Which is stupid, and I know it. Because she has had years on me to hone her craft.
When I feel some distant emotions, I latch on to them.
“Look out!” Fabien screams.
It’s enough to actually break my concentration. My chest heaves as all the tethers fade away.
Donovan moves quickly to my left, and it catches my attention.
My father’s bloody body begins to twitch.
No, this can’t be. I don’t want to believe it, but I’m seeing it right before my very own eyes. My father sits up, and a stream of blood rushes out of his neck and chest. The sight is enough to turn my stomach.
Necromancy is a thing of the past. Even I know it’s not practiced nowadays, and the books were said to have been burned long ago.
How is Sandra doing this? She’s not a natural, I can tell by the way she’s muttering spells. So, where did she learn it?
“Donovan!” I yell as my father stiffly wraps a hand around Donovan’s throat. The mutilated stump where his pinky once was leaves a smear of blood on Donovan’s skin.
My father is a puppet. A brainless, dead puppet.
It’s so eerie to see.
I’ve got to break her concentration.
Sucking in a deep breath, I run for Sandra. She’s barely paying me any attention, too focused on what she’s doing. Fabien beats me to it, striking her hard in the back with a chair. She stumbles forward, coughs, and blinks as if dazed for asecond. The chair is in pieces on the floor, wood splintered into huge chunks.
I don’t know what possesses me, but I lean down, my fingertips brushing over smooth wood. Next thing I know, I’m scooping up a leg-shaped stake. I don’t think about the weight of it as I tightly wrap my hand around the unbroken side. I don’t think about what kind of damage I could do.
I don’t think about anything, really. For a few beats of my heart, time seems to stand still.
When she opens her mouth again, I don’t hesitate to run the wood straight into it. I rush forward, pushing her back, until we hit the wall. Even then, I don’t stop pushing the steak with all my might. Her eyes show fear, then… nothing. They’re just blank gray orbs right in front of me.
Fabien pulls me away, and the gruesome sight I can’t seem to force my gaze away from has bile rising in my throat.
“Oh, that’s…” Fabien says with a choking gag sound. He manages to keep it down, too, and I thank my lucky stars. I really don’t want to smell the putrid scent of puke on top of the metal tinge of blood. “Nope. Not made for this kinda stuff.”
I can’t speak, so I wrap my arm around him in comfort while simultaneously turning us away from the sight of the dead witch pinned to the wall with blood pouring out of her mouth. I wish I could get someone to suppress that image from my memories.
I can’t even express how relieved I am when I see my father’s corpse in a limp heap on the desk again. Donovan has a scowl on his face as he looks down at the man. I know he’s wishing he could revive him