Page 48 of Obey

“Why?” I hissed. “It didn’t have to be this way, Devil? Why did you have to take it this far? Why?”

I was so furious I could hardly see straight. So angry, so frustrated, that I could hardly hold myself together. This was all his doing. All his fault! I’d been nothing but loyal to him when we were friends, and what had he done? Set me up and sent me to prison, then tried to destroy my club while I was in there! Dogged my steps for years. Killed Tink while I was watching, then killed Brock. Kidnapped Saraya and done who knew what to her!

“Why?” I shouted.

Instead of answering, instead of doing anything to try to make it right, he just grinned at me.

I screamed and tensed to shove the knife right into his throat, but paused for a moment too long.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, holding something up for me to see.

It took too long for me to recognize what it was. Too long to focus on it and realize that it was something I needed to figure out.

Too long to realize that he’d tricked me again.

Devil was holding up a pin, the kind you pull out of a live grenade. And he was grinning like he’d finally won the battle.

I rolled off him and leapt to my feet, my instincts forcing my feet to move long before my brain had figured out that we had to. I sprinted for the car on the other end of the street and whatever shelter it might provide me, and dove to it when I thought I might be close enough.

But I was too late. Behind me, an explosion rocked the ground and the world around me disintegrated into heat, flame, and fire. I screamed in desperation, every cell in my body aiming for that car, but something in my brain told me I was already far, far too late.

I was never going to make it.

I felt a quick stabbing in my heart at the thought of never seeing Saraya again, and then everything went dark around me.

CHAPTER 22

SARAYA

THE WORLD AROUND ME exploded and I felt a heat unlike anything I’d ever known before. I’d thought the car explosion earlier was big, but this...

This felt like my skin was melting right off my body. It felt like the world had suddenly flown right into the sun, taking every one of us with it to our own deaths.

I screamed and ducked down, covering my head and trying to remember how to breathe as the heat sucked the oxygen out of the air around me. I felt as though my lungs were on fire from the inside. My heart was melting, the skin on my face and arms was bubbling. Fuck, I was going to die. This was how it ended—in a ball of flame with me cooking like a piece of meat on the ground in front of the Banshee clubhouse, where we’d been warring with the Devil’s Steed only moments ago.

The war. The clubhouse.

Devil.

Knight.

Oh damn, he was out there somewhere, in all this heat and flame. And the last time I saw him he was in the street, which meant he was totally exposed.

No shelter from the heat.

I tried to get up but found that my legs still wouldn’t work. The heat was too intense and my head was buzzing too much from the explosion for me to get my balance. On the other side of the car, everything was dead silent. The world sounded like it had been broken by the explosion.

Either that, or everyone was too shocked to make any noise.

Then the engines started again and men started yelling. I managed to get myself up to see that Devil’s guys—those of who were left alive—were running for their bikes, starting them, and then running for their lives. The Banshees were on their bikes as well, and moving to surround and pen in the members of the Steed rather than letting them get away.

They were acting like the battle was over and the Steed had lost.

What the hell was going on? The last time I saw Devil and Knight they were in the middle of the street, Devil getting the better of Knight with his quick, erratic movement and lower center of gravity. I’d been sure the whole thing was going sideways on Knight and positive that he’d have to find a way to kill Devil soon or lose everything.

Then...

Then the whole world had gone red and orange with fire and I’d dropped to the ground to try to protect myself from the heat.