent V was my father’s CIA alias, and my mother’s screams meant that my father’s worst fears were coming true—those he’d worked so hard to hide us from had just proved successful in finding us.
I backtracked and sprinted into the kitchen, grabbing the phone off the wall and dialing Logan’s number. On the fifth ring, Logan answered.
“Jesus Christ, Abigail, do you know what time it is?” His voice was thick with sleep. “Is this about that Gideon guy who—”
“Logan, there are people here,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and failing. “They know about my father. Mom was screaming and—” I didn’t want to think about how my mother sounded when she screamed.
“What?” he asked, sounding fully awake now. “Find a place to hide. I’ll be right there. Where are your bodyguards?”
Find a place to hide? Hadn’t he spent years preparing me for this very moment? Preparing me to be able to fight?
“Did she go back up?” I heard a voice ask, and I started panicking.
“I’ve got to go, Logan.”
I looked around me, searching for a weapon, and saw none. The best I could find, other than a frying pan, was a fire extinguisher. I figured the extinguisher would hurt more than the frying pan, and the thick white dust it released might be of use to me as well.
I grabbed the extinguisher and rushed over to hide behind the door when I heard footsteps coming toward the kitchen.
I was wearing black yoga shorts and a white tank top, and a pair of ridiculous socks with ducks on them. I was weaponless in ducky socks. This wasn’t exactly how I pictured my life ending.
I held my breath and peeked my head out into the hall. I could see two armed men, almost in the kitchen.
Pressing my back firmly against the wall behind the door, I held the fire extinguisher in a ready-to-smack position and waited for the men to enter.
One. Two.
“There she—”
The speaker fell instantly when I slammed the extinguisher against his head. The second man hadn’t even had a chance to react before I’d knocked him down as well. He moaned on the floor. I rushed out of the kitchen and into the sitting room.
“She’s here!” a thin, reedy voice shouted, but I rushed onward toward our library without turning to look, because I thought I’d heard Mom from that direction.
Once in the library I hid behind one of the shelves to stay out of sight. I heard my mother’s voice, pleading, and peeked through the books, hoping to catch sight of her.
“Let her go,” Felix was saying. He was being held by two men, a young man with a blond crew cut and another man whose back was to me. The one whose back was to me sucker-punched Felix, and he doubled over with blood pouring from his broken nose. All told there were six strange men in the room. Four of them held Ben and Felix. Another one held my mother, and the sixth man had moved to the sitting room door, probably trying to find out where I’d gone.
OK, I could take them. I had a fire extinguisher. I could totally take… Oh, my God, I was going to die.
I was trying to think of a better plan than rushing in, pointing my extinguisher at them, and shouting, “Hey, let them go!” when I heard a bullet hit one of the books on the shelf with a resounding thwack. I turned around to see two? Three? more strange men running in. Another thwack. Now was the moment. I removed the pin from the extinguisher and depressed the lever, releasing the dry chemical powder into the air and blocking the men’s focus.
I sprayed the powder in all directions before tossing the extinguisher aside and stepping into the cloud, hiding myself. The first man who came at me didn’t even have time to swing his arm before my right elbow met with his face. He angrily swung both hands, blind but determined. I leaned back to get out of his reach, like Logan had taught me, but I was just a second too slow. One fist grazed my jaw and blood filled my mouth. I kneed him in the stomach as hard as I could and dealt him a blow to his Adam’s apple with the back of my forearm, making him wheeze. He cursed in a hoarse whisper and backed away.
Muscle memory was taking over. I turned in time to catch a blow from the man nearest me on my upper arm, and kicked the man who’d thrown the punch on the left side of his knee. It buckled and he went down. He’d be a while getting up, I was sure. Someone got me pretty good in the ribs. My arms were too high to block effectively, just as Dad was always telling me. Crap. I gasped for air and threw a slow, pathetic roundhouse that Logan would have chided me for into the gritty cloud in the general direction the rib-blow had come from. Slow and pathetic though it was, it actually connected, and I danced back a few steps, shaking the stiffness from the fingers of my right hand.
I turned away from the man I’d hit just as another came into view from beside us, pointing his gun at me. I had only a second to move before he fired, and then the oddest thing happened.
I watched the bullet coming toward me, but it never reached me: it stopped, inches from hitting me, and then it fell straight to the ground.
What the… I had no time to freak out, or to thank whatever guardian angel was looking after me, or curse myself for seeing things at a time like this. Suddenly, the man who’d fired at me fell at my feet—dead.
