I Made That Taffy My Bitch
My awareness divided. I remained only vaguely aware of my surroundings, as if they were the dreamspace instead of whatever bizarre shit was happening within my mind. The multitude of Magnums faded until I was cognizant only of two: the one who gripped my arms so unyieldingly that my shoulders were easing from their joints, and the one clasping my head with crushing force. His fingers squeezed my skull so brutally that I briefly considered it might be my end. With my skull shattered, bone splintering into my brain, and my crew already incapacitated, there’d be no one left to revive any of us—assuming that Magnum was lying and we actually could still return from the dead.
The pain—so acute, so devastatingly unbearable—nearly yanked me from the Sky People clamoring for my attention. But with my eyes squeezed shut, they were all I saw. I fought the agonizing touch of the two Magnums.
“Give it to me,” Skullcrusher snarled, his breath hot and revolting near my mouth. “Give me your power. All of it. All you have left.”
A sensation as of warm taffy stretching from my mind’s eye and into Skullcrusher’s was nauseating. I might not understand precisely who or what the Sky People were, or what all Magnum and his alien-looking bitches were, but I knew down to my bones that I shouldn’t be surrendering a single iota of mylushe, as he called it.
It was my essence, my light, my life force, I suspected, perhaps even my actual soul. Mylushewas whatever made me who and how I was. It was that part of me that marked me as alushina—a Sky People.
Regardless of what it might cost me or my crew, I couldn’t allow him to take any more than he already had.
I resisted. Iwilledmyself to hold on to mylushe. The light bodies of the Sky People behind my eyelids shifted from the tall, thin outlines that suggested humanoid physiques to a smattering of light and color, blending together.
Pursing my lips, I battled to keep what belonged to me.
Not to him.
To me.
To fuckingme.
First, I envisioned tugging my energy back into myself, and when that didn’t work, severing the flow of it entirely.
Butdammit, it turned out that wishing and willing weren’t enough. Not even close.
More of mylushesnaked from me to this hideous creature sheathed inside a man.
The more I resisted, and the more it did no fucking good, the more I panicked. The more I nearly succumbed to the pain begging me to do something to protect my body from harm.
“Yes, that’s it. That’s it!” Skullcrusher said on a delighted, airy laugh. “Let it flow. Don’t hold back. Empty yourself.”
Like hell I would.
Though it seemed insurmountable, I pushed away my pain. I didn’t exactly succeed in not feeling it, but it did dull just a little.And that just a little turned out to be enough to once again hear the Sky People. Their light bodies again took more precise form.
They were fighting as hard as I was to stop the violation that was underway. The soothing, beautiful melody I heard from them the night before was replaced by jagged screeches. Calls to action, I realized—alarm too.
So then what Magnum was doing must be even worse than I guessed, with far-reaching implications beyond me as an individual.
Mylushewas a flowing river. Its current was picking up speed, draining me all the faster.
At some point, despite the danger to my body, I couldn’t help but sag into Shoulderwrencher’s grip. It loosened. Eventually, I discovered myself on my knees, with Skullcrusher kneeling across from me, murmuring skin-crawling encouragements while softening his crushing hold on my head, just slightly—maybe to keep me from passing out.
“That’s it. Just like that, yes, yes. Keep going.” His voice was already gloating and celebratory.
My head lolled, held up only by Skullcrusher’s forehead against mine. When had he removed his hands from my skull?
Vaguely, as if from whole oceans away, I heard screams, breaking glass, smashing furniture, and gunfire, pained cries, and thosepops that had delivered our enemy right into our midst.
For many years I’d worked to learn how to defend myself and those I loved—with my body, with skills and weapons of this world. How was I to protect us from powers beyond thisworld?
My entire body went limp for long enough to startle me, to tug me fully back into it.
If I didn’t do something now—like right the hell now—there would be no second chances for me—or for Griff, Lay, Hunt, or Brade. Everyone I loved would vanish from this world—Bobo, too, probably.
My breaths were coming in ragged wheezes I experienced only abstractly. Skullcrusher kept up his victorious commentary, but I barely heard it.
