Post by Croswynd on Mar 18, 2015 23:32:11 GMT -5
Chapter 1
The first time I met her, she threw me off a building.
Honestly, I was wondering why the heck she was running at me with such a frantic expression. The crack of the bullet slamming into the pavement told me real quick what it was, but before I could even process it, she hit me.
To say I was disoriented is an understatement. I mean, who’s prepared for someone to just push you off a building? What’s even crazier was that when I looked up, there she was, following me down.
Yeah, definitely not the girl I remembered.
Wind whistled passed my ears, and I just started to realize that wow, her punch really hurt. Like, I’m talking full on bruise right in the center of my chest. To make matters worse, my jacket coattail was splayed across my arms like a jellyfish and tangled them as I flailed around. Oh, and it was also kind of cold, so there’s that, too.
All I could do was burn.
Above me, the girl pulled out her pistol. The flame inside of me flared to life as I held out a hand to grab at it, but she wasn’t aiming at it me. I looked where it was pointing, far off in the distance, and I saw the briefest glimpse of a flash of light.
Bang.
Her pistol sparked, light dancing like a cutting blade as the round left the chamber. The shockwave from the speed lit the air like a miniature balloon, as if a bubble had popped around the barrel. A second, answering shot returned, slicing through the air. With a thud, the bullet slammed into her shoulder, sending a splay of blood across my face.
She grunted against the sudden impact, eyes widened and tears welling up. Before the tears could even fall, she gritted her teeth and pressed her free hand to the wound in her shoulder. Blood began to spurt out from between her fingers, staining the pink skin crimson.
That was when I noticed she was looking at me with complete, utter trust in my ability to protect her. Of course, while all of this was happening mid air, might I remind you, we were both almost about to hit the ground. Or, rather, a car.
This is going to hurt, I thought, spreading the flame through my body to my legs and back.
Plastic crumbled beneath me, air shooting from my lungs. The scent and taste of copper filled my mouth. I coughed, trying to pull in air, seconds before the second impact came. Her body hit me like a sledgehammer, right in the chest.
What little air I had managed to breathe in shot out, but the flames inside me eagerly spread to my chest, almost burning out from under my skin with how hot it was. The flame flickered momentarily, and exhaustion struck through me. I tried to breathe again, but the weight on top of me wouldn’t let me. I reached up to push her off of me, and found myself holding the woman’s shoulders.
She was facing away from me, blood tip tapping against the hood of the car. A speck of it fell onto my already splattered face, shockingly warm in the frigid air, even with the furnace bellowing inside of me. There was something more intimate, more now about blood slowly dripping on me, rather than the splatter before.
It was also pretty gross.
“Quinne,” I mouthed to myself.
She jerked, almost like she’d been shot again. I knew what that little movement meant, and my training finally took over. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled off the top of the car. Plastic grumbled against the tangle of our bodies and the alarm whined incessantly in my ears.
We hit the ground, the pavement scraping my arms, but it was a far sight better than the alternative. That is, the tump-thump of the bullet ripping through the canopy of the car and embedding itself in the seat beside us.
I half cursed, half gasped as I finally took in a full breath. My scrambled brain came back to me in sudden sharpness, and I assessed the situation as if I were on autopilot. The rational part of my brain, and by that I mean the part that wasn’t rattled and rolled around inside my head from such a crazy sequence of events, knew it was shock. But that worked for me.
I leaned back against the ruined car and I pulled the girl closer to me.
“Can you move?” I asked.
She nodded, shock clearly showing in her own face. Still her tears refused to fall from those glistening eyes. Tough cookie.
“Can you run?” I asked next.
Again, she nodded.
“Good,” I said, and I grabbed her shaking hand. It was warm, and I could feel her pulse beating wildly in her palm. I pressed it against the wound in her shoulder. “Don’t take pressure off of that. Follow me.”
Her eyes flicked toward where the bullets had come from, a wince twitching its way across her too-thin lips and angular face.
I grabbed her and ran full tilt.
To her credit, she managed to only stumble once as the bullet meant for her back chipped into the sidewalk we’d just left. My sneakers thwapped against the pavement, and her combat boots ground the small chips of cement with each step. Already, the pain in my chest was beginning to fade, but that feeling of shock stuck around.
Shadow from the parking garage we’d fallen from covered us as we ran diagonally across the street. Luckily, only a few cars were barreling down the road, and we easily avoided them. We reached the other end of the street without another round following us, and I looked back at the building the shots had come from. It was out of sight, behind the parking garage.
Lucky us.
Not so lucky was the woman staring at us with her mouth wide open from behind a newspaper dispenser, a cellphone in her hand pointed directly at us. I grimaced and turned away from the camera. Just what I needed.
“Oh my god, that was so cool!” she screeched. “Are you guys shooting a movie? Am I going to be in it?”
No, I wanted to yell at her, we’re actually running away from someone trying to kill us, so keep your stupid head down. Instead, I ignored her and we kept walking toward one of the alleys. Getting out of the line of fire was well and good, but someone with that kind of aim would be repositioning already.
Without another word, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I quickly dialed a number and put the phone to my ear. A few rings later, my friend answered.
“Jace, what’s up man? Bout to be in class, ya know!” Tyler joked over the phone.
“I need to crash at your place,” I told him as I glanced back at the parking garage. I could just see the tip of skyscraper again. Already, I could hear sirens in the distance. “Key in the usual place?”
“Hey, man, sure is. Just keep everything nice, all right? Got a nice guy comin’ in late-”
I pressed the end call button, and my grip tightened on the phone when I looked over at the girl. “Are there any other Manipulars in range?”
She shook her head and sucked on her lip at the sudden movement. “I… didn’t sense… anything.”
“I’ll assume there are, in that case,” I replied, feeling myself fall into an old calm. The rational part of my brain was already seething. “Follow me. And keep your hand on the wound.”
*****
“Sit down,” I ordered, and I absentmindedly picked up the remote to turn the TV on. A few seconds later, I noticed what was going on when the shaky cam footage of us falling off the parking garage appeared, along with a reporter picture in picture.
“In a shocking turn of events, two unidentified people fell off a building earlier today. There are reports that there was a shooter active in the area when this footage was taken, and the entire city is currently on lockdown as the department combs through the streets to apprehend this mysterious sniper. If you have any information on the whereabouts of the two figures shown here on screen, contact authorities, as they may be involved.”
I groaned as my face was clearly displayed on the screen, bloody and angry.
“Jacen—”
“Sit,” I replied. I really had no time for her at the moment, and just hearing her voice was bringing up things I didn’t want to think about. “Press and hold. I’ll be right back.”
I left her looking forlorn on the couch as I turned back to the door and went outside. The garbage sitting in the trash can by the door smelled sour as I passed it, but I forgot about it as soon as my hands touched the cool metal of the railing. I took a deep breath and let the calm wash over me cool the flame raging inside.
My eyes flicked from shadow to shadow in the small, walled courtyard below me. I expected armed men to come from any number of places, guns brandished and orders bellowing out of their mouths, suits with body armor clearly visible beneath them. But there was no one. Just a gray cat rubbing itself against the dumpster underneath me.
Right then, I almost wished I could sense things like her.
I sighed, and waited five more minutes. There was nothing but the sun beating down on me and the sounds of sirens in the distance. No glint of burnished metal, no Conjure spark. Nothing. I wondered what the police were going to do. People knew me around college, and that would be the first place they’d look.
Turning around, I sighed in relief as I passed under a vent. My feverish skin relaxed and I felt the tension in my shoulders fall away. The tension returned when I saw the girl on the couch with scissors inside her wound.
A terrible, wet sound like jello slapping against the ground accompanied a restrained grunt as the bullet inside her shoulder attached itself to the scissors. She dropped the bullet and scissors into her lap and fell back against the back of the couch, closing her eyes. Once she let go of them, the two items separated, and the bullet bounced to the carpet below. Each bounce left a stain on the white carpet.
Tyler was going to kill me.
Unfortunately, I had more dire things to worry about, because blood began flowing with renewed energy from her shoulder. The muscles in the girl’s neck glistened with sweat, and her too-thin lips stretched across her teeth. From those lips came pained hisses. Her brown jacket was stained darker with the blood, and the blue blouse beneath hadn’t fared much better.
“You idiot,” I said, stalking toward the kitchen. I frantically opened cabinets until I found the first aid kit under the sink. “Until someone can look at you, you should have left the bullet inside!”
When she didn’t reply, I looked up at her over the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. Her eyes were closed, and I could tell she was barely keeping herself together. As I watched, she nearly fell over, but steadied herself with her free hand.
“Hey,” I said. “Talk to me.”
Inside the first aid kit, I found some gauze, bandages and some ointment. Not like that last bit was going to be much use for a bullet wound, but it was all we had at the moment. I set a mental note to give Tyler a better first aid kit for his birthday this year.
“Jacen…”
I gritted my teeth at that and walked around the edge of the bar. “You know my name. I know yours, too. Sarah, right?”
She nodded and looked over at me with those clear blue eyes. “I need your help.”
“I’ve noticed,” I quipped as I sat next to her on the couch. “Hold still a second. Why are you here?”
“Need your help,” she repeated, wincing as he moved her hand away from the wound. Blood began pulsing out with each beat of her heart. “Need to find…”
“Find what?” I repeated, stuffing some gauze into the wound. “Here, change this. Coagulant. Know what that is?”
She pressed her bloodied hand against the gauze and even more color drained from her face. As he watched, the gauze disappeared and in its place a liquid seeped into the wound. A few second passed before he moved her hand and pressed more gauze against it.
“Good job. Hold this now. Press.” I told her, and glided down to one knee in front of her. Believe me, the mental image of that would have been romantic to anyone else, but all I felt was annoyance. What she said next only increased that feeling.
“Jacen… you were supposed to… be my sister’s…”
My eyes hardened.
She returned my gaze with a strength that belied her current situation, and I could almost see color returning to her cheeks. “You were supposed to be my sister’s… servant.”
“I was,” I replied, pursing my lips. “That was then.”
“And now,” she continued between breaths.
I knew what was coming next, what she was about to ask. Blood was pounding in my ears at that moment. Years of anxiety and anger sent tremors into the furnace in my heart. I wanted to slap her across the face, throw her out of the apartment, and get her out of my life.
But I couldn’t.
“I want you to be mine now,” she said with an even tone, her voice resounding with something that ground in my brain. She took a deep breath, pushed me away, and looked down on me like I was some kind of lesser being.
“Become my servant, Jacen Carver.”
