I couldn’t just change their minds. The Puppeteer was strong. They had been so fully tampered with, so fully wired to obey her orders, that there was no changing.
I couldn’t even read their thoughts. My head started pounding as I made my way into their minds. I was there. I could see the Puppeteer’s connection to them as if it was a physical thing.
I felt one of them grab me and pull my arms behind my back. I forced the panic away, kept working even as another shoved at my clothing.
I kept at their minds. The power and fear filled me, completely. Hands were on my body. All the hot showers in the world would not be enough to make me feel clean again.
I pushed away the fear. Focus.
I used my power, my anger, my fear, and I started attacking their connection to the Puppeteer. There was nothing for me to take here. It was a matter of complete destruction.
Leave nothing.
They started screaming.
I kept ripping.
And something snapped. I opened my eyes.
The one that had been on holding my hands behind my back fell, hard. The other two, who had been pawing me, fell to the ground, marionettes without their strings. I tried to sense for them. Nothing.
My head pounded. My nose was bleeding, and my body hurt all over between being shot, healing, and then being manhandled by the triplets.
I slowly stood up, pulled the ripped remnants of my top into some semblance of order. I pulled the knife out of my pocket and tucked it into my sleeve, out of sight but at the ready.
My powers wouldn’t save me if another baddie came my way. It had taken an incredible amount of power to destroy the triplets. I was tapped out. At that moment, I probably couldn’t read a thought if it was being mentally shouted at me.
Gone.
I walked toward where I thought the nearest main street, a street with a bus stop, might be, well aware that I was stumbling like I was drunk.
Of course, there was that last puppet that I hadn’t dealt with yet. And just my luck that he’d seen me before I saw him. He walked toward me, grinning.
“I am so sick of you ugly motherfuckers,” I muttered. My head felt like someone was hitting it with a hammer, and they just hit harder every time I spoke.
He came toward me. I hoped the knife would be enough. I ached, and I was exhausted. Powerless. My body was healing itself from the wounds I’d taken, but that requires energy. The energy that my body was putting into healing was more than I could spare if I expected to fight this last one.
“Too weak to fight. Perfect,” he said. “This is why she made me the leader. The others were stupid enough to face you in a fight.”
I just glared at him. Gritted my teeth. Trying to look like I wasn’t on the verge of pissing myself.
“You look like they roughed you up, though. Did you manage to kill them before they enjoyed themselves too much?” And he laughed. “Nothing left to fight me, though.”
Cocky son of a bitch.
He gave me a shove, and I fell to my knees. He kept walking toward me. “Let’s get you trussed up so I can deliver you to my Lady,” he said. “Be nice, now,” he said, grabbing my hair and pulling a syringe out of his pocket.
He was in close. Which was exactly where I needed him to be.
I struggled to free my hair from his hands, keeping his focus on taunting me, and I pulled the knife out of my sleeve.
And slashed up, stabbing him in the thigh. I’d been stabbed there before. Bleeding out from a femoral carotid would be a quick way to die. He screamed in pain and rage. Doubled over on himself, screaming. And I took the opportunity to smash his head into the concrete, knocking him out.
“I think your idea of ‘nice’ is different from mine,” I muttered, standing up stumbling away.
I stumbled as far as I could, ended up falling against a tree. Nothing left.
It was just that kind of night. I was about to pass out. I wasn’t even positive where I was, exactly, in terms of the nearest main street. And who knew when or if more Puppets would come after this group?
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Prayed, for once, that Nain would answer.
He answered on the first ring. I almost cried in relief. “Hey. It’s me.”
“Molly. What’s wrong? I swore I felt something…” he said.
“Yeah. I need you to come and get me. I just got my ass kicked, and I’m tapped out,” I said, fighting back tears of frustration, fear, pain, embarrassment.
“I’ll be there. Where are you?”
I told him where I was, as best I could. I could feel myself losing consciousness.