OK, now I was panicking.
“I want her alive!” I heard a cold voice shouting, and then more footsteps. I banished all thoughts of whatever weirdness was going on and reached down to take the dead man’s weapon, a nice, reliable Glock 19. The moment I had the gun, I darted back behind one of the bo
okshelves for cover. Between the books in my way and the smoke I couldn’t really see all that well, but this was my house, and I knew the layout of the library by heart. I moved expertly through the room, trying to get to my mother. I wasn’t sure how many bullets were left in the gun, so I held my fire.
I peeked around the shelves. It looked clear. It wasn’t. A shot rang out, and… my arm. My arm. I didn’t feel the shot itself at first, just the splash of hot blood as it covered the back of my tank top. I fired in the direction of the gunmen while my head was still clear, the adrenaline making the whole scene seem unnaturally bright. One of the men fell back with a scream. I turned and raced for cover as the others started firing.
I whipped around a corner and stopped. I was trapped. One of the intruders was right in front of me. I’d nearly run straight into him. He pointed his gun at my head.
I was beginning to feel my arm wound in earnest now, burning like all hell. The dumbest things started rambling around in my head. I wasn’t wearing ear protection, I thought. That was kinda dumb. My head was filled with a monotonous tinny hum from the noise of the shots. The bullet must have been hot. It burned. Burned. I was wearing ducky socks…
The sharp focus the adrenaline had given me was clearly wearing off.
“Hands up!” the man in front of me shouted. He had a foreign accent that I couldn’t place. “Gun on the floor. Kick it to me.” I did as he ordered.
“Do not shoot her. Andrei wants her alive,” said a man who rushed in from behind me and pinned my hands behind my back. I winced. Pain radiated outward from my bullet wound. No matter how I twisted, even though my hands weren’t tied, I couldn’t break away from his grip. Either his grasp was strong or I was growing weak.
I was dragged to my mother and bodyguards.
“Abigail!” mother cried when she saw me. “Let her go.” She struggled to free herself.
“I’m all right, Mom,” I lied. “As for you—let them go,” I demanded. Someone laughed.
“Listen to this little one! Hello, Abigail, I’m Andrei. Your father taught you well,” he said. He glanced at something behind me. “My men were plenty before.” He looked like one of those people you wouldn’t dare befriend. His eyes were cold, his dark-grey hair neatly brushed, and a plastic grin stretched across his face.
“Let them go,” I said again, tugging against the grip of the man who had me restrained. I was out of ideas, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next.
“How adorable,” he said.
“Andrei!” Someone rushed in through the open door. The only words I understood were my father’s name and Andrei’s. The language being spoken sounded like a Slavic language of some. Russian, maybe. Or Serbian?
“It seems your father is coming to get you. We have to leave,” Andrei said as his men led my mother and bodyguards out after him. My mother struggled wildly. The two remaining men followed my captor and me.
The man holding me pushed me forward, but I planted my feet and refused to budge. It wasn’t simple stubbornness. I wanted to make sure there was some space between the group holding me and the group of men restraining my mother and bodyguards. By dragging my feet and occasionally pretending to stumble, I stretched the distance between the groups out to ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty.
Finally we were passing the dining room with its fireplace and, more importantly, its set of heavy cast iron fireplace tools, on the way to the staircase. I made my move, stomping hard on the foot of the man holding my wrists, concentrating on the instep. This move would almost certainly been more effective had I not been in my stocking feet. It did distract him enough to loosen his grip, and I drove the elbow of my good arm into his solar plexus and slipped out of his grasp. I dropped back a few steps and swung for the closest jaw. The man tried to block, and knocked against my bad arm. I wobbled under the pain of it. Another blow landed on the side of my head, an inch or two in front of my right ear, making bells ring, and then it was three against one, and they were winning.
My mouth was filled with blood when I finally managed to grab the heavy iron poker and give it a good swing. I had room to get a decent amount of speed behind it before it connected with the skull of one of my attackers. He fell down immediately, and I grabbed his gun.
I fired, twice, at men not five feet away. So close. Close enough for their blood to nearly cover me. They fell to the ground, kicking, and there was more blood. Blood on the shiny wooden floors, on the walls, all over my body. I felt a rush of anger and pain. I had just shot two men; I killed them. I may very well have beaten a third one to death.
Finally, I knew my father hadn’t been training me just to protect myself. He had been training me to become a killer.
