AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I do my best to look terrified and frozen until the very moment he reaches me, at which I duck down, sidestep, and push him past me into another person. Immediately, the two of them start to fight. Hopefully, to anyone watching, that looked like me trying to jump away at the last minute rather than a practiced move.
I try to move through the crowd as much as I can, making sure there’s always something more exciting to watch near me while doing my best to avoid getting dragged into the action myself.
There are knives and rocks in play now. The soldiers must have thrown them in to make the whole thing more fun. There’s blood everywhere, and I’m nearly deafened by the screams of people fighting and dying.
I see an older man standing over by the edge of the stage. For some reason, my eyes linger on him. And then suddenly, the tip of a knife bursts through his chest, then pulls back. He falls sideways, revealing the teen boy holding the knife and glaring straight at me.
As he runs at me, I duck behind a woman, and he attacks her instead. Someone else tries to hit me in the head with something heavy, and I only just barely manage to jump out of the way. I add a little stumble at the end which I hope looks convincing.
Someone dressed in a dull red shirt leaps at me, and I end up grappling with them. I spin around, hurling them backward into another woman who seems to have found another knife.
There are fewer and fewer people now, and more and more blood. It’s harder and harder to be ignored. I’m doing my best to stay in the background now, as far away from anyone as I can.
Someone else swings something at me. I dodge it. They follow me, but I lead them into someone else, who kills them with a single blow.
And then, finally, it’s just me and the teen boy. He’s pointing his knife at me and moving slowly closer. The knife is much too far from his body. No form or caution at all.
He’s just a kid, I think.Just a scared, angry kid.
But everybody’s watching now. There’s no chance of pulling off a fake kill again. The best I can do is leave him too wounded to keep fighting. Maybe someone will help him. Maybe.
“We don’t have to do this,” I say, trying to sound as desperate as I can. “If you just put down the weapon…”
But it’s too late. He charges at me.
I turn around as if I’m trying to run. With one hand, I cover my eyes, making the gesture as big and quick as I possibly can to draw people’s eyes toward it.
With the other, I grab his wrist and push his knife into his own chest.
That’s when I see him, standing in the audience.
He’s a tall naga, with orange scales covering his body and a deep pink tone to the hood around his head that reminds me of a sunset. His limbs are long and graceful, and his scales reach a deeper orange near his hands and feet. His eyes are bright yellow and sharp, and they’re fixed directly on me.
He saw everything I did, I realize without question. The others might be fooled, but not him.
“Well, well, well,” says the captain in gold. “Looks like we have a winner.”
I don’t even pay attention to him. I take off as quickly as I can, trying to lose myself in the crowd.
It’s not the soldiers I’m running from. It’s that beautiful naga with the sunshine eyes.
Why am I calling a naga beautiful? There’s nothing beautiful about them. Only there was something beautiful about him. Not just physically, although he was certainly attractive for one of them. There was an intelligence to him, a wisdom.
I glance quickly over my shoulder.
He’s following me.
What really surprises me is that some piece of me is relieved to see him pursuing me. Even though he’s a naga, there’s something in me that wants to know more about him and what he wants with me.
LORELAI
WHY IS HE FOLLOWING ME?
Ican’t think of any immediate reason. Obviously, he’s seen what I can do. He knows that I’m more than a simple human. I can tell that much just from the sharpness of his gaze. But that’s a better reason not to follow me, at least, on its own. If I could defeat all of those humans without even needing any weapons, what would I do to a naga who follows me somewhere I’m free to use them?
Time to lose him, I tell myself, starting to move towards the right side of the street. I do it as carefully and gradually as I can, drifting just slightly and making sure to always dodge people to the right and never to the left. Hopefully, I’ll already be in position by the time he even notices what I’m doing.
I can’t help noticing that he’s good at following. He doesn’t follow me with his gaze, which would make it too obvious, but he keeps track. His pace is brisk. Not fast enough that it stands out on the street and makes him look suspicious, but quick enough to keep up with me.
