by S King
“She’s too much a threat to the peace of the courts. Too much of a loose cannon, she can’t be controlled.”
I smirked, head butting him to break his resistance, “don’t you love that about her?”
He held his nose and laughed under his breath, “she’s a good sect leader. I’ll give her that much, but she’ll rain down hell on the guards should she go above her current station.”
“A woman after my own heart,” I admitted.
He shook his head, pointing his sword at me, “that’s not a good thing, Losett, not for the scientists or the courts. Make a decision before the three of us find her. Either get the pleasure of killing her yourself or watch her die by Honor’s hands.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond, opting for the only escape he could get, and ran from the alley.
I braced my weight against the brick siding, clutching my ribs; Silver had given me an ultimatum and now I had to make a decision.
Either I was going to kill the only woman I had ever felt something for, or I was going to push the bloody act off on HG. Up until this moment, the choice had been clear. I’d never drive my sword through Luminous’s heart. Yet and still, the memory of her death floated in my mind as more and more pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
That was the thing about my visions I never knew the day of death or time, for that matter. But what I did know, Luminous’s death was coming closer. Too close for my liking and I had to be the one to decide how she died. If anything in this last thirty minutes had taught me something, it was the simple fact I couldn’t save her. No matter how far we ran or how well we hid, Luminous River would die on the edge of the cliff in a matter of days.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, faintly hearing one yelp of surprise followed by the unmistakable sound of a whip. Looking up to the orange sky, I took a deep breath and hoped for some type of miracle. But while I waited for the miracle to come, I pushed off the wall and started toward the alley I had heard the whip.
It only took me a few minutes to find Luminous slumped against her own brick wall and heaving deep breaths. At a quick glance, the scene looked like any other fight between guard members; blood everywhere, one living party and one dead member who couldn’t survive with any futile prayer for better.
“Are you ok?” I asked, moving toward Shallon.
“I’m fine…” Luminous breathed before falling forward.
Had I not been standing where I was, she would’ve fell face first into the disgusting concrete.
I grabbed her and propped her body against the brick.
“Hey, hey,” I tapped her cheek and searched for the offending wound.
She mumbled something under her breath, only half conscious to what was going on. This wasn’t good and the worst part was, I didn’t even know how it happened.
“Lumi, I need you to wake up, we need to get out of here,” I tapped her cheek harder, trying to get her to open her eyes and nail me with one of those hard stares.
“I want a…”
“What?” Looking up and down the alley, I hurriedly texted Slade before shoving my phone in my pocket. “What do you want, Luminous? Tell me and I’ll get it for you.”
I spun around in front of her and hooked my arms under her knees. Luckily, she was with it enough to lock her arms around my neck; with her head resting on my shoulder, I heaved her weight and tried to think of the fastest way to get to her apartment.
“Hmm, what do you want?” I asked again, carrying her out of the alley toward her apartment. It was a dangerous move but one that needed to be made.
“I just want a macaron, damn it.”
“A what?” I frowned on the request, unable to picture what she wanted.
“It’s French, you uncultured beast of burden,” she spit out in her hazy fog.
It was hard not to smirk at her, but if someone from another guard or the courts found us together. Well, we’d both be as good as dead. I didn’t know about Lumi, but I wasn’t ready to die just yet by the court’s hands.
I adjusted her against my back as I continued to walk us through the alleys.
“I will not be manhandled,” she made a shitty attempt to push me away from her before realizing the uselessness of the attack and fell against my back once again.
“I know,” glancing across the street, I made sure there weren’t any members trying to kill us.
For now, we would be safe. Thanks to the rising sun, I breathed a sigh of relief. Any dog sent to kill us would have to know the rules set forth by the scientists—nobody is to execute any order—no matter the degree—in broad daylight.
“Demir.”
“Hm?”
“I want a macaron.”
She wouldn’t get off this thing. In this moment, I had made it my mission to find out what the hell a macaron was and get her one. Or a case. However, the damn things came.
“Is that all?”
She shook her head, at least tried to, against my shoulder. “No, I want…” she tailed off and as my other shoulder pushed through the front entrance of her building, I knew Slade had better come in a hurry.
She was stepping off into dangerous grounds and I couldn’t bring myself to notify anyone, especially Karina should Luminous die from the fight.
Somehow, I was able to find the hidden key in the banister of the stairs and unlocked her door. Thanks to the profile Dristan had given me, I knew where Lumi lived and was able to take her home in one piece. Although, unlocking the door with her passed out on my back proved to be difficult, I stepped over the threshold and locked the door behind us before carrying her to her bedroom.
Gently, I laid her in the bed and took off her shoes as I found the gash in her thigh. Just above the most important artery, the flesh was torn in a singularly perfect gash. Where the hell was Slade when I needed him?
I stepped back from the bed and berated myself for not going into the living room to wait. This was not the plan; all I was supposed to do was bring her back to her apartment—per Salde’s instruction, of course—and get the hell out of here. The plan was fool proof. Simple. Easy to remember. Even easier to follow. A deranged baboon could follow those instructions. And yet, what was I doing? My dumbass was standing in the corner of Luminous River’s bedroom, pressed into the corner, away from the sun, watching her sleep.
