The hatchet’s weight pulled my arm wide; I wasn’t clean or precise. But the blade still caught his forearm with a sick, meaty thunk. He howled, stumbling sideways, clutching the sudden blossom of red.
“You fuckingbitch,”he gasped, staring at the blood on his hand like it was a betrayal.
“Yeah, I’m a bitch,” I panted. “And you still can’t handle me.”
My vision tunnelled in and out as I ripped the hatchet out of his arm. I could feel how much blood I’d already lost from the gash in my leg. My hands were slick on the handle, and I accidentally dropped it into the wet moss.
“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance,” I said, my voice shaking but loud. “Because if I’m really the Alchemist’s daughter, you better fucking run.”
The hatchet lay in the dirt between us now, a dark, blood-slick shape beside the torn photo. We both saw it and lunged.
I was slower. My injured leg buckled. But I grabbed the hatchet in one swift motion.
He crashed into me, shoving me back into the tree. A strangled sound ripped from his throat. The massive gash along his forearm tore wider; fresh blood spilled, spattering onto the leaves.
For a split second, his grip faltered.
The hatchet slipped from my fingers.
Jackson’s hand clamped down on the handle instead, knuckles whitening around it even as blood poured down his wrist, his arm, dripping from his elbow in thick streams. His face tightened in pain, lips peeling back from his teeth—but beneath it, something like exhilaration flickered.
We were nose-to-nose, blood streaming down his face fromhis broken nose, his expression twisted, ecstatic. The hatchet’s blade gleamed between us, flecks of red already drying along the edge.
“You think this ends here?” he panted, every breath hitching over the pain in his arm. “TheAlliancedoesn’t stop. You’ll play this game for years, until you’re finally ready to move to the next stage.” He grinned through a grimace, a wet, shaky smile. “And guess what? I’ll be there every step of the way.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders with his good hand and what was left of the other, and slammed my skull against the tree. A sharp, shrill ringing burst through my ears. The world wavered, then tilted sideways.
I slid down the trunk and hit the ground. The sky above was a smear of twilight and branches, blurring as my vision wobbled.
I let it blur.
I let my mind split open.
For just a second, I wasn’t here. I wasn’t in the dirt with Jackson’s shadow looming over me and a hatchet in his hand. I was at the lake. Max’s heartbeat under my cheek. His voice. His eyes when he thought I wasn’t watching.
“I love you,” I whispered into the ringing, to no one and to him. “I love you so much.”
But clinging to Max wasn’t enough. Not now. Not with the hatchet in Jackson’s grip and blood screaming through his veins like fuel.
I wasn’t the broken girl.
I was the storm.
A small white moth fluttered just above my face, its wings catching the faint light. I fixated on it. I focused on the softness of its movement, the impossible calm in its flight.
And then I twisted my body and got up.
Summoning everything left in me, I drove my elbow back, hard, into Jackson’s temple as he reached down for me.He snarled, reeling sideways. His injured arm spasmed; he nearly dropped the hatchet.
I pushed off the tree, shoving my knee into his gut. Pain screamed up my own leg, but he folded with a wheeze, breath exploding out of him.
I clawed, shoved, and kicked. I fought like someone who had already died once and refused to do it again.
I scrambled to my feet, dragging myself upright on the tree trunk. Every nerve screamed.
He was already pushing up too, unsteady but grinning, teeth red. Blood poured from his arm in sick, rhythmic pulses, running over his wrist to slick the hatchet’s handle again. His fingers trembled just to keep hold of it. I couldn’t believe he was still fighting.
“You can’t outrun what you are,” he rasped, staggering toward me. Each step was a lurch, his wounded arm hanging a little lower, the hatchet wobbling in his grip.