At the sound of the gunshots there was chaos. Two more of Andrei’s men came into view. I fired twice, hitting one and missing the other. He shot at me from the doorway, and missed only because once again, the bullet stopped mid-air. I took advantage of the man’s shock and took out his left kneecap with a quick shot. I was shocked too, but the panic of losing those I loved was more compelling than whatever weird thing was going on. Worrying about weirdness could wait for a quieter moment.
I ran down the last flight of steps and over to the back door when I heard engines starting. I was out the door just in time to see three cars pull away.
I ran back inside to the security pad beside the front door. My hands shook as I keyed in the password—pret a fermer—that would force the mansion and grounds into lockdown.
An alarm sounded. I squinted through the closest window, my vision blurring. Cells Mansion was now on lockdown, but I wanted to make sure Andrei and his men were still inside the main gate. Mindlessly, I pulled off one blood-soaked sock and then the other.
I was about to rush out into the parking area, barefoot, when I heard a sound behind me. I turned and reached for my gun, but never had a chance. Blond crewcut fired at me.
A shadow stepped in front of me. Half a breath later, Blond Crewcut was on the ground, and Gideon was standing in front of me, holding a bullet in his hand.
“How? But…” I couldn’t find the words. “You’re with them? Did you let them in here? How could you!”
“I’m not with them.” He handed me the bullet. “If I was with them, I’d have let this keep right on going until it hit you.”
I took the bullet, grooved with rifling marks but unflattened. It hadn’t hit Gideon; he’d caught it. He’d saved my life, again. I goggled at him. He was somewhat more focused and did not goggle back.
“Now’s not the time. Abby, who are these people?”
“You’re not hurt.” I took his hand and studied it. I was freaked out, scared, and thankful at the same time.
“No, I’m not. Are you?” I looked up into his eyes, and they were pure red. I stepped away from him.
Then I collected myself and remembered where I’d been going. “My mother—” I made a move toward the door.
“I’ll get her. You stay here and don’t move.” Like hell I would!
“No, I need to get to her!” I had no doubt that Gideon would be able to save my mother and bodyguards. I’d just seen what he was capable of, but I still didn’t trust him.
“Fine.” Gideon took my hand and the next thing I knew, we were almost beside the gate. I’d have taken about five minutes on foot, but Gideon got us there in a twinkling. As soon as I get a moment free, I thought, I’m going to panic. This deserves some panic. I just don’t have the luxury of panicking right now, not while my mother and bodyguards were still in danger.
“Abigail,” Gideon said, taking my hands and steadying me. “If I beg you, will you go back inside?”
“She’s my mother! I need to get her to safety. My father asked me to protect us and—”
“Fine,” he said through a clenched jaw. “I’m going to be right beside you,” and then he was gone.
I looked around.
“I’m still here,” Gideon’s voice came from somewhere beside me. I couldn’t see hi
m, but he was there. Add “hot guy invisibility” to the list of things I would panic about later.
At the moment, even Gideon being invisible didn’t bother me. All I cared about was getting to my mother and bodyguards before it was too late.
I jogged the last few dozen feet to the gate, and there I heard Andrei. Half of Marin County could probably hear Andrei. “Where is the girl?” A sentence or two were lost to me because he slipped into his native tongue. “You mean to tell me that one girl—a teenager—has not only defeated my men, but you also haven’t caught her yet?” Andrei started ranting quickly in Russian again. I didn’t know enough Russian to make out what he was saying, but his tone made it clear he wasn’t reciting nursery rhymes.
“Andrei, she is too—” The man didn’t finish because Andrei shot him in the head.
“Useless people. They can’t do anything.” Andrei stepped over the body and gestured toward another body at the end of the driveway. “The gates, they have high voltage power,” He said to Felix. “How do we get around it?”
Two men held Felix beside one of the cars. Another two held Ben, and my mother stood beside Andrei.
“I don’t know,” Felix answered. “There’s no way out.”
“You will tell me a way, or I’ll shoot the woman.” He pressed the muzzle of his gun into my mother’s long dark hair.
I stumbled forward. “No! Let them go.” Once again, I didn’t have any plans. I pointed my gun at Andrei, which seemed like a good start.
“Abigail.”
I hated the way he pronounced my name.
“There you are,” he said. “This isn’t fair. First, you destroy my men, and now you want me to let my hostages go?”
“Did I stutter?” I didn’t like seeing my mother like this. She looked shaken. Was this how it felt for my parents? All those years, knowing what could happen?
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