Internally, I was cursing and telling myself to just leave. I needed to leave, especially considering I wasn’t going to kill her in this moment—where she wouldn’t feel anything and be done with this circus show. But I couldn’t do that, could I? No, I couldn’t, because I had been the damn dummy to develop feelings for the very person, I had spent a good ten years trying to kill.
The sound of something moving in the apartment made my head snap around and look at the closed bedroom door. Best case scenario, it was Slade coming to do his work on Luminous. On the other hand, the worst-case scenario was the fact I was probably about to do hand-to-hand with another group of members hellbent on killing us.
I pulled my sword from the sheath and slowly crossed the floor, feeling the tension in my muscles vibrating through my body. On the bright side, if we died together this morning, there wouldn’t be any more orders or people after us.
“Hey!” Slade hissed, jumping back as I ripped the door open with my sword poised for attack.
Letting out a breath of relief, I sagged against the door frame, “thank you, Slade.”
“Both of you look like shit,” he mumbled, moving past me toward the bed.
Normally, I didn’t care about his cocksure tone and would’ve reprimanded him for talking back. Unfortunately, given the circumstances.
“How bad is it?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe and watched him assess her.
He glanced at me over his shoulder with a raised brow, “take a walk, boss.”
“Where?” I snapped, unintentionally of course.
“The fucking zoo, I don’t care, but right now I need to concentrate, and I can’t do that with you breathing down
my neck.”
Kicking from the doorframe, I pointed a warning finger at him, “you better make her better than new or so help me.”
He rolled his eyes, “I got it, don’t worry. Now go.”
So I did. I left Lumi’s apartment and headed down the street toward nowhere in particular.
It was too early in the morning for Mad Devil to be open and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to eat anyway. Nine Lives was on the brink of closing down for the night, so getting a stiff drink was out of the question.
I gnawed on my lip as I considered the different places, I could go without getting in a fight, but no matter how hard I tried to avoid trouble it had a way of always following me.
“Losett,” a too familiar nauseating voice came from my right as I started toward the edge of Castlehedge.
Grounding my teeth together, I sighed and turned around. “What?”
Lovett stepped out of the shadows from behind another apartment building and tilted his head.
“Do you really want to fight here?”
“I’m not in the mood to fight, Joker O’Qhuinn.” Since he wanted to play the last name game, I wasn’t going to stop him.
He snorted in disgust, “we’ll see about that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and said through clenched teeth, “what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“I told her.”
“Told who what?”
He nodded toward Lumi’s apartment, “told her about you knowing the truth. She and I ran into each other when she finished killing off Yoon.”
“You fucking didn’t.” The fucking nerve of this son of a bitch.
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I had to. You see, it was the right thing to do at the moment.”
“You sorry bastard, she doesn’t need to know the truth from you or anyone else for that matter.”
Lovett glared at me like I had lost my damn mind; he was the one who had lost his shit. Who was he to tell Luminous I already knew about our predestined future?
“Who were you to lie to her?”
I charged him—not one of my wisest decisions—and in turn he clocked me with a sucker punch. The blow was hard enough to make me question whether or not I was about to lose some of my teeth.
Spitting blood from my mouth I narrowed my eyes at him, “wouldn’t you say it’s better seeing her smile than to cry?”
“She needs to be in reality!”
“Whose? Yours or hers?”
“Luminous needed to know! You were the one to lead her on, you son of a bitch!” He charged at me, allowing a battle cry to rip through his throat.
I was ready for it and met him for everything he was worth. We collided, the brute force sending both of us into a bruising dance to gage our muscular power.
Imagining he was the punching bag in the guards’ specialized gym, I threw all of my weight into a combination punch. Lovett’s head rocked back on his shoulders for a moment before he shoved me away and swung out his leg.
I jumped over the thing, landing the perfect superman punch against his collar; bone crunching on bone alerted me about the implications I was facing once this battle was done and over with. Still, it didn’t stop me from straddling his chest as I grabbed the collar of his shirt and started pounding his face. All of my aggression for everything that had happened over the course of ten months had come to the surface. Now, I was releasing it on Lovett’s face.
He blocked my punch and bucked me off of him before getting up and scrambling to his feet. Charging me, I tried to weave away from him, but it was useless, the spear to my stomach landed. In a split second the roles were reversed, and Lovett was on top of me landing his own blows on my face.
With every hit, I saw only one person. Luminous. The heartbrokenness and mistrust dancing in her eyes when she figured out the truth from my own mouth. Thanks to this jackass I was going to be forced to tell her everything I knew before she even got an inkling to the truth from anyone else.
Shoving Lovett from my chest, I rolled to my side, struggling to breathe. My ribs were definitely broken, and my lungs were easily bruised, but if there were a bright side to this fucked up situation, Lovett was in just a bad shape as I was.
Several feet away, I could hear him fighting the urge to throw up from my own brutal attack on his face.
