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Like a flash of lightning, Nox’s smokey form dashed behind Jonas, who furiously slashed backward in hopes of grazing Nox with the monstrous knife. My eyes widened with anxiety as Nox vanished into mist, avoiding the blade. Jonas spun himself back around, looking for where Nox vanished to, waving the knife in all directions in hopes of nicking the shadow-man wherever he would manifest next. Nox cleverly appeared along the ground, below Jonas’s slices, and knocked his feet out from under him, sending Jonas tumbling backward.
“One mistake, and you’remine,” Jonas hissed through gritted teeth as he rose to his feet.
“Then I better not make any mistakes,” Nox responded as he manifested himself floating over Jonas’s head, teasing the terrible man away from Thorn.
“Ruse, please,” I whispered to the octopus embracing me, pulling my gaze away from Nox’s performance. He was buying me time, and I had to do something. “Don’t do this. You’re so much more than that asshole’s pawn, and you’re so close to being free from this place. Let me go. Please.”
Ruse’s pleading eyes were struggling against his body and the power of the blade.
I looked up past Jonas and saw Thorn still pressed against the wall next to the front door, trying to steer clear of the knife Jonas kept slashing about in frantic attempts to land a hit on the elusive Nox. We locked eyes, and I made a “come here” gesture with my head.
Ruse tightened his tentacled grip around me, making it harder to breathe as Thorn rushed back up the stairs and leapt over the side of the balcony to me.
“Help me get him off!” I said in a panic. “And then help me find the gun.”
In response to my request for assistance, Ruse shifted into a massive boa constrictor and wrapped his entire thick body around me. Even though I could see the regret in his eyes, he was incapable of disobeying the orders Jonas set for him. Thorn dug his mighty skeletal talons deep into the side of the boa and began to try to yank him off of me with furious pulls as the snake hissed loudly in pain.
The abrupt change in shape and noise got Jonas’s attention, and he immediately ran toward Thorn with his knife at the ready, abandoning his attempts to slash Nox. The shadow creature acted quickly and used one black tendril to pull Jonas away from Thorn by his feet, causing the man to slam onto the ground, bashing his face. Jonas rolled to his back and slashed downward furiously to try to cut the tendril away from his feet with the cursed knife, but Nox withdrew each tendril before the knife could land.
Both Nox and Thorn struggled. Ruse’s muscular boa body tightened around me as Thorn frantically yanked and pulled with every ounce of strength he could muster. Nox did everything he could to keep Jonas away from the distracted Thorn. Each time Jonas would make progress toward us, Nox would yank him back with swift pulls, forcing the man to collapse in his pursuit and take another slash at Nox’s snakelike tendrils.
Nox lifted Jonas quickly by the ankle with one spindly tendril and threw him hard into the living room. I heard Jonas’s body slam hard against the floor before Nox rushed forward to try to help Thorn free me from Ruse’s constrictive prison with whatever time he’d bought us.
“You’re okay, Logan. You’re going to be okay,” Nox insisted as it became harder and harder for me to breathe. I watched as several tendrils wrapped around the massive snake’s throat and pulled, trying to best the serpent with their own strategy.
“No, she is not,” the murderous voice of Jonas said from behind me. I couldn’t see him, but the cold muzzle of a gun pressing against my temple told me everything. I could see the knife flashing in his other hand, forcing my allies to keep their distance. Nox had dropped his guard just a second too long, and now Jonas had the upper hand.
“One shitty move from either of you disgusting creatures, and I’ll blow her brains out,” Jonas spat.
Jonas had found the gun. Things had to be over now. I closed my eyes and waited for death either by suffocation or a bullet to the head, whichever came first.
“Now let me just get alittlecut in—” Jonas said as he slashed toward Thorn, who only barely dodged the edge of the blade swung at him.
Suddenly, I was blessed with lungs full of air. I fell only a foot or so to the ground as Ruse loosened his serpent’s grip around my middle.
“Logan!” he shouted with relief, and I witnessed a glimmer ofmyRuse’s eyes as I dropped to the floor.
Everything moved so quickly. It was like all three monsters worked together in a blink of an eye. Ruse dropped me to the ground, forcing Jonas to shift his attention, just as Thorn and Nox sensed their opening and threw their weight into him from either side. Their opposing shoves threw his body into whiplash, and Jonas grunted as the air was shoved from his lungs. The impact forced his grip open as he was sandwiched between the monsters, and both the gun and the knife dropped to the floor.
Immediately, Jonas began to struggle. Without any weapons, he was forced to utilize pure chaos as his final weapon. He kicked and thrashed and threw his arms every which way, as Nox and Thorn tried to find a grip on the frantic man while dodging his rogue kicks and elbows.
“Get it, get it, get it, get it!” Ruse shrieked as I scrambled to the ground, doing my best to collect the weapons before anything worse could happen. Jonas screamed while thrashing about like a fish on a dock against Nox and Thorn, trying to drop from their grip.
“What the fuck, Ruse!?” I yelled, confused about what side he was on. I scanned the floor, trying to get eyes oneitherweapon.
“He was gonna hurt you!” Ruse yelled back. I could see what looked like tears pooling in the well of his eyes, despite his snake-like form. “I couldn’t let him do that! The desire to protect you was… It was more important than anything. Logan, the fact that Icouldprotect you feels magnificent. It feels like it’s not real.”
The warm feeling in my heart was interrupted when I saw the flash of Jonas’s knife blade spinning just past a distracted Ruse and the commotion after Jonas’s heel kicked it backward.
“Move!” I hollered as I quickly shoved past a very confused snake-Ruse on all fours before pouncing on the knife. It felt powerful in my hand, perfectly weighted and slightly heavy.
My command to move must have startled Thorn and Nox as well because, within a moment, Jonas successfully wriggled himself out of their weak grips and clumsily charged after me.
Ruse quickly shifted into a kangaroo, launching himself between Jonas and me before popping back on his tail in front of Jonas and kicking one of his massive feet out, pummeling Jonas square in the stomach. The man launched backward and slammed to the floor with a painful smack. Unable to get up, Jonas writhed around on the floor, gasping for air.
“That’s one way to do it,” I said, unable to contain a snicker.
“I’ve always wanted to try that,” Ruse admitted with a jolly bounce on his heels.
