AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I blinked, nodded, offered him the knife. “Can you get this one? They magicked me, and I think my aim is off.”
“Sure,” he said, and sawed through the vines.
“What... was the noise?” I asked, opening and closing my eyes again until he had only a single head.
“I sacrificed the Auto parked outside.”
“They hacked my Auto account.”
“Yep. You didn’t show this morning, and we couldn’t reach you. Lulu found your katana outside her apartment when she came back from a run, called me. And then Petra checked youraccount and learned they brought you here. She says she’s sorry about the hacking. And you should change your password. But not until she makes sure you aren’t charged for the entire car.”
“I will do that... at the first opportunity. What’s a little privacy violation between friends?”
“My thought,” he said with a smile. “We reported this to the CPD, but dispatch is overwhelmed because of Lincoln Park and the looting and the protests. But let’s discuss that elsewhere.”
We ran across the yard, fairies shouting behind us.
“Doors!” I said, when we got into the gatehouse, and we grunted as we pushed them closed, then flipped the steel bar down to give us more time. Then we ran through the building to the outer wall. And I stared at the empty lawn.
“Where’s your car?”
“Outside the gate,” Theo said as we took off down the stone path.
“You couldn’t park next to the door?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to drive on their lawn. That seemed rude.”
“Theykidnappedme.”
“We don’t all have to be assholes.”
We’d made it twenty feet when something whistled over us. We both covered our heads, then stared when an arrow pierced the grass in front of us, still quivering with energy.
Another whistle, and a second arrow pierced the grass a few feet to our right.
“Figures they’ve got damn arrows,” Theo muttered. “Let’s haul ass.”
We pushed harder, arms pumping as arrows whistled through the air like angry hornets. I was faster than Theo, and I was working up a nice lead when I heard the muffled scream of pain behind me.
I looked back. Theo was on the ground, an arrow through his thigh, pinning him to the ground.
“Oh, damn,”I said, and ran back, sidestepping another arrow that nearly tagged my calf.
“Shit,” Theo said as I went to my knees beside him. “Shit.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a little bit of a problem,” I said, and looked it over. The arrow had gone right through the middle of his thigh, spilling blood across the ground.Not enough,I thought,to have nicked his femoral artery.But enough to worry about.
Blood scented the air like wine. And that was enough to silver my eyes.
“Oh, damn,” Theo said, his pupils enormous. Shock was going to be a concern if I didn’t hurry. “You’re not going to—”
“Bite you?” I said with a grin, trying to keep the mood as light as possible. “No. It’s just a reaction to the blood.”
I fought to keep my fangs from descending, as I didn’t want his heart pumping harder than it already was. The point was to keep the blood inside him. Not on the ground, and not in me.
An arrow whistled above us. I ignored it, made myself focus on the arrow that had already become a problem. The shaft was probably a quarter-inch in diameter, and the diameter stayed the same from top to bottom. Based on the length of the other arrows around us, it embedded in the ground four or five inches.
There wasn’t going to be an easy way to do this. Not without pain, and not without risking further injury or keeping him in the open for longer than was safe.
