Page 128 of Red Demon

A new sob escaped my lips. “It’s me, J–” I slumped under the weight of my wounds, the poison, my despair, but I formed the words clearly, certain. “Kill me.”

She shivered, dropping the weapon. A single tear bled down her stained cheek. “I remember the people I trust.” Her voice strengthened, gaining defiance through the cracks in her voice. “The people I love.”

That was the first time she said it, but I couldn’t smile. I didn’t even look up.

She reached out, a tentative touch against my cheek. The warmth of her fingertips chilled me.

“Tell me your name, please.” Her voice trembled.

I shook my head. My throat tightened, but I answered. “Jesse.”

Her lips quivered into a smile. I thought I saw fragile recognition, at risk of shattering.

Words failed me as I looked into her yellow-green eyes. Intense, familiar. Beautiful. “You killed them—innocent women. Our allies. And Asher—”

I watched all the joy in her flicker out.

“My brother Asher,” I said, forcing the words out. “You killed him.”

A tremor ran through her body, her hand on my face shaking. “I thought—” She turned away from me, breathing fast. When she looked at me again, tears blurring her vision, she drew her borrowed sword, pointing it at me.

She threw all her weight into the struts, striking the bolt that chained my feet to the floor. Another strike, another. The metal screamed in protest before finally giving way, the blade denting under the stress. She turned to my chained hands, her jaw clenched and hair flying. The raw tang of blood and bowels filled the air from Kane’s body in the corner as she hacked between ragged sobs. One manacle finally broke one. She pried open a seam of the chain on another that refused to dent, and it fell away with an uneven clang as the blade shattered, only leaving the cuff.

I winced as I sat up, my vision blurry with the poison coursing through my veins, a dull throb in every limb instead of the original fire. I stood, my head clearing as I held the wall for balance.

Faruhar backed herself into a corner, her mad eyes roving. She clutched her head as a strangled cry escaped her bruised lips, her hands torn and bleeding from the force of her swings. “Who did I kill? Tell me their names!”

I shivered through my thin clothes, at the ice forming over my heart. I couldn’t answer. Her eyes darted around the cell, to Kane’s body, then locked back on me. “Who was he? Please, tell me. Where’s my journal? I’ll write everyone down.”

“Did you kill Mahakal?”

“No,” she said, her voice tight, urgent.

The lights in the room flicked off.

“Far?” I tried to reach for her in the dark. “Ask Bria what’s—”

The door opened. Mahakal’s silhouette, a battle ax in his hand, a heat vision helmet on his head. The door slammed. Darkness again.

Panic raked my mind. I couldn’t see, just feel the vibrations through the floor as he struck, hitting stone. Faruhar screamed and Mahakal grunted, then a clang of metal on metal. All Faruhar had was that broken sword. The ax sparked on the walls, giving me a flash of Mahakal’s sneer. I picked up the chain, hearing Faruhar’s choked gasp as the ax met something wet.

A body fell against me, heavy and male. Mahakal’s ax shaved my leg. I pulled the chain in my hands tight before wrapping it around Mahakal’s neck, rolling away from his swing, choking him. The ax sparked against the wall as we wrestled, my movements shaking with the pain of my injuries and poison, but I could push through. Faruhar roared, and I heard the ax clatter away.

Pain flared through my side where Mahakal elbowed the arrow wound in my chest. He rolled me. His weight pinned me to the floor, his breath refilling his lungs as the chain loosened in my hold, his arm leading on my neck. He pried a hand between his throat and the metal, as his heavy breath washed over me.

Faruhar lunged for him and he twisted, slamming her into the wall with his body as I wrestled for control.

The door opened, dim lantern light filtering in.

Ash. It was Ash.

Relief washed over me, an intense wave that threatened to drown me as Mahakal tried to prise the chain from my hands. Faruhar scrambled to grab the ax, bleeding from a gash on her side.

“Asher!” I said, my voice hoarse.

Asher set the lantern on the floor where our shadows tangled. And I had the chain tight against Mahakal’s neck once more, holding tight as he tried to break me against the stone with his fists and knees.

Faruhar drew Mahakal’s battle ax. Ash took his place beside her with Istaran.