by Lindsey Duga
I just wanted it to end. Just end. End. End. End.
But there was that voice again. Telling me the pain wasn’t real. Warm, soft fingers gripped mine. Tickling breath on my ear and neck. Words of comfort and encouragement.
I relaxed. It felt good to drift into sweet, blissful nothing.
Then a beat. A blip, really. It grew louder in my chest. My heartbeat? It thrummed through my body. The low notes wove through my blood like a pluck of a big bass string.
Live. Live. Live. Live.
My lungs involuntarily sucked in a breath, and my heart beat harder and harder against my chest in time with the beat.
Live. Live. Live. Live.
White-hot pain ripped my shoulder apart and burned through my nerve endings. Muscles straining and pushing, I felt my pulse racing in my wrists and neck. My whole body was trying to obey the chant.
Breathing hard, I wrenched my eyes open, and the man in the white coat and cheaters gave a yelp and jumped back.
Everything hurt and my shoulder twisted and clenched with unreal pain, but I ignored it, listening only to the chant.
Live. Live. Li—
And then it stopped, too abrupt to be natural. I swung my legs over the table and jumped down, my shoes hitting the floor with an echoing tap.
“Wait—I haven’t stitched up your wound—” the doctor cried, flustered, his hands grabbing my arms to lead me back to the table.
I jerked away, frantically scanning the room.
Where is she?
The siren, whose name still lay buried within the left side of my chest, was gone. And yet she still felt close. Her magic lingered in the sterile air. With one stride, I crossed to the door and pulled it open.
One of the largest men I’d ever seen—and I’d seen a lot of large men—had her by the wrists. At the sound of the door opening, she twisted her head back to me, eyes wide with shock and fear and horror. And I could see why.
Two small ivory horns protruded from the giant’s temples, ending in dark, sharpened points.
A minotaur.
Without a second thought, my battle instincts took over. Even though I could feel warm liquid trickling down my arm and chest, I rushed right into the minotaur’s personal space and grabbed his arm in a lock. My left armpit came down on the crook of the monster’s arm while my right fist rammed into the man’s elbow.
There was a crack as his bones popped out of their socket and the joints bent upward into the opposite angle an elbow should bend.
He roared and let go of the siren.
She stumbled backward into the corner between the door and the hall, her hands clamped over her mouth, staring at the two of us in terror.
Turning my attention back to the minotaur, I moved into a boxer’s stance and pivoted forward, driving my entire right shoulder into the cavity of his chest just below his sternum. The minotaur stumbled back, probably still recovering from the blinding pain in his elbow.
But then my own wound caught up with me. My shoulder seized, like knives digging into my muscles, and my knees buckled. I fell against the wall, smearing blood down the brick. The minotaur snorted—actually snorted like a bull—and lunged for me. I dodged out of the way, throwing myself to the side and ducking behind him. I made a grab for my shoulder holster when I realized…I wasn’t wearing it.
Of course I wasn’t. I’d been safe in my hotel room before the shootout happened. And the siren naturally hadn’t thought to grab my gun before leaving.
Shit.
The minotaur twisted around and swung his fist at my head.
I ducked just in time, and his wrist grazed the tips of my hair. I aimed a punch straight into his gut. The giant’s top half folded over, a deep groan spilling from his throat.
That was a wrecked elbow and two blows to the solar plexus. A normal man would collapse. But this man was a monster. Grabbing his shoulders, I pulled him to me and kneed him hard in the groin. Repeatedly.
Shouts of pain came from the minotaur, and his hands grappled for me—for my throat, my head—anything. He found my shoulders.
As he pressed his thumb into my wound, deeper and deeper, I fell back and screamed, trying to wrench away.
Agony carved its way through my shoulder and down my spine, into all my nerves so they spasmed and locked. My vision tunneled as my adrenaline waged war with the rest of my body to keep me conscious. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t—
And suddenly the minotaur was off me. His eyes were clear and frightened as his hands and fingers twitched…not on their own. He had both hands on his horns, pulling on them—hard.