“I’ll be there, Molly. Stay on the phone with me.” His voice faded a little as he said “Brennan, let’s go.”
I heard heard him moving around, telling Brennan what was going on, heard a motor start up. A couple of minutes of a car, questions from Brennan.
Then Nain was back on with me. “What happened, Molls?”
“Puppets.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
He cursed. “How did you get away?”
“I fought. I did the mindflayer bit. It was too much.”
I waited for the lecture. “Just hold tight. Don’t let yourself pass out. I can’t feel you if you’re unconscious,” he said, and I could hear the tension in his voice.
“Okay.”
“I’m not too far from where you are.”
“Okay.”
I kept a look out. The puppet I’d stabbed was still. My eyes started to close.
“I see two cars, blocking the street. Are you near there?” Nain asked.
“Yeah, further down the street,” I answered. “I see your headlights, I think. Thanks for coming.”
“Anytime.”
The truck came to a stop near where the puppets had blocked the street, and Nain and Brennan jumped out and jogged toward me. I stood up, slowly. Nain’s eyes were on me the entire time. Brennan looked over the area, alert.
His gaze landed on the puppet on the ground nearby. “He’s dead.” Approval in his voice.
“Yes. There are three more a few blocks over. We probably need a clean up,” I said to Nain. He just nodded, eyes on me, still.
“You did your mindflayer thing on them? Or did your knife get a workout tonight?” Brennan asked.
“Mindflayer. I tapped myself out with them, or I would have done the same with this one. The Puppeteer’s strong.”
“Why didn’t you just set the fuckers on fire, Molly? They shouldn’t even have had a shot like this,” Brennan said.
Embarrassment flooded me. “I forgot I could do that. I don’t want to use his powers,” I said.
They both came over to me. Brennan took my hand and gave it a squeeze. Nain pulled me into his arms, practically crushing me. ”If it’s you or them, don’t ever hold back. Fry the bastards. Do not be ashamed of what you are,” he murmured into my hair. I rested my head against his chest, slumped against him. I closed my eyes for a second.
Opened them, and saw the two puppets I’d pepper sprayed coming at us, guns aimed at us.
“Down!” I said, shoving Nain and Brennan down and out of the way, just as the bullets would have struck them. I took three to the stomach instead, molten metal tearing through my body, ripping me to shreds. I bent double, fell, very aware of blood streaming from my body.
I heard Nain’s bestial growl, felt fur next to me as Brennan shifted into his preferred form, a huge black cat.
They ran toward the puppets.
I heard one of the puppets scream a little girlie scream, and I would have laughed if I wasn’t leaking my guts all over the sidewalk. Growls and shouts pierced the night as I lay there. I could feel my body healing itself, skin slowly, slowly knitting together, shredded organs becoming whole again. It burned like a son of a bitch, and between the burning in my body and the throbbing in my head, I felt like I was being torn apart from the inside out. My eyes closed. I couldn’t stay conscious much longer. Bloo
d loss was making me shake. Cold.
Panther Brennan loped back to me. I saw blood glistening on his muzzle, his paws. He looked down at me with blue eyes that were completely Brennan, and shifted back. Nain was on my other side, blood splattering his shirt, his arms. He knelt next to me and started checking my stomach as Brennan stood guard.
Nain pulled at my top to see my stomach, and I tried to push at him, reflexively, remembering the way the puppets had done the same thing. He must have seen something in my eyes. Something murderous thundered in his gaze, and he shook his head. “I’m not going to hurt you, Molls. I just want to see if you’re still bleeding.”
I still kept my hands on his.
“I promise.”
I let go of his hands, and he moved my shirt up, just enough to see the bullet wounds.
“Three times? Holy shit. Anyone else would be a corpse.”
“Score one for self-healing.”
“You’re still hurt.”
“Mostly my head now. My body burns when it’s healing.”
He nodded. “Your skin is on fire. Feels like you have a really high fever.”
