Magic sizzled near my face as a weapon came to her defence, and I howled when a shard of green power sliced across my back. Hot blood poured down my shirt, but I didn't let go of the keeper's arms. I pumped more and more andmoreacid into her body, my teeth gritted and blood buzzing with the rush, the closeness of her death.
"You don't get to hurt anyone anymore," I breathed.
Her laugh made my heartbeat stutter.
"Oh, but I do," she choked out, fighting my power.
But the keepers had done too good a job in making us powerful, and with a last surge of effort, my magic strangled her attempt at fighting.
My nostrils flared as I looked her dead in the eye, waiting for the moment when her stare went dull and empty.
"You deserve this," I told her, the complete opposite of what I told Mav when I killed him.Then, I apologised, but there was no chance of me saying sorry now. Not when this bitch had tried to kill my God of the Void.
I stepped back when her body collapsed, finally losing the battle against my power, and acid and guts splashed the floor at my feet.
For a prolonged second, I just panted, staring at the puddle of keeper, but then I dragged my stare up to the keepers who'd frozen, transfixed on their dissolved kin.
"Who's next?" I rasped, lifting my hands threateningly when one of the weapons twisted towards Void's huge, unconscious body. "You?" I asked, and curled my hands into fists, bringing it up in a deadly uppercut at the unfamiliar woman's face.
Her nose broke, gushing blood, but then my acid spread and scalded her face, drawing a piercing scream.
"Touch him," I breathed to her, to all of them, "and you die."
"What about me?" a voice asked behind me, and I adjusted my stance so I could keep the others in my line of sight while I looked at this new threat.
My heart crashed to my feet and through the floor when I saw who'd spoken, and my heart stopped—literallystopped beating—for a second before it resumed at twice its normal speed.
The man standing across the room was a head taller than me, with wild dark hair, tanned skin, and a face so handsome he could seduce anyone with a smile. He wasn't smiling now, but that didn't stop the tremor that started in my hands.
"Vann," I choked out, staring at him, raking my eyes up and down his body, noting every scar and white, healed slash on his skin, most of them covered by a tight black T-shirt and jeans. "You're … how?"
I shook my head. Who cared how he was here? Hewashere, and that was all that mattered.
When he took a step towards me, I slammed my foot down to knock the weapons away from Void, and used the momentum to race towards my friend, my only friend.
"It's gonna be fine, Hala,"Vann said calmly, offering comfort even as he slashed his hands out and sent black shards of magic at three keepers, knocking them down with screams. It didn't burn or bruise them, but slashed them open as if the streaks of magic were daggers.
"Stick close. You—back the fuck off," he growled at a weapon edging closer, trying to join us. "You wanna break out? Come up with your own thing."
I grabbed the back of Vann’s shirt tightly enough that my fingers ached, and scanned the room around us in a quick, jumpy sweep. So far, the keepers were staying back, not sure what Vann was capable of. But not for long.
"Vann," I warned when two keepers began moving slowly through the throng of wary weapons not yet herded out of the red room. The tinny voices on the TV were an eerie backdrop to the silence in the room.
"I see them," he agreed, and sent two bolts of pure black magic slicing through their air—and through the keeper's bodies.
I winced, ducking my head from the gory sight, and that mistake sealed our fate. Sealed Vann's. For months, I would obsess over that moment, how things would have happened if I hadn't shied away from the violence.
Instead, our attention was still on the two fallen, bleeding keepers when six others rushed from the opposite direction and jammed the burning ends of their cattle prods into Vann's chest.
A smile spreadacross my face when Vann met my eyes here and now, the bright blue so familiar, so comforting. Shaking, I flung my arms around him, hugging him tight enough to choke him.
"You have no idea how much I missed you," I choked out, burying my face in his shoulder and inhaling his scent. Confusion furrowed my brow—he smelled different, not like leather and old paper, but sharper, astringent.
"What," I began, desperate to know how he survived. When I left him, he'd been bleeding out. I thought he was already dead, but he was here, scarred but whole.
My words choked off with a gasp of pain when cold metal plunged into my back. For a second, I thought one of the weapons had hit me with knife-sharp magic, but when I staggered back, reaching around to my back, my fingers brushed cold metal. I traced the shape of a moon and my heart crashed. Sang's knife.
While my head spun, a rough hand knocked my fingers aside, seized the dagger's handle, and tore it out of me. I stumbled on unsteady feet, pain weakening my knees. I couldn’t catch up, couldn’t grasp any sense or logic amid the fire of confusion. Vann held the knife Sang had given me, the sharp blade dripping blood. My blurry eyes fixed on a teardrop of blood as Vann angled the knife—