AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maybe if I could stun him, make him stop for long enough, I could get away. The last thing I wanted was to fight him. When Yas leapt again, I deflected him, dropping and rolling to the ground, snatching the pitchfork from the dirt. “Please don’t make me do this. ”
“You guys. ” Toby tried to insert himself between us. “What the hell?”
Yas elbowed him with enough force to send the big, corn-fed boy reeling. “Don’t. Help. Her. ” His voice had become an animal growl.
I tightened my grip on the tool. Even in my numbed hands, the wood was reassuring.
I thought of Sonja. Ruler of vampires. Had there truly been such a woman? Even if she hadn’t been strong enough to rule vampires in truth, then at least she’d had the guts to carve it into rock. Thinking of her words, imagining her, gave me courage. Sonja—if there was a woman who’d been that powerful, then I could be powerful, too.
I tossed the fork up and held it in my two hands like a fighting stick. No longer a farm tool, it was a javelin. A lance. A sword. A weapon.
Yas aimed a roundhouse kick at my head, and the stick deflected him easily. I jabbed his belly. I could’ve hurt him, but didn’t. Hurting my old friend was harder than I’d ever have believed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
The Draug were really losing it now. Could that be my fear they smelled? And was it fear for myself or fear of what had become of my friend?
Rob took that opportunity to moan. He was fading in and out, his breathing a bloody gurgle. The Draug shrieked in response, rattling their iron bars in their hinges.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck. ” Toby was really flipping out now.
“Just get out of here,” I shot at him.
But instead of fleeing, he squatted and scooped up a rock. A coldly self-preservational part of my brain noted how Trainees didn’t carry weapons. Did vampires not carry weapons, either? Were they that proud? That arrogant? Something to consider…if I survived this.
Toby hefted that rock, and for a chilling moment it was unclear who it was for. Because, for a moment, his eyes were cold on me. Had he not wanted Yasuo to fight me because he didn’t want to fight me? Would one Trainee side with another, no matter what?
My musings were cut short when Yasuo swept a foot toward my ankle, but I managed to react in time, clocking his knee with my stick.
“Right wrongs,” he intoned.
I knew better than anyone how wronged we’d all been. But what if I were the one to set it all to right? This Sonja had become my heroine. My Wonder Woman. If Yasuo wanted wrongs righted, I’d be the one to do it. I parried him again. “Not if I right them first. ”
He peeled his lips into a snarl. “Go to hell. ”
“Oh, I’m there. ” I jabbed him with the fork, but I hadn’t used enough force to budge through the thick wool of his coat. “Careful, or I might bring you with me. ”
“There’s been a wrong,” Yasuo said.
“Not that again. ” I jabbed again, and this time he took a step backward. I had the brief and disturbing thought that I might be able to herd him as the most mindless of Draug were herded.
“There has been a wrong, and I will right it. ”
“You do that, Yas. ”
He froze, staring at me as though trying to remember why he was there.
“What’s he doing?” Toby asked.
“Losing it. ” I shot farm boy a look. What was he going to do with that rock?
“It’s your fault. ” Yasuo addressed me, speaking in a wondering sort of voice.
“It’s nobody’s fault. ” Toby inserted himself between us, his tone aggressively soothing, like he was trying to calm a crazy street person. “Let it go, man. ” But he still gripped that stone, his eyes flicking back and forth, returning to me over and over like I was a bomb he might have to detonate. “We don’t have to fight her. ”
My heartbeat amped up a notch, my body preparing for something my mind hadn’t yet grasped. “What do you mean, We?”
“Ignore her,” Yasuo shouted, ignited once more. He shouldered Toby aside, pinning me with a murderous glare. “She’s selfish. She’s a killer. ”
“Fuck it,” Toby said. “It’s just a girl. ”
