Page 63 of Worse Fates

“Kai!”

“Anyway, just-just want-ed to l-l-let you know I’m on my way ho-home.”

Oh God he’s not moving.

I scream his name, cold dread starting from my heart and freezing outwards.

“He’s just unconscious,” Ramy pants behind me.

Relief leaves me on an exhale. My gaze sweeps to Ramy, but the action causes pain to blaze across my skull.

“Lucero,” I grit out, the world doubling. “Lucero needs help.”

“Stay with him.” Ramy’s voice is hard—an order. Then he’s vaulting over the smoking car and sprinting towards a sound I hadn’t even noticed, but could never forget; squelching, raw meat squeezed between fingers.

Oh, shit. Blood mages.

“Se-see you in a-a bit.”

I want to see what's happening, but as the sounds of a fight become obvious I stay low, knowing I’ll only distract and focus on Kai. His brown skin is leached of colour, there’s a small cut on his forehead but I can’t make out any other damage. Which doesn’t mean there’s none, however.

“You’re gonna to be okay, dude, got it?” I whisper to my best friend. “We’re gonna get outta here.”

I’m startled by a scream piercing the air, then Ramy’s body is thrown like garbage beside us. Terrified, I go to help him, but he lets out an enraged roar so unlike my gentle friend I fall back. Ramy wrenches himself up, but a shining red spear comesout of nowhere to stab through his chest in an explosion of gore and impaling him to the ground.

“Ramy!” His name rips out of me. Yet I’m reminded he is no human. His fangs drop as he fists the spear and begins to draw it from his body, thick blood drenching his t-shirt, his face a fragmented mirror of both rage and pain.

“Love ya.”

Something cracks, then grinds, like eggshells under a boot—cutting the voicemail off. And then like the monster from my every nightmare, Jace climbs up on the car and looks down at me, smirking.

“Hey, goofball.”

“Jace,” I spit.

A misty ball of squelching blood pulses in his open palm, his fingers stroking it, as if it were a cat’s chin. His disgusting spellbook hovering by his side. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Leave him alone—” Ramy’s words end on a high-pitched wail as Jace pulls his fingers in tight. Jagged thorns grow from the spear and burrow deep, ripping apart Ramy’s insides.

“Stop hurting him!” I grab a piece of jagged scrap metal, hold it tight enough to slice open my hand.

Like I give a fuck.

Fury propels me forward, and I slam my shoulder into Jace’s gut. A startled yell leaves him as we topple over the car, hitting the floor in a tangled heap.

Jace tries to punch me, but I block him with my forearm then bring the metal down—yet before it pierces his face, a sharp pain doubles me and I drop my only weapon.

Then that pain isyankedforward, like someone is trying to pull not me—but something in me—out. And I watch in horror as a long ribbon of wet blood is leached from my shoulder. A strained yell bubbles in my throat, then bursts as that ribbonsharpens into a solid needle as long as my forearm, and stabs through my upper arm.

“GOLDEN!” Lucero roars.

Toppling over, my cheek scraps against the road where I land. But I don’t have time to catch my breath. Slapping damaged and hurting hands down I heave my throbbing body up.

Through a haze of confusion, I watch in the distance as Lucero ducks and dives through long, violent whips of blood. Like the spear, they shine like polished metal and have wicked teeth to inflict as much damage as possible. The blood mage controlling them isn’t Jace though, but a dark haired woman with a shock of white down her flowing hair, a flesh book hovering by her side. From this distance it’s hard to make out any other details of her, but from the way she stands and wields her sinister weapons, she reeks of a lethal confidence.

Too bad for her Lucero isn’t making this fight an easy one, he dips and dodges. Hitting at her then speeding back. She’s flagging, that much is obvious.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going!” Jace grabs my t-shirt and spins me into him so close I can smell his minty breath. “You’re mine, Golden. Mine!” he seethes.