Page 20 of Jagged Souls

So I let the vial hit the vinyl floor just in front of me. It bounces, then skids under the table Sadist has just reached. The darkness in his violet eyes ignites, and he lunges for me while still in his human form.

Grabbing his arms as he reaches for me, I pull him with me. I fall backwards into a roll. Hitting the floor, I kick him hard in the chest, using the momentum to throw him over my head. He crashes into the locked door behind me, but he doesn’t cry out in pain. Doesn’t make any sounds at all. Jumping to my feet, I dash forward, meeting the other men head-on.

My focus sharpens on two of them: one with a dozen scars across his face and shaggy black hair, the other with white skin and blond hair cropped short. They are on the floor, and they’re howling in agony, their bones snapping, their skin tearing as they shift into their werewolf forms.

This is the only time they’re vulnerable.

I dart between the tables. The men are only a few yards in front of me. Scar’s head snaps up on a growl as he drags himself onto his hands and knees. Agony brightens his blue eyes as black fur sprouts all over his body, but I know he can’t fight back. Not while his nerves are breaking off and reconnecting, while his tendons, muscles, and ligaments are being ripped away from bone. The shift of a wolf is a brutal experience, a curse from the gods over an ancient sin.

But for me, it’s a chance to grab a weapon.

A chance to possibly buy myself enough time for Varius to save me.

Jumping sideways into the air, my eyes focused on the bone sticking out of Scar’s left shoulder, I kick off a nearby table. Cartwheeling over him, I wrap my fingers under the head of it and grip tight.

Crack!

His flesh rips. His tendons tear completely. And I land on the bench opposite with his bloody humerus in my hand. As he howls with venomous rage, I spin around and slam the middle of the bone onto the edge of the table. My weapon splinters in two just as a man lunges at me from across the table.

Dropping into the splits, I press my forehead to my knee. The newcomer flies over me and crashes into the howling wolf behind me. I roll beneath the table, tucking my legs to end up in a crouch, then scramble out the other side.

Another man stands a few strides away, frozen in shock. The fucker clearly isn’t used to his prey fighting back. I’m up and on him before his eyes have even finished widening, stabbing both of the bones into the sides of his neck. The jagged edges cut deep. He gurgles as I rip them free. Bright red streams spray out in two high-pressured fountains, his carotid arteries severed.

I slash the bones across his neck as he drops to his knees, and his head tilts back. The flesh gapes open, the muscles no longer intact enough to hold it. I turn towards Scar and the blond man beside him, hoping to kill them before they can finish their change.

Jumping, I roll across the table I ducked under earlier, knee Scar in the face as he tries to stand, then throw one of my ‘knives’ like a spear at Blondie’s face. He can’t move out of the way, and it slices through his eye and into his brain. As he drops dead, I grab a bone sticking out of Scar’s leg and yank as hard as I can.

He screams, but the bone doesn’t rip free this time. A blur on my right forces me to leave it as I turn to meet my newest attacker. I dodge his wild swings but only barely, his twisted body making it hard for me to predict where his fists will land.

Another man appears in the row beside us, ready to climb over the table and help his mate. I kick the bench hard and slide the whole fucking thing into him. It does nothing to hurt him, but it trips him up and buys me enough time to deal with my first attacker.

Ducking beneath his arms, I stab him rapidly with my bone-knife. I’m not aiming for a specific spot, not trying to drop him with one nicely timed strike. I’m stabbing hard and fast, hitting anywhere I can get, and letting his blood pour out like a flipped hourglass.

A blare of warning erupts across the hairs on the back of my neck. I can feel another attacker rushing towards me, but before I can twist around, Hourglass punches me in the face with a meaty fist. My head snaps to the left as I’m tackled forward. I stab the hairy arms wrapped around my torso, but the moment he releases me, a punch from a third man rattles my brain. I stagger into a table as I try to shake the stars free, but someone grabs me by the back of the neck, lifts me high into the air, and then slams me face-first onto the floor.

The air rushes out of my lungs. My teeth feel like they’ve been embedded into my skull or perhaps down my throat, choking me, and my brain feels like it’s exploded behind my eyes. My weapon is wrenched out of my hand. I’m vaguely aware of being lifted, turned around, and my back slammed onto a table. My legs dangle over the edge. And then I’m gasping, my eyes shooting open wide as both my makeshift knives are plunged through both my wrists.

I clench my jaw, refusing to cry out in pain, refusing to show any weakness to these assholes. But tears burn behind my eyes, and screams rail at the cage inside my chest with the knowledge of what’s about to happen. I turn my head to my left to find Sadist peering down at me, one hand on the bone he just stabbed into my arm.

My heart rate kicks up at the cruel, twisted promise in his violet eyes.

Releasing the bone, he rounds the table to my feet. I kick out at him as he approaches, but he just grabs my knees and forces my legs apart. He steps between them as the other men crowd around us.

Terror flashes through me, but I’m trying so hard to fight it, to stop it from freezing me where I lay.

“I’m not going to shift when I fuck you,” Sadist says. “I’m going to drag this out for hours.” He leans down and licks his way up my throat. When he gets to my cheek, I jerk my head towards him. My teeth chomp down around his tongue like it’s a steak. The taste of copper explodes in my mouth as he jerks back, but I know I have only managed to bite off the tip; the piece of severed flesh is small enough for me to swallow.

He sneers down at me. A crazy smile spreads across his lips. Blood pours down his chin as he sticks his mutilated tongue out. “Good. You swallow like a whore,” he says, his words only slightly slurred.

Straightening, Sadist moves his attention to my legs. He has his hands still on my knees, pinning them to the edge of the table. I can’t kick out at him. Can’t defend myself.

My heart rate starts going wild.

He looks at me with a smirk, imagining no doubt how he’s about to have me.

My body starts to shake, and I can’t stop it.

Can’t stop the terror.