I lunged forward and with my left hand I dropped my sword and grabbed her full head of golden brown hair. I ripped her back to me and had my sword at her exposed throat in a second.
“Stop fighting!” I shouted. “Or I will end her.”
She laughed a light, nervous sound and because I had my face pressed against hers I felt it vibrate against my skin. “Look who finally found a backbone,” she taunted.
I pushed the sharp blade of my sword through her soft skin and dared her to keep talking. My dad and Seth were locked two swords against two swords and were the closest to us. Seth broke apart first, giving up easily and stepping away from my dad. Aliah was there next, five feet away from us and dangerously angry.
“Let her go,” Aliah commanded in a deceptively controlled voice. And then he lost it a little bit, “Or I swear to you I will make Seth kill himself!”
“At this point, it’s either Seth or me, Aliah, so be my guest. You’d be solving a problem for me.” I feigned a lot of bravado, but inside I was shaking with nerves.
I looked around and counted my friends and family. My mom was bloody and heaving for breath, but alive and standing. A pile of bodies lay at her feet. Serena and Nate were back to back and much the same. Blood and gore covered them, either from their victims or their own wounds, which were many. My dad and Seth stood several feet apart, still gripping their swords defensively. And Jupiter stood not far off from them. He walked a few feet toward me, and consequently too close to where Seth and my dad were fighting. He was limping severely and his sword arm dangled at an odd angle from his shoulder.
“Stella,” Seth called from a few feet away. “I will never forgive you if you hurt my sister.”
Manipulative much? Yeesh.
“That’s alright,” I promised back. “I’m not sure I’m going to forgive you for trying to kill me!”
A huge grin broke out across his dirty face and a low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “We’re
playing a game, Stella. I try to kill you, you try to kill me. It’s how we show our love.” The word love sounded like the dirtiest word in the English language, but he didn’t give me time to dwell on that. “But my sister is going too far. You don’t touch my family.”
“Like you don’t touch mine? You were just fighting my dad, you idiot!” I shouted. This was taking too much time. The truth was, I wasn’t emotionally equipped to kill Seven right now. I had enough issues to deal with. And while I wanted this bitch dead and buried, I wanted those I loved safe first.
“My sister can’t protect herself!” Seth yelled back, his anger breaking free again.
“Stella, let go of Seven, before I come after you myself,” Aliah growled. He took a step forward and I made a point of meeting his cool green gaze and pushing my sword further against Seven’s throat. She cried out in a whimper of pain and dug her fingernails into my forearm. She wasn’t exactly gentle about it and soon blood dripped from her viscous nails. Still I held my position, ignoring the pain she was inflicting and the tremor in my soul.
“We’re leaving,” I declared.
“And how are you going to do that?” Aliah smiled confidently.
I narrowed my eyes on him, hating him all over again for what he was doing to Seth. “Do you remember the first time we met?” It was a rhetorical question and I didn’t wait for his answer. “I hope she can fly.”
I heard Aliah growl out a shout, but I was already taking off for the sky. I hovered for only a moment, a gruesome, horrifying moment. And it was a moment too long.
In a rage Seth whirled around and took his two swords, plunging them into Jupiter who had moved too close. One through his heart, the other into his side at a horizontal angle. Jupiter’s face crumpled in agony while Seth loomed over him, pushing his weapons in deeper. Seven’s delighted laugh was the only sound I heard before I lost hearing all together. My head swam, my ears rushed with panic and uncertainty. Seth turned around, as if sensing my indecision to stay or to go and met my eyes. He was not even a shadow of himself, but completely consumed by the Darkness.
I felt myself gasp at his change and then I was gone, into the sky and far away from the grief and disaster littering the beach below. I paid enough attention so that I could count the Lights that were following me- one, two, three……. Four. Jupiter could have been with them or just as easily still be bleeding out on the beach. He didn’t have a Light so it was impossible for me to tell. And I couldn’t dwell on that now, anyway.
A swarm of black smoke followed after them and I knew it was the Fallen following. I still held Seven clutched against my chest. Her nails were still digging into my skin, but if she was making noise I couldn’t hear her. I was too lost in the confusion of the moment.
Letting my sword slice across her throat, a severe wound, but not a fatal one, I released my hold and watched her fall, flailing and frantic, to the Indian Ocean below. This time I could hear her thickening, bloody scream as she struggled to take flight and hold her gaping wound at the same time.
I turned around, not caring what happened to that evil wench and took off at a slower pace. I saw one by one Nate, Serena, my mom and then my dad who was carrying an injured and barely alive Jupiter. We didn’t say anything to each other, each of us too weary to form words. But we flew with a renewed pace, anxious to leave this disaster behind us. There was an urgency to get home, to make sure Jupiter would survive the night, but there was also relief.
The Fallen had abandoned their pursuit of us. Aliah was no doubt tending to Seven and the battle that waged so hot and deadly before would be put off to another day. I was thankful for Aliah’s foolish, but sole focus on Seven, even on Seth. If it meant we could escape this time, then it was momentarily to our benefit. I breathed deeply for the first time, feeling the weight of the battle lift from my shoulders.
Until Seth came flying up behind me; he grabbed my arm and whirled me around midair. His swords were gone, still deep inside Jupiter’s limp body and as far as I could tell he was alone.
His haunted amber eyes met mine and he said, “You almost killed my sister.”
“I didn’t,” I defended. “I just wanted to leave.” We had to shout over the force of the wind this far up, but I still heard the depth of emotion in his words and hoped he heard mine. It was weird to see him this vulnerable and emotional just minutes after he tried to kill me. But I also knew that the monster that held a sword to my throat was not who he really was. This lost, broken man resembled Seth more than anything.
“Well, now you’re leaving!” he shouted. “Again. And back to Tristan like always.”
“I’m not going home to Tristan!” I was livid at his accusation. I had given this man my heart- this one, monster and all. And I loved him. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t go back to Tristan even if I wanted to. “I said goodbye to Tristan. It’s you. Even like this, it’s you!”
Something hot and needy flashed in his eyes and he lurched forward so that we were only inches apart. “I saw you kiss him.”
“You saw me say goodbye to him,” I shouted.
He grabbed my biceps in his two huge hands and held me painfully. His fingers bit into my biceps and he pulled me harshly against his chest. My mom and Serena immediately flanked me, a threatening, ever-constant presence. He glanced at them briefly before returning his savage gaze to mine.