Spots of light danced before me and my fingers dripped with blood that continually rolled down my arm. With the wall for support, I blinked blearily at the siren who stood behind the minotaur, two pieces of balled-up cotton in her palms.
Her lips were moving fast. She was whispering something and staring intently up at the monster.
The minotaur let out a roar that seemed to shake the whole building, and turned into the brick wall, ramming his head against it. His horns splintered, and his eyes rolled back into his bloody forehead as he fell back and dropped to the floor. Unconscious.
For a long moment, the only sound in the small hallway was our labored breathing. My spotty vision grew dark and I staggered forward, unable to even hold myself up against the wall.
A smaller, warm hand pressed against my chest, steadying me, as her other hand gripped my arm. “Doctor!” she called. “Doctor, please!”
The old doctor emerged into the hallway. Apparently he had been either a coward or very wise to stay out of a fight he wouldn’t have been able to help win anyway. He took one look at the minotaur on the floor and sniffed. “Oh, that’s going to be fun to clean up.”
The siren stiffened against me as she helped to hold me up. Dimly, I wondered why the hell she was still here. If she had any sense of self-preservation, she’d have been on a train out of here by now.
“You know about…about…” she stammered.
The doctor took off his cheaters and cleaned the lenses on his coat with a sigh. “Monsters? Oh yes, my dear girl. You can’t moonlight as a doctor for mob bosses and not be able to treat claw wounds. But if a minotaur is after you”—he eyed the monster on the floor with disgust—“then I’d rather be left out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Please leave.”
The siren’s parted lips tightened as her brows pulled together in distress. “You have to help Colt first.”
A strange feeling emanating from her gentle hand on my chest seemed to chase away the pain. But with it came discomfort. Why was…this monster trying to help me? Why had she even taken me here and saved my life when I’d just tried to steal hers?
The name that made her more of a girl and less of a monster almost broke free. But I pushed it back down.
I still had a job to do.
Summoning all my strength, I pushed away the old vet’s helping hands and grabbed the siren’s wrist. Ignoring the inhuman amounts of pain careening through my left side, I stepped over the minotaur’s body, pulling her behind me. I didn’t want her to suddenly come to her senses and vanish when I was in no shape to follow.
“Where do you keep your meds, doc? And needle and thread.” The words came through like eating rocks.
“You can’t do that yourself. You can barely stand!” Shock tainted her pretty, irresistible voice.
“The bullet’s out. I can do the rest. Meds, now,” I demanded, glancing around the clean, well-kept operating room and looking for the instruments I needed.
“Fine by me,” the doctor snapped, striding through the room, opening a couple drawers, grabbing the medical instruments and dropping them, along with a syringe of some kind, on the stainless-steel table. On reflex, I stuck the syringe into the crook of my elbow and injected the painkiller right into my vein.
“Alright, let’s go.” I grabbed the instruments and shoved them into my pocket.
“Whoa there, stallion.” She planted a strong hand on my chest for the second time.
I looked directly into her eyes—a task that had been difficult to do since I’d found out the truth about her. Maybe because her true nature had felt like a betrayal to me. I hadn’t realized just how much I had wanted Sawyer to be wrong. Talking with her, even one-sidedly, had been cleansing. As if everything that was dark and evil in my life was somehow washed away by her animated gestures and open expressions.
Now, as I stood here alive, still feeling her magic chanting of live, live, live in my heart, I wanted so badly to look into her eyes. I wanted to see the girl who had spoken to me so clearly, without ever saying a word. I wanted that girl back, even for just a moment.
“Don’t,” I ground out, feeling both weaker and stronger under her blue gaze.
“Don’t call you that? Stallion is a good nickname for Colt. I thought it was clever.”
