Page 145 of Tailwind

I put my arm around Josie, giving her a half-hug that didn’t come close to fixing our problems.

‘Are you happy now?’

Our peace was short-lived, because waiting for us in the darkness was Thorne.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Thorne leaned against one of the fragile stone columns, sunlight coming through the crumbled window behind him. He was silhouetted, but I knew that armour – it was mine too.

‘We should go,’ Josie muttered to me. In the empty quiet of the pillar, it felt too loud.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not letting him push me around anymore.’

I felt her tense. ‘Fine. Put your helmet on and don’t die, I’m going to get help.’

The arm I had around her dropped. Knowing better than to ignore one of her ideas, I slid my helmet back on to my head. I blocked Thorne’s view of Josie as she left, staying between them.

‘Not going to scurry away with your little friend?’ Thorne pushed off the column and stalked forward. ‘Looks like I have a time limit for our little talk. Every day those prissy medics kept me in that place I thought about how I’d pay you back.’

He all but cracked his knuckles as he approached. The helmet had been a good idea. I felt my suit come back to life as it connected together, ready to take the impact that Thorne was about to dole out.

‘You want to fight? Fine. We both know how it turned out last time.’ I edged to the side, keeping myself out of arm’s reach.

He laughed and pushed down his faceplate. ‘It’s a little different than last time though, isn’t it? Little bitch doesn’t have a dragon to defend her.’

I pushed down my own faceplate and curled my hands into fists. ‘I know you’re arrogant, Thorne, but not even you can get through this armour.’

His laugh echoed out from inside his helmet. ‘Can’t I?’

He reached on to his back and pulled off his weapon hilt. It clicked into his palm and lit with a flourishing orange light into a gigantic great sword.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’

He ran at me, swinging the sword down over his head, aiming for mine. I swerved out of the way, narrowly missing the sword, nearly blinded by the light of it flashing past my face. Thorne wanted to kill me.

He swung the sword again and again. I barely moved out of the way in time, the absurd reach of the weapon gaining on me. Whatever time I had before Josie got back wasn’t enough.

So I reached for the hilt stored on my back.

It clicked into my palm with a comforting familiarity. The axe sprang from the hilt just as I brought it up to block another attack. The glowing blades clashed, the light repelling against itself. My visor dimmed, filtering out the light as it pressed up to my face.

‘I was going to deal with you over summer.’ He spat the words through his helmet. ‘But you went and disappeared. Coming back here was a mistake, one I’m going to correct.’

Thorne ripped away. I stumbled forward and scrambled for balance, but ran out of time before Thorne was on me again. He hit down with the great sword, going for the overhead swing again. I lifted my axe up, the shaft taking the hit and sending me down on to one knee.

I cracked against the ground hard enough that my armour sent the reverberations all over my body. The smooth stone floor of the pillar gave my boots nothing to grip on to. I tried pushing back against the sword, but it only resulted in my toes slipping.

I rolled out instead. For one horrifying moment I was on my back, exposed. Thorne towered over me and drove his sword into the ground next to my head, not even an inch away. I slammed my foot into the side of his knee and promised to never complain about Bach’s combat training again.

I scrambled back on to my feet and brandished my axe. My shoulders heaved in time with my breaths.

Thorne let the tip of the sword graze the ground as he came for the next assault. Stones scattered against my armour as he swung it upwards. Using the cracked stone tiles for grip, I hooked his blade with the axehead and kept the sword moving past me, throwing Thorne off balance.

I may have had youth and months of training on my side, but Thorne was the healthiest he’d been in years thanks to me and he didn’t seem to have any morals to hold him back.

‘You’re really going to try and kill me here? I get trying to fake a race accident, but death by giant orange sword? It’s going to be more obvious than your cheating.’ Thorne was beyond reasoning with, but there was nothing like goading someone to force a mistake.

His head whipped up. I heard a grunt from inside his helmet as he charged, his sword dragging behind him.