“What’s that mean for us?” I ask him.
“It means we’re in trouble,” Havoc admits.
His power snaps out and wraps around Stryker, wrapping him up with golden rope. Stryker laughs and Havoc suddenly slumps, his power blinking out temporarily as Stryker drinks from him. Havoc snarls and hits the ground, but he’s back up again before I can even reach to help him up. Which is good, because I have only a second to move to the right, avoiding Stryker’s outstretched hand. The move separates Havoc and me again, and Stryker follows after me, not even bothering to pay any attention to the Warden.
“What the fuck is your problem with me?” I snarl at the Leech, keeping distance between us.
“Problem?” he repeats, laughing. “I don’t have a problem with you, Beastie. I have an obsession.” He sniffs deeply, like he’s smelling me on the air. “You tasted so divine in the Shatterlands. I need to know if you still taste just as good now that you’ve leveled up.”
“Would you leave me alone if I gave you a taste?” I ask him.
He chuckles. “I won’t stop at just a taste,” he admits. “I’ll drain you dry, desperate to have just a little more.”
“That seems fucked up,” I point out. “To kill your obsession.”
He shrugs. “I will not apologize for my nature.”
I’d watched him drain just a little bit from Havoc without touching him, but he doesn’t do that with me. It seems to be the chase that keeps him going, that makes him hold back. He wants to touch me to drain me. He wants to sip from me while I’m in his arms.
Which gives me an advantage.
My eyes flick to Havoc where he stalks Stryker from behind and I shake my head almost imperceivably. He blinks and then seems to realize what I had. Stryker isn’t draining me. He’s chasing.
Havoc nods and lingers back. He tips up his chin and touches his neck.
I frown and back away from Stryker as he pushes me toward the catwalk, separating me from the others. I let him. If I’m separated, it means they’re safe.
“This does not seem like a good idea,” Svetlana murmurs. “We are in danger,Umnitsa.”
“Trust me,” I breathe.
“I do,” she says. “Like sixty percent.”
Havoc touches his neck again and wraps a hand around it, trying to tell me something. At my confused expression, he throws up his hands and points at Locke, then at his neck, then does a little shimmy and flutters his eyelashes. It’s a move that shocks me so much, I stop moving.
“What?” I say, flabbergasted.
“The fucking collar!” Havoc snarls. “Fucking hell!”
Oh. Oh!
“Pretty, pretty, Beastie,” Stryker coos as he follows me onto the catwalk. “Let me have a taste. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
“You’ll have to catch me first,” I purr back at him, before I turn and start to run.
“Oh,” he breathes, “I like this.”
I turn to the right when the catwalk opens in a four-way crossing as I sprint away from the Leech. I open my inventory as I run, pop my Fang away, before I drag out the collar and shove it into my pocket. If I’m going to get it around his neck, I’m going to have to get close. And the only way to do that is to get caught.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Svetlana says. “Or else we are going to die. I do not want to die. I have not even beheaded a human man yet.”
“We’re not dying,” I reassure her. “But . . . we are going to take a hit to make sure we don’t.”
She sighs. “I am prepared.”
I look over my shoulder and don’t see Stryker. For this to work, he needs to think he’s caught me. I can’t run into his arms. He’d be suspicious, though something tells me he wouldn’t care enough to turn me away.
“Here, Leechy, Leechy, Leechy,” I call. “I bet it would please you to know I dreamed about you.”