“I’ll cool down when I’m done healing. I’m nearly done bleeding.”
He nodded, pulled my shirt back down. “Nice ink,” he said, and I was aware he was just trying to keep me conscious.
“Thanks.” I blushed. Silly. I hadn’t expected anyone, ever, to see the tattoo of Mjolnir I had on my hip.
“Didn’t know you were a Thor fan.” Keep talking, Molly. Don’t go to sleep.
I could have cried when I heard his voice in my mind. My powers were not gone. I hadn’t burned out completely.
I swallowed, fought back the tears. “I am. But Mjolnir has its own measure of power and symbolism.”
“Tell me.”
“Protection. Defensive power.”
“When did you get it?”
“When I was seventeen.”
Nain knew why. He’d seen the whole thing, every part of it, in my mind. He met my eyes, understanding written there. “We need to get you a hammer.”
I laughed, and it hurt. I grimaced and stopped. We sat in silence for a few minutes, Brennan still standing guard. My body started to cool a little. “I think we can go now,” I said.
Nain pulled me up, lifted me in his arms. I tried to shove him away, embarrassed that he thought I needed to be carried like a baby.
“Let me take care of you. Just this once,” he murmured close to my ear. “You saved us. Let me do this.” I stopped shoving. Too tired to really push it, anyway. Nain threw Brennan his keys, and climbed in, settling me on his lap, arms tight around my body.
Brennan drove. I drifted in and out of consciousness.
I wasn’t aware of getting to the loft, of being carried into a room, being cleaned up, and tucked in tight.
Chapter Eleven
I woke up wrapped in Nain’s arms, his legs tangled with mine, his chest to my back. The bedroom was just beginning to brighten with pre-dawn sunlight. I faced a wall of windows, grayish-pink sky.
I should get up. Shove him away, I told myself. I have no business here.
No business feeling warm, safe –something I never would have thought I’d feel around Nain, of all people.
I started to sit up and push his arm off of me. He put it around me tighter, pulled me toward him again.
“Stay,” he murmured.
“I shouldn’t be here. Or you shouldn’t be here. One or the other.” I started to get up again.
“Just stay,” he said again. And I did. Too tired. I closed my eyes and drifted off.
When I woke up again, the sun was shining brightly and I could hear the television on in the living room. Nain and I were still in the same place, same position, but he was awake. I could sense it.
“Can you explain something to me?” I asked quietly, hating to break the relative peace. Who knew when we’d have a moment when we weren’t at each other’s throats again?
“If I can,” he said, and I was reminded again of stone grating against stone.
“My powers were always pretty much the same. Always. And then you came into my life and now nothing is the same. Why?”
He was quiet for a minute. “I think, if we’d met sooner, you would have figured your powers out sooner. You met someone like you, and it woke something inside. You didn’t know what you were, or that there were beings like us out there. It wasn’t so impossible anymore.”
“But it was always there?”
“Yeah. Like when you first manifested your ability to control with your mind. That power was always there. Under stress and crazy ass situations, we discover how far we can really be pushed. And a demon meeting another demon for a first time…that’s always crazy, because we instinctively see each other as a threat.”
“Well. Meeting you was definitely stressful,” I said. We were quiet for a while.
“Do you think I’m done discovering crazy shit about myself?”
He laughed then. “I have the feeling that if you haven’t manifested a power by now, you probably don’t have it.”
“Good.”
We stayed like that a while, and I became very, very aware of his strong chest pressing against my back, his body and mine touching at every possible point. I patted his arm. “Time to get up. We really shouldn’t be here.”
He held for a second, and then let go.
I was surprised to feel disappointment. From him, and, even weirder, from myself.
He stayed where he was. I sat on the edge of the bed. I was fully healed. No aches. Even my head had stopped pounding. My power coursed through my body, and I felt so powerful I probably could have taken flight if I wanted to. Alive. Fully alive. Full.