She might’ve been the only person in existence who hadn’t immediately linked my name to a deadly weapon. I liked that more than I’d ever want to admit.
“I meant don’t stop me,” I clarified. “We’ve got to go, now.”
She shook her head, autumn curls swaying from her shoulders. “If we go, we won’t get far. You’ll bleed out. Just let the doctor stitch you up. Then we’ll go.”
I leaned against the table, exhaustion seeping in as the adrenaline ran out. “Why aren’t you halfway across Boston by now?”
“Because.” She took a step toward me, lowering her voice. It became smooth as silk sheets. “I don’t want to see you die, Colt. And if you walk out of here without stitching that up, you will.”
More blood trickled down my chest. She might be right. My head drooped, and my eyelids lowered, allowing me to see only her shoes. “You won’t try to run?”
There was a pause from above, then—“Doctor?” Her voice sounded a million miles away. Dimly, I was aware of another person moving closer and of a needle piercing my skin. Thread pulling through muscle and flesh.
That’s when I realized…the injection I had taken hadn’t just been a painkiller. It was making me drowsy. Weak.
My grip on her wrist slackened and I felt her pull away. “Take care of him, Doctor.”
The clatter of heels across the linoleum floors resounded in my ears as the door creaked open and swung shut with a snap.
So she did run—despite me asking her not to. Not that I really blamed her for taking the opportunity.
I tried to push through the drowsiness, but the injection was getting the better of me. I barely held myself up, most of my weight against the table, as the doctor stitched me up. The needle pulled thread through my skin, and despite the occasional wince, I focused on that power inside me.
This was why I didn’t drink. I hated the way it made me feel out of control. Foggy. But unlike most men, I could quite literally burn through it.
The heat rose in my chest, blazing through the drug’s effects like flames on a cocktail. It chased away the drowsiness and seared through the pain. As the doctor clipped the thread and pressed a bandage over my fresh stitches, smoke curled out of my nostrils and my fingers pressed into the table, leaving dents.
Without a word to the entranced veterinarian, I grabbed a makeshift weapon and left him to the mess of my blood smeared throughout his operating room. The siren couldn’t have gotten far, and I had a hunch she wouldn’t be returning to The Blind Dragon. A smart girl like her would head to the train station to lose herself in the wilds of America. She’d know that once she was out of Boston, she could disappear again.
I couldn’t let that happen.
But first…
I stooped over the body of the minotaur and rummaged through his pockets. He had no I.D. on him. Had he been a part of the shootout from the hotel? No, that didn’t add up. He hadn’t been trying to kill the siren, while those who shot out the hotel room had clearly been out for blood. It was too much to consider at once, and I had to sort out my priorities. Priority number one was locating the siren. Later I could figure out who had tried to kill us and why, and whether the minotaur was working with them.
After peeling off the minotaur’s jacket, I threaded my arms through it. I was drowning in the material, but at least it covered all the blood. As I stepped over him, I noticed his bowler hat on the ground. The gold lettering patched into the inside rim caught my eye.
Picking up the hat, I inspected the logo. The letters BKH were embroidered in shiny gold thread, and I stared at it for longer than I should have—there was something familiar about those letters.
I dropped the bowler hat as I ran down the hall and up the basement steps. Emerging from the alley, I hailed a taxi. I would not let the siren disappear again.
Chapter Nine
The Siren
I wasn’t used to talking so much. Ever.
There were the special occasions where I would say a sentence or two out of necessity, but they were few and far between. Each time I spoke, I was grateful to find that I hadn’t forgotten how.
I wasn’t scared about forgetting to sing, though. Singing was different. You didn’t necessarily need words. Just a melody and a harmony and a soul.
But if I was a monster, did I even have a soul?
Leaning my head against the backseat of the jalopy I’d commandeered, I sighed deeply. After another wave of nausea had passed, fatigue overwhelmed my whole body, but the adrenaline seemed to keep me awake just fine.
