Broken(29)
Her arms pinwheeled as she hit the glass windows on the far side of the living room. I advanced on her without fear now, her hands smearing bloody streaks on the glass as she used it to keep herself from falling. I shot her again, this time in the right thigh, and I saw the glass crack as the bullet traversed her body and went out the other side. She fell hard against the window, causing a spider web of cracks to spread from where the bullet had torn through it, and she forced herself to turn to face me. Blood oozed out of her mouth, down her pale chin, and I could see every single wound I had put in her, the agony writ on her expression. She clenched teeth outlined in blood as she lay there against the window, half-turned to face me.
“Looks like … I was wrong … about you … “ she said, and a bubble of blood formed on her lips as she spoke. “You’re not … as weak as I thought you were. You always … hesitated before … at what needed to be done.”
I shot her again, this time through the left shoulder, and she screamed, though I couldn’t really hear it as the sound of the shot subsided. “I got over that after I shot Parks in the face a few times and drowned Clary.”
She took halting breaths, and I saw fear mixed with admiration creep over her face as the cracks in the window worsened as her weight was pushed against them. “You killed Clary? And Parks?” Her accent was thicker now, her words slurred. “I wouldn’t have thought … you could … “
“You should leave the thinking to someone more capable of it,” I said, keeping my distance but shifting my aim. “But after my next shot that’s not gonna be a problem for you anymore.” I lined up the sights with her forehead. “Where is Old Man Winter?”
“I … “ She choked on blood. It ran down her chin and fell over her chest, making for a grisly sight when coupled with the wounds elsewhere on her body. She looked worse than James Fries did after she had beat him into a pulp. “I … wouldn’t tell you. You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“Yep,” I said. I adjusted my aim and shot her in the kneecap, causing her to squeal in pain. “But how much it hurts before I do is entirely your prerogative.”
“Torture?” She said with something between a laugh and a cry. “I didn’t think you had the stomach for it.”
“Times change,” I said. “Amazing how motivated I got to learn new skills after you and your best pals murdered my boyfriend.”
“He never cared for you,” she said with a straight face. She looked me straight in the eyes with those cold blues of hers. “He was—”
“I know what he was,” I said, and started to aim my gun again, this time at her other shoulder. “And I know what you and yours did. And I know what I’m going to do now. How much do you want to hurt before you die, Eve?”
She looked at me with a defiant gaze, holding her lip from quivering. “You can’t hurt me enough to make me tell you what you want to know.”
Kill her, Wolfe suggested with some glee, out of nowhere, she will never talk.
I nodded slowly. “You’re probably right. Let’s just get this over, with, shall we?” I pointed the gun back to her head, watched the defiance slip from her face as I tightened my finger on the trigger—
Something hit me in the head, something heavy, and my aim was thrown off just enough. I fired, and saw the bullet go through Eve’s shoulder and shatter the glass behind her. The blond woman’s weight carried her out, and I saw her fall for only a moment before her wings shone in the light and caught her, and she fluttered off. I fired the rest of my magazine at her and felt something else hit me in the side of the head. It smarted, and I saw it as it fell out the window, a simple, leather-bound hardback book. I turned and aimed my pistol at the figure standing there before me.
Her red hair danced in the cold wind that blew through the apartment now that the glass window was completely shattered and blown out. She held her blue silken bathrobe closed with her hands as she stood awkwardly, exposed, by the bookshelf near the bedroom door. I took a step closer to her, my gun obviously emptied of all bullets, the slide cocked back to expose the bare chamber. “Hello, Ariadne.”
“Sienna,” she said, and her left hand went to the bookcase for another weapon. I threw my empty pistol at her as she pulled a book and tossed it at me. Her throw went wide, but mine was spot on; the slide hit her in the face and her head jerked back as she fell. She hit the cold tile floor with her back followed by her head and the thundercrack of her impact sounded painful. Her robe came undone as she tried to catch herself when she fell and her nakedness was all I needed to see to send me into a rage.