Then it dawned on me, and I turned to glare at Nain. “You sneaky son of a bitch.”
“You were starving. One night with me, and you’re fully fed. I’ll take that as a compliment, Molls,” he said, laying back and folding his hands behind his head. I hated myself for blushing.
“I didn’t want to feed from you…is that what this was?” I asked, gesturing at the bed.
“You needed to be fed. I needed to sleep. Lucky for you, I’m even pissed off when I’m sleeping.”
“It required you to be wrapped around me like that?” I asked, getting out of bed.
“No.”
“No?”
“That was for me. You got something, I got something.”
“What did you get?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“I got to sleep pressed up against your pert little ass all night.”
I shook my head. “You are something else.”
“Would have been a lot more fun if we were awake. Maybe next time,” he said, getting out of bed and heading into the bathroom.
This all felt WAY too intimate all of a sudden. Waking up together, hearing him brushing his teeth and moving around in the bathroom. He came out and I stalked to the bathroom, slammed the door behind me. I heard him opening and closing drawers, grumbling to himself in the bedroom.
“There’s a t-shirt in there if you want it,” he shouted to me through the bathroom door.
I cleaned myself up again, swished some of Nain’s mouthwash around my mouth. Ran my fingers through my hair and put it back up again, before shrugging out of the huge t-shirt I barely remembered pulling on the night before and pulling the black t-shirt Nain had left for me over my head. His scent surrounded me immediately; cinnamon, sunshine, something spicy that I couldn’t define. My stomach did a funny little twist that I tried to ignore.
The shirt went down to my knees. I felt like a child wearing it. I tucked it into my last spare pair of pants. I’d need to buy more clothes, again.
This shit was getting expensive.
I left the bathroom. Nain was still there, sitting in the bed. We looked at each other.
“I need to get home,” I said, looking away from him.
“Or you could stay and play,” he said.
; “You are in a mood today, aren’t you?” I said, biting my thumbnail.
He stood up, walked toward me. There was something in his eyes that made my heart pound, turned my legs to jelly. I backed up, reflexively, and my ass hit the bathroom door behind me. He kept coming toward me, closer, until he was inches from me, towering over me. He put a hand on either side of my shoulders, looked at me with such intensity it made my breath catch in my throat.
“Yeah. I am definitely in a mood. You were nearly taken last night. Because you went out, alone and unprepared, and made a bunch of fucking rookie mistakes that could have gotten you killed, or worse. Maybe you’d be better off warming my bed than trying to play the superhero.”
I glared up at him, shoved him back. “I….you……” I couldn’t even form a sentence.
“What the hell have we spent all this time on? What about control? What about thinking before you just throw your power around? Brennan was right: you should have fried the fuckers before they even got close to you.”
“I was focused on getting away from the six — SIX assholes chasing me. Fighting wasn’t my first thought,” I shouted. My power filled me, and when I shoved him this time, he went flying across the room. It was the first time I’d been able to do that in months.
He pulled himself away from the cracked plaster wall and stalked toward me. “No? They would have done worse than kill you, Molly,” he shouted, and his eyes burned fiery red, and the building shook under the intensity of his power. Mine rose in response to the threat, and the pressure built so high it burned. “You want to be a puppet? You want to be some fucking madman’s plaything?”
“Isn’t that what I already am?” I shouted.
Nain punched the wall next to me, and chunks of plaster and brick went flying. “You think so?” he asked, and his voice went low. Never a good sign. He closed in on me. “You think I’m the dangerous one?”
I glared up at him, determined not to show him the effect he was having on me.
We stood there, staring each other down. His eyes burned, and he lowered his face to mine, claimed my mouth with a ferocity that should have terrified me.
Something in me, my demon, whatever it was, exalted in the crush of his lips to mine. Something told me to respond, to give in, to let myself enjoy what a large part of me very much wanted.
Lost Girl: Hidden Book One Page 12