Like I’d done in getting Colt to the vet, I’d forced a car to stop and hijacked some poor driver into taking me to the train station. Rubbing my hands down my face, I stared out the grimy window. Boston passed in a blur of brick-red, beige, and gray tones of building after building. Awnings and produce stands outside storefronts gave color to the otherwise neutral cityscape. I didn’t venture out into the city often, but whenever I did, it never impressed me much. Instead, I would imagine rolling green hilltops, fields of gold wheat, meadows of yellow, white, and red wildflowers, sparkling blue lakes, and distant purple mountains…all that I longed for.
Perhaps I should have thanked Colt. He had given me an excuse to leave the speakeasy life and venture out into the countryside. I could disappear into the Midwest. Into a small town with farms and quiet folk and live peacefully.
I might be alone, I might never speak to another soul again, but I’d be in a place that filled my heart with music.
It was the silver lining in being on the run for the rest of my life.
I had no luggage, no clothes or belongings, and certainly no money. But that didn’t matter. I could either persuade someone into giving me money like some low-life grifter, or command the train conductor to just allow me on board.
Escaping was going to be easy, so easy, with this power I had. Then, once I was far enough away, I’d fall into silence again. Disappear. If the people who were after me could find me by my voice, I would just stop talking. It was possible. After all, I’d done it for seven years.
But manipulating people to gain my freedom made me sick. I was forcing them to bend to my will and do my bidding.
Any decent person would find such a thing deplorable. It was a wonder Colt didn’t just gun me down in the alley under the cover of darkness.
You’re too dangerous.
That’s what he’d said to me, right before he protected me from a rain of bullets.
Why hadn’t he just let me die if he thought I was so dangerous?
Why had I saved his life when he was trying to rob me of my freedom?
The answer should have been simple—neither of us were killers. And yet, with the way Colt fought the man with the horns, I could see that he’d slain these…these monsters before. Killing was not a new concept to him.
What about me? I couldn’t remember what exactly I’d muttered under my breath to the horned man, but somehow I’d made him beat himself into unconsciousness. And the man who’d abused that poor sister? I’d turned his body against him any time he touched a woman, now and forever.
I was no angel.
Colt was right. I was a monster.
The jalopy screeched to a sudden halt and I slid forward, my knees hitting the passenger seat. The driver stared blankly ahead at the car-lined street in front of the station. A big brass bell tolled behind a clock tower, and a shrill whistle pierced the air. Columns of white smoke from the locomotives billowed above the station, and the sound of hundreds of voices rose with it.
My ticket out of this life was just a few steps away, but my hand on the door just wouldn’t stop shaking. I still had Colt’s blood under my fingernails, while my dress was stained maroon with it.
Run, run, run. Live, live, live.
I muttered, “Stop shaking,” to my own hands. It didn’t work.
Summoning what resolve I could, I cracked open the door and called to the driver, “You never saw me.” The driver blinked and glanced around as if he’d somehow been brought out of a trance, but I was gone from the car before he could say a word.
I pulled the coat I’d stolen from the doctor’s office tightly around me as I hurried across the street, my heels clicking on the concrete. The oversize coat swished against my calves almost like a second dress. At least it covered up the stained blood.
Squeezing through the throngs of people, I approached the ticket counter to “purchase” my ticket.
“Excuse me, what’s the next outbound train?”
The ticket man was a round-faced older gentleman with equally round cheaters sitting upon a small nose. Without looking up, he answered, “Eight o’clock train to Philly.”
I glanced at the big station clock. Less than fifteen minutes. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too long to wait, not that I had much of a choice. Trying to get out of the city using hijacked cars during this hour in the morning would take just shy of an hour. I wasn’t willing to risk being found in Boston’s outskirts. To begin with, I didn’t know how many were after me. Clearly it wasn’t just Colt. There were the trigger men at the hotel, and the minotaur wearing the bowler hat, and God knew who else.