The city of the rebels continued to confound me. Despite the shackles around my wrists and my shredded wings, which were dripping blood onto their dirt road, their curiosity had people coming up to me like none of that made a difference.
“Can I hold your hand?”
I looked down at Rafie with a frown. “They’re chained together.”
“So? I want to hold your hand!” Rafie said, a rise in his voice threatening a coming tantrum. I looked to Keiran, my eyes wide, begging for help. He just shrugged with a grin that says he wasn’t planning on helping.
With a sigh, I twisted my arms wincing at the awkwardness of it; the chain had maybe six inches of slack, which meant I had to twist both of my arms to the side to offer my left hand. He slipped his fingers through mine; his hand was slightly sticky, like he’d shoved something sweet in his mouth recently and forgotten to wash. I didn’t know whether to be mildly amused or completely disgusted. I hadn’t been around children since we took in the guardians, and they had been ten.
“What’s your name?”
Despite Gemma’s harsh reaction to me, her son hadn’t stayed away long. Rafie was skipping to keep up with me, his hand pulling at mine, and his smile hadn’t faded at all. He wasn’t afraid, or disgusted with me. He was treating me like every other person in his city. It was… there was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow down as he squeezed my fingers, and though I tried to answer him, all that came out was a hoarse croak.
“You know, I don’t know your name either, bird boy,” Keiran said, smirking at me.
I turned to glare at him. “Bullshit. I told you my name when we met, and you knew who I was the second I said it,” I snapped, the lump in my throat evaporated by my angry.
“Hey!”
I looked down as Rafie called for me, and he surprised me again; I came to a dead stop when he smacked the palm of his free hand against my forehead.
“That’s a bad word,” he said, his mouth pulled into a frown as he tried his best to glare at me.
I tried; my lips pressed together, and I looked away, but I couldn’t help it. I busted out laughing, though it sent little shocks of pain through me as I shook and it jarred my wings. Rafie’s eyes went wide as he stared at me. Then he was past the surprised, and he was laughing with me. Keiran watched with a slight smile as we giggled like idiots.
A shrill, high scream interrupted out laughter. I was alert immediately; years of training made me ready to attack at a moment’s notice. A low whimpers came out of my throat as I immediately tried to move my wings. If I didn’t bind them, they were never going to heal, because my instincts had me reopening the wounds every few minutes.
“Where did that come from?” Keiran immediately looked to me, knowing my senses were sharper.
I shook my head; I hadn’t been paying enough attention. All I knew was that it came from the left. Ish. Somewhere in the general left direction.
Then another scream sounded. It was different, with a deep masculine tone- but it had the same high, panicked pitch. And it cut off in a nasty gurgling that I recognized. That I knew far too well.
“Eli!” Keiran shouted. “Where?!”
“I can lead you there, but you need to take the cuffs off. I’m not going in there helpless.”
For a moment, our eyes clashes, and I thought he was going to ignore me. Then he strode forward, pulling the key out of his pocket and swiftly undoing his cuffs. Another crystalline dagger formed in his outstretched hand; I swiped the pretty, deep blue thing from him. And then I was running, even though every pounding step sent agony flaring through me.
I shouldn’t have been running; the effects of the poison were still strong, making me woozy while my head ached. The screams weren’t helping the headache. The closer we came to them, the more I felt like I was going to pass out. But I least I didn’t have to carry Rafie; Keiran had been the one to scoop him up, taking him with us, because being with us would be safer than being alone if we lost control of the situation.
I skidded to a stop as I smelled blood. My twisted stomach couldn’t hold up to the copper sweet smell; I supported myself against a wall as I retched, acid burning my throat because it was all my stomach had to offer.
“Hurry up, we don’t have time to waste.”
I listened to Keiran’s snapping words; scrubbing the back of my hand across my mouth, I pushed away from the wall, the knife clenched tightly in my hand. My steps were faltering, and I swayed a little, but I managed to pick up my pace again when another scream sounded. It was right next to us, on the other side of the houses.
I knew it was going to hurt like hell, but it didn’t matter. I had to get the other side of the building. So I did something extremely stupid. I jumped, my pain coming out as a choked scream as my wings naturally flexed to aid my leap. If I wasn’t genetically enhanced, I wouldn’t have made it. Even the rest of the Vitals might not have made it. But jumping, flying, it was what I was made for. Still, I had to take stumbling steps across the rough roof to keep from falling flat on my face, turning the graceless motion into a run that ended with me flinging myself off the roof.
I nearly screamed as I hit the ground, and my wings tried to move again. My vision was starting to fuzz black around the edges; much more of that, and I was going to pass out in the dirt. And that would be bad, because the dirt was splattered with blood and bits of flesh.
It was easy to find the source of the carnage. I could always spot the Soulless in a crowd. Their eyes were flat, their faces expressionless and generally coated in blood. And they always turned to me when I arrived. No matter who was in their hands, in their mouth, they’d drop them for the glowing light that came from my soul.
A feral snarl rumbled out of the Soulless’s bloodstained mouth. I shifted my grip on the knife, spreading my feet slightly as I slid easily into the fighting stance that had been drilled into me in the years after the war. Something simple, something controlled to keep me from losing control and turning into an animal.
The Soulless lunged at me. The sudden movement, the bold attack, surprised me; it usually took them a minute or two, as if they had to gather their strength to attack me. I had never seen that glow in the eyes of a Soulless, a desire that went above hunger. Something all consuming, desperate, as he lunged his teeth for my throat.
I was too blinded by the pain to react, my wings crushed between me, wounds and broken bones finally bringing a scream out of me. The sound was breathless, shaking, as the Soulless bit deep into my neck.
“Damn it!”
I recognized Keiran’s voice, but I couldn’t move to fight my way to him. I should have known better than to push myself so hard when I was wounded. Stupid, I chided myself, as the Soulless flexed his jaws to sink his teeth deeper into my flesh before pulling back, tearing a chunk of flesh out of my neck. My ragged scream filled the air. More of my blood splashed to the dirt, and the scent of it made me nauseous again.
The Soulless was leaning down to take another chunk out of me when a furious shout made me jerk; a blur was all I saw, slamming into the Soulless and slamming him to the ground just past my feet. Once he stilled, I saw it was Keiran, his red dagger glinting at the sun as he raised it high over his head.
A human needed the move so they would have enough strength to get past the ribs and puncture their opponent’s heart. The Soulless wasn’t human. It moved fast, much faster, too fast for Keiran to react to- and he was the one pinned to the ground, blood and gore dripping onto his face as the Soulless growled at him.
“K-Keir-” I hadn’t known him for long. He’d attacked me, knocked me unconscious, the first two times I had seen him. Still, I was too used to being the leader, the general, and I wanted to save him. Tears streaming down my face as agony lit through me, I tried to sit up, stretching for the knife I had dropped.
A small hand snatched it before I had the chance. I caught a glimpse of Rafie’s green eyes, heard him shout a war cry, before he flung himself at the Soulless.
The monster didn’t blink. It was on its feet in a second, knocking the knife out of Rafie’s hand. Its hands clamped around Rafie’s slim shoulders, pulling him close.
The little boy screamed when the Soulless sunk its teeth into his neck. And I screamed when the Soulless tore his throat out.
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