I fling myself forward, just as a lightning-like bolt smacksinto the weapon from thin air.
An instant later, nothing remains but a lump of fused metal and a grimly satisfied smile on Worth’s face.
The woman hisses through her teeth. “You… You already have it. Even worse than they thought.”
The pieces click together in my head. She shot Elodie, but Elodie’s glim rebounded the fatal wound back to her.
Near-fatal. This bitch isn’t dead yet.
And she knows more about my match than could possibly be safe.
Without another thought, my switchblade is in my hand. Pressing the enchanted control on the handle, I flick it out to sword length.
I lunge like I would at a void creature.
The blade slams straight through the woman’s neck. A flare of light—some kind of magical defensive measure, maybe—streaks through the room, too late to do her any good.
As I blink the glow from my eyes, her head has rolled over, slack features hidden in the now-much-larger pool of blood.
“Cosgrave!” Worth blurts out with obvious chagrin. Asher’s mouth has set in a queasy line.
When I look at Elodie again, her eyes have blown wide with horror.
My gut twists tight.
I tuck my weapon away and bend down to scoop her into my arms. “I had to. She knew too much—she’d tell other people. She already tried to kill you.”
To my surprise, it’s Professor Raith who backs me up. “It needed to be done. Now let’s get out of here before anyone else realizes what happened.”
I don’t need the suggestion twice. I’m already running up the stairs I made with Elodie tucked tight in my embrace.
The other guys can think whatever they want about me. If I have to be the one to do the dirtiest work, so be it.
Because I’ll do whatever it takes to get my match through another day.
Thirty-Six
Elodie
The physical pain has left my body, but my glim didn’t touch the adrenaline still jangling my nerves and the emotional anguish pealing through my chest.
For the first few seconds as Salvatore hurtles out of the basement room, I can only press my face against his broad chest and will away the memories.
My efforts don’t work. The images play on a loop: the panic of suffocation, the blaring agony of the bullet cutting through my back, the heady rush of magic. The woman lying bleeding from the injury that had been mine, whole and then head severed with the hiss of a blade and a flash of eerie light.
I didn’t want anyone else to die because of me. I’ve tried so hard to keep all the horrors from my old life out of this one…
Cole’s harsh voice cuts through my jumbled thoughts. “You have to put it back. If theysee?—”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but Salvatore’s arms tense around me.
A thrum of magic flows out of his body with the deeper resonance of a glim rather than the tickling of external ephemera.
I lift my head and realize that we’re somehow in the lane behind the dance club. I don’t remember any doors opening. How?—?
“There,” Salvatore says, his own voice gruff. “Now let’s get her the fuck away from these pricks. My car’s closest.”
As he jogs down the lane past the backs of the neighboring buildings, I shift in his arms. The tackiness of the bloody fabric against my skin makes me grimace, but nothing beneath my clothes is hurt. “I’m okay. You can put me down.”
