AllFreeNovel
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“No one will understand you now, Nine!” my awful predicament made him bellow. “Whoever comes through those doors next—your people or my orcs—all they’ll see is me, here, wearing this,” he said, scraping a tattered handful of his acid-burned shirt off his chest. “And the dumb fucking spider who went wild, tortured his friend and ward, and tossed a helicopter off a building.”
Him saying that made me pause, because he wasn’t wrong, and he couldn’t stop laughing. “People may be scared of me, Nine, but they’re fucking terrified of you.”
He was right—so I had to take my advantage quickly. I jumped onto him, knocking him down. Before he could fight back, I bit into his arm, savaging it like a dog. He howled andswiped me blindly, catching his fingers on my face as I tried again to disembowel him with my front legs. I could tell my story later, Sloane would back me up, and I could explain the videos—I just needed to get the chance to speak was all.
Somehow I’d made Sloane understand me in the tunnels and caverns beneath Threadstone—but I knew no one else in this city would give me that long.
And sensing the tenor of our fight had changed, Shiranak became more desperate—especially because it was clear I was going to win. He finally repelled me, his dark green blood coating my face and chest, and he cradled his now-broken and useless limb.
“Fuck you, Nine,” he said. “Just you wait?—”
And then the elevator tower doors opened.
A man who I’d only seen on TV before emerged behind my webbing. Arcus Marlow—and he had a flame thrower with him. I heard it kick on and watched him burn through the webs I’d left to block the door.
“Get the fuck back!” Arcus shouted, stepping forward, once he’d charred through. I did as I was told, making sure that I retreated in Sloane and Ellum’s direction.
“The spider’s gone mad, Mr. Marlow!” Shiranak shouted. “He threw the helicopter and its pilot over the building and attacked me!” He waved his bleeding arm as evidence, and I knew how he’d play it—he’d say Sloane had been in the helicopter when she died.
And I could say absolutely nothing.
It wasn’t even worth hissing and clicking.
There was no chance Sloane’s father would understand me.
Perhaps in that, my love and I were alike.
“Give me the flamethrower,” Shiranak pleaded.
And because Arcus believed him, he took it off and set it down. Shiranak hoisted his arms through the straps with a pained grunt, and pointed the dangerous end of it at me.
I stepped sideways at once. I couldn’t let him burn through Sloane and Ellum’s webbed anchor points.
But then half a second later, I stepped back.
Because Shiranak seemed like the kind of fool who’d go flame-happy and the only thing I had left to protect them with was my body.
“I’d rather do this slowly, Nine, but...” Shiranak said, balancing the barrel of the flamethrower above where I’d bitten him, with his opposite hand on the trigger.
He pulled it. I braced for immolation and—nothing happened.
He pulled it again and again, making it click repeatedly, before he pulled it off and threw it at the ground in front of him. Arcus stepped back into the elevator doorway behind himself and hit the button to summon it.
“My daughter’s down there, Shiranak,” he said. The elevator door opened behind him, and he stepped back into it, illuminated by its light. “And you would’ve killed her, without a second thought.”
“What?” Shiranak looked pretended to be horrified. “He could attack you! At any moment!” He waved his good remaining arm at me.
Only I wasn’t going to—not until I figured out what the fuck was going on.
Then I watched Arcus Marlow make the Arachnaea circle gesture of mating at me, before holding up a button and waving me back, just as the elevator doors began to close, and I realized what was happening.
I hurled myself over the edge of the tower, lacing myself to anything I could, furiously, while my feet scrabbled against steel and glass until they found traction—as all the flamethrower fuel Shiranak had thrown to the ground went off like a bomb behind me, making fire shoot out. I heard Sloane scream, Ellum shout, and I smelled webbing burning—but I had both of them in my arms before anything fell free, as pieces of cooked orc were shot off of the tower in all directions.
I paused for a moment to reassess our safety.
“Are you okay, my love?” I asked Sloane, even though she couldn’t understand me.
“Nia’n’an!” she squealed, happily wrapping her arms around my neck. She climbed me like a playground toy, until she was safely on my thorax, leaning against my back, where I could web her in.