I sat up and felt the pressure of bruises and pain on my face; hopefully, Slade had enough in him to fix this before anyone else saw what I had spent my time doing.
“I’m taking over Luminous’s position as sect leader,” Lovett said after spitting a round of blood from his mouth.
“You’re not serious.” I spat wiping blood from my chin as I looked at him.
Out of everything she had gone through just in the last ninety-six hours, the last thing I wanted for her was to lose the only tangible thing she could be proud of.
Lovett looked at me with complete resolve covering his bloodied and bruised face.
“I’m telling you only because I’m trying to protect her, Losett.”
A bark of laughter left me as I stared at him, “protect her? You call taking over her position or leading a band of useless bastards, protecting her?” I scoffed. “That’s rich.”
“Take it as a warning, Demir, when the guards find both of you there won’t be anything either of you can do to avoid it.”
“Why bother telling me? If it’s the inevitable, why?”
“I think even you can put the pieces together on that one.”
I clenched my teeth, knowing he was right. We were in love with the same woman and both of us were trying to protect her in our own fucked up ways.
Pushing himself to stand, he spit again, “get away from Castlehedge as soon as possible. This is the last bit of kindness I’m going to offer you.”
With nothing left to say, he limped away from me and didn’t bother looking back. Leaving me to think about my options; more importantly he was giving me time to think about my next move. Everyone in and on the edges of Castlehedge would be keeping their eyes peeled for Luminous and me with the hopes of cashing out on the bounty prize.
Pushing my worn body from the snow-covered ground, I squinted against the glare of the rising sun. Slade would be done healing Luminous by now; I staggered my way back to her apartment building and prayed Slade wouldn’t ask questions. More importantly, I hoped Luminous wasn’t awake to see the horrible state I was currently in. Besides, once Slade healed me, we had to get a move on before we were caught dead.
§§§§§
By the time, the sun finally drifted back under the horizon, Lumi and I were fully healed, somewhat rested and ready to leave for our new oblivion. Thankfully, Dristan and Karina were at the edge of Castlehedge to greet us and wish us a goodbye.
Dristan being his usual self, slapped my shoulders as he hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear, “be careful out there. Ok?”
“Thanks man.”
“Another thing,” we stepped back from each other, with him scratching the back of his neck.
“What is it?”
“We’re going to help you guys get through this, ok?”
It was a heartbreaking thing to hear my best friend make a promise we both knew he couldn’t keep. But it was worth it. Hell, we had been friends for so long, I’d never thought in a million life times I would ever be saying goodbye to the man I had grown up with. He was more to me than a simple friend or a subordinate, he was my brother in so many ways.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nodded and shook his hand, “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“My dude,” he tried to smile, but the move didn’t do anything to cover the look in his eyes. We turned our attention to the girls as Karina’s heavy breathing brought our attention to them.
“I shouldn’t have to say goodbye to you,” she was saying as she held Luminous close to her.
“I know, but think of it this way, you’re probably going to get promoted.” Luminous pulled back, smoothing K
arina’s fading blue hair away from her face.
“What’s a promotion without my sister? You’re my person, through and through.”
“And you’re mine too, chick, but sometimes people have to part at some point.”
“Yes, I know,” Karina rolled her eyes as the first of her tears fell from her storm blue eyes.
Luminous smirked, “meet you on the other side of the stars?”
Karina nodded, a pinched look coming over her face as she stared at their hands, “I’ll bring the Kinky.”
“I’ll bring the Monster.” Lumi hugged her friend one more time, squeezing her eyes shut, “I love you more than all of the black and white movies in the world.”
Karina squeezed her friend to her like a life line on a sinking ship, “I love you more than all the deer chili ever made.”
When the two women separated, Lumi was the first to step out of Castlehedge territory and stood beside me. Both stared at each other with tears in their eyes, but Lumi was the one to offer a final piece of advice after she adjusted the strap on her bag.
“Don’t blow up anything that doesn’t deserve it.”
The statement brought a smile to the firecracker’s face, “what’s the fun in that?”
“Bye, Rina.”
“Bye, Lum,”
I nodded to Karina as Luminous did the same to Dristan; the four of us had agreed to turn around at the same time to make the parting less painful on all sides.
Luminous fell in step beside me as the snow crunched under our boots and the darkness consumed us. We didn’t fill the space with idle conversation or ignorant noises, opting for silence.
We walked for hours on end before I couldn’t stand the insistent crunch…crunch…crunch any longer.
“Where do you want to make camp?”
As if my voice had sparked something in her, her head snapped up, “I don’t care. You can decide.”
I nodded, wanting to have some form of conversation to fill the space, but it was obvious from her posture and the way she kept her head down, Lumi wasn’t in the mood to talk right now. Maybe it was from facing the reality of our situation. Maybe it was thanks to her heartfelt goodbye she had given her friend. Maybe she just couldn’t come to grips with the twists and turns life had dished to her. Whatever the reason, I was feeling the same way and tried to force some form of conversation out of her.