Page 64 of Hunted to Be Mine

“This isn’t a debate.”

I laced my fingers and braced through the pain. She stepped into my hands and I threw her up. She caught the top and pulled herself over with more strength than it looked she had.

Movement whispered behind me.

I spun and got a forearm up in time to block a head shot. He’d crossed the yard like a shadow.

“Go!” She hesitated at the top. I barked it again, and she moved.

He and I locked up in the snow. He was fresher, stronger. And I had a reason he didn’t.

He drove me back and kept the pressure up. I gave ground on purpose, pulled him with me. Blood from a cut above my eye ran into my vision, the wind turning it sticky.

“You are compromised,” Blackout said, smashing a knee into my side. “You are worthless.”

I laughed once, and it hurt. “Still putting you on the ground.”

I feinted left and drove right, knuckles catching his throat. He staggered. I followed with two strikes to the face. He recoveredlike a machine, blocked the third, and hit back hard enough to rattle my jaw.

We circled, white breath between us. Over his shoulder, Selina had made it over. She didn’t run. She dug through the junk.

“She will be taken,” he said, tracking my glance.

“Over my dead body.”

“That is the intention.”

He moved fast and clean. I blocked what I could and ate the rest. Each hit took a piece. He worked my injuries on purpose.

A hard shot caught me and I hit the snow. I rolled, tried to get up. He stepped in and planted a boot on my chest. Weight increased until the world narrowed.

“Resistance is unnecessary,” he said. “The outcome is fixed.”

Edges of the yard dimmed. Through the flakes, Selina stood at the fence, pale.

She hurled something: a rusty length of iron spinning through the air.

“Specter!”

I reached, caught it, and swung in the same breath. I brought it down on his knee with everything I had.

The blow landed. His gear cracked. Shards of plastic and Kevlar bit into skin. His weight shifted. Air rushed back into me.

I rolled up with the bar in my hand. He adjusted, stance shifting. Hurt, but still dangerous.

“Street!” I sent the order toward the fence.

This time she ran, gone past the barrier. He tracked her again, doing the math. Reprioritizing.

I couldn’t let him chase her.

I attacked, using the iron to keep distance, forcing him to defend instead of pursue. We moved across the snow between dead machines.

He adapted fast, felt my timing, closed the gap inch by inch. Inside the arc, the bar would turn against me.

I needed another play.

Behind him sat a massive industrial press, half-collapsed from rust and age. A bad idea formed. It would have to do.