I squirmed, and Nira let up her grip, to give me room to do so, I guessed. With that singular second of leeway, I took off to the steps. I’m sure I shocked her by moving, as she didn’t immediately snatch me back up. When I reached the stairs, stopping and grabbing the hand rail, I turned around to the thud of heavy feet, four of them, hitting the ground close behind me. A black blur was stopped by the roadblock of fur. In seconds, Nira’s body hit the ground.
She looked up at me for a second and I gave her the best face I could to express my apologies for taking off. I wanted to tell her I would be okay. I wanted to say I was sorry for not following the plan. I felt I should also apologize in case my disobedience came back on her in any way other than her hitting a werewolf. I wanted to tell her to fight, like she wanted to, to save her family. Yet, all I could do was to give her a brief look of sincere apology and turn to race up those stairs as fast as my shaking legs would take me.
Chapter Nine
As I managed the final steps, all I could see at first was a trash can with a low fire burning inside of it, sitting in the middle of the room. With fewer windows broken here, the arid smell of whatever was on fire burnt my eyes, making them water instantly. Blinking, feeling the first drops hit my cheeks, I scanned my surroundings even though I’d come running up the stairs, not only letting them announce my arrival, but coming to stand at the top of them fully exposed with nothing to protect me but whatever would come from my hands.
With my emotions beyond heightened, having been that way for hours, really days now, who knew what would happen if I used them? With the ominous glow of the few flames that reached the top of the trash cans, the meager light they created just barely reaching from all four corners of the room to my eyes, adjusting from the flood lights to the dark, to me even the shadows appeared to move.
I looked around, gripping my hands into fists to keep them calm, or as calm as I could manage. I felt that if I let go of the power churning inside of me at this point, I might just propel myself right back down the steps I’d just managed to make it up. I pulled in deep ragged breaths, attempting to shake off this feeling of being watched, of any minute being doomed.
Stupid girl, I chastised myself, just as a movement, one too much to dismiss, caught my eye.
With the sounds of war still coming from downstairs, I couldn’t hear anything, but my Lex finally came into view. His hands were strung above his head, chained to something on the wall. In that position, his shoulders looked like they’d tear from their sockets at any minute. Wounds all over his body were either caked with or dripping blood. After I rushed to his side, I stopped short, not wanting to touch or move him lest I hurt him more. His labored breathing hit my ears. I shuddered even as my stomach convulsed, and threatened to hurl. As much as I’d wanted to be on this trip, I was grateful now that I hadn’t really been able to eat much.
I could not only see, hear, and feel his pain, which served to make me even sicker, but I could smell and taste it, too. It enveloped me like a blanket made of barbed wire. A small movement made me jerk my head, sending a shot of fire through a pinched nerve. The man in the black suit stood to our side. I inched closer to Lex, but away from where the man stood. As I moved, the light from the moon glinted off something by his thigh. I soon saw that this was a knife hanging from his hand. Blood, Lex’s blood, dripped from it.
My skin tingled, to be so close to Lex again as I fought the urge to throw my body over his. At the same time, looking at the man in black, that same skin crawled, disgust like a thick pus oozing over me. I wanted to leap at him, rip that damn black, expensive-looking suit from his skin and slice him up with that damn blade he held.
When he moved, and stepped out from the shadows and into the dim light of the fire, I could see the evil smirk on his face that smoothed into a grin, one probably meant to calm me, but it had just the opposite effect. What was inside me raged to be unleashed upon this man, to send him hurling through a window and falling to his death five stories down. I’d never had the instinct to kill before. Maybe in self-preservation, but not to end a life the way I craved to end his.
The feeling didn’t sit right inside me, even as much as I loathed this man right now, giving new meaning to the word. I’d hated before, don’t get me wrong, but I’d always hated intangible things, the ones out of my control, like death. To hate another human so much, whatever shapes and forms he could morph into... well, it didn’t work with my personality, and yet still, it seethed under my skin, had me nearly choking on it. While I couldn’t reconcile the feelings, they grew, with each jagged and shaky breath my Lex pulled in and pushed out; the magic in me rushed through my veins, hell bent on murder.