Chapter 91 — Too Slow

Chapter 91: Chapter 91 — Too Slow

~ Raven ~

He crossed the clearing without hurrying, and Raven forced herself to hold her ground.

Her left arm had stopped bleeding freely. Now blood seeped from the wound in a slow, warm trail toward her fingertips. Her ribs took what little air she could drag into them and refused the rest.

"What do you want with me?"

He looked past her.

"I asked you a question."

The man barely looked at Raven. His attention remained on Brielle and Seren, lying behind her, as he raised two fingers.

Two operatives moved.

One crouched beside Brielle and took her hand without even looking at her. He pressed her palm flat against the leaves. As his sleeve slipped back, Raven saw the mark inked across the inside of his wrist—a small skull split down the middle by a broken crescent.

The second stepped over Seren, seized her wrist and dragged her arm straight. Then he planted his boot over her palm.

"Whatever this is." Raven’s voice came out thinner than she wanted. "They’re not part of it. Take me. I’m the one you—"

"Choose."

"What?"

"One of them." He tipped his head toward Brielle, then Seren. "Or yourself."

Brielle’s eyes found Raven’s. She gave the smallest shake of her head.

No. Don’t you dare.

Seren looked at Raven too, but there was no simple answer in her face. Her gaze dropped to the boot pinning her hand, then returned to Raven, her jaw tightening around whatever she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Don’t answer him.

Raven’s mouth had gone dry.

If you answer, he knows this works.

But the boot was already planted over Seren’s palm, and Brielle’s fingers lay spread in the dirt beneath the other man’s hand.

Raven opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She dragged in as much air as her ribs allowed and tried again.

"Too slow."

Both men pressed down.

The cracks came almost together, small and ugly beneath the leaves.

Brielle screamed.

Seren made no sound at first. Her jaw locked so tightly a muscle jumped in her cheek. Then the scream broke through anyway.

Raven lunged at them.

She made it three steps.

The leader did not move.

His aura struck Raven before she reached them. Her knees hit the ground first, then her palms. Pain ripped through her wounded arm as the pressure settled across her shoulders and forced her elbows to bend. Her wrists shook beneath it, every bone straining as though they had been made to hold up a roof.

A second aura joined the first.

Raven’s chin sank toward the leaves.

She locked her elbows and forced her head back up.

One inch.

That was all she could take back.

"Stop." The word tore out of her throat. "What do you want? Tell me and I’ll give it to you. Just stop."

One of them laughed.

"Fun."

The leader didn’t laugh. His gaze remained fixed on Raven, following every tremor in her arms with an attention that made the skin along her uninjured arm prickle.

The others were enjoying themselves.

He was waiting for something.

What are you waiting for?

She couldn’t carry the thought any further. Her face hovered inches above the ground, and darkness had begun to gather around the edges of her vision.

Then the pressure eased.

Not enough for Raven to stand. Only enough for her to move.

So she crawled.

She made it most of the way to Brielle. The broken hand was tucked beneath Brielle’s chest, her body curled protectively around it. Raven got close enough for Brielle’s eyes to open.

Then someone seized the back of Raven’s harness and hurled her across the clearing.

She struck the ground near its centre and rolled onto her wounded arm.

The attackers spread around her.

Raven forced herself onto one knee and spat blood into the leaves.

The first attacker came at her.

She saw the strike and twisted out of its path. For half a second, Raven thought she had actually avoided it.

Then the second blow drove beneath her guard and emptied her lungs.

Raven hit the ground. Her mouth opened, but no air came. Only a thin, broken wheeze scraped from her throat.

Behind her, a boot dragged across the leaves near Seren.

Raven got up.

The rules became clear after that.

Whenever she stayed down too long, one of them wandered toward Brielle. Whenever she avoided a blow, the blade returned to Seren’s throat and remained there until Raven stepped back into the middle.

They had given her a choice after all.

Take whatever they did to her, or watch them do worse to everyone else.

Off to Raven’s right, Dorian moved.

Barely.

Dorian’s hand crept through the leaves toward the fallen Ashbourne boy beside him. His eyes were half-open and unfocused, but his fingers kept reaching.

Stay down, Raven thought at him. Whatever you have left, keep it.

An attacker stepped toward her.

He reached for Raven with the same casual certainty as the man who had dragged her away from Brielle.

She was suddenly, violently sick of their hands.

His arm lifted, exposing his side.

Raven didn’t think. She tore the knife from her cross-strap and drove it into his thigh as hard as she could.

The blade sank deep.

Black blood welled around it and spilled hot across Raven’s knuckles. The same sweet, rotten stench struck her a moment later.

For one clean second, savage satisfaction cut through everything else.

Then the man smiled.

He glanced at the knife buried in his leg as though it belonged to someone else. When he looked back at Raven, his smile had widened.

Her satisfaction died.

He doesn’t feel it.

His hand closed around her wrist and bent it backward until her fingers released the handle.

Then his fist drove beneath her ribs.

Pain exploded through Raven so violently that the clearing vanished. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tell whether she was still standing.

Before her vision returned, someone seized her harness and drove her wounded shoulder into a tree. Her head snapped sideways, and bark tore the skin from her cheek.

Raven staggered away from the trunk and saw a gap between two attackers.

She threw herself toward it.

A blade sliced across her thigh before she made it through. Her leg folded beneath her, pitching her back into the leaves.

She caught herself on her hands. Her lip had split somewhere in the last few seconds, because her mouth was full and she had to turn her head to empty it.

After that, they passed her between them.

One attacker stepped aside and left a path open. It was too wide. Too easy.

Raven knew better.

Her body went for it anyway.

He caught her before she made it through and drove her straight back into the man waiting behind her. Another pressed his aura against her from the side, locking Raven in place. She watched the next strike coming toward her ribs, knew exactly where it would land and couldn’t make her feet move.

Every so often, her eyes found the leader.

He hadn’t joined them once. He remained where he had stood since Garrick went down, hands loose at his sides, watching Raven with the patience of a man who had paid for a seat and intended to see the entire performance.

She went down near Brielle.

Close enough to see her properly.

Brielle had gone grey around the mouth, and her whole body was shaking. Still, she pushed her good hand through the leaves toward Raven.

Two inches.

Then three.

A hand closed around Raven’s ankle and dragged her backward.

Raven twisted onto her stomach and clawed at the ground. The damp earth tore loose beneath her fingers, leaving nothing beneath her nails but leaf mould.

Don’t scream.

The instinct was older than Valerius. At Blackthorn, making noise had only told them where it hurt.

For the next few blows, her silence felt like the only choice that still belonged to her.

When Raven looked at the leader again, he was no longer watching her. His gaze had settled on Brielle.

He raised two fingers.

One of the attackers placed his boot over Brielle’s broken hand and pressed down again.

Brielle made a sound Raven had never heard from her before.

"GET THE FUCK OFF HER!"

The leader looked back at Raven.

Slowly, he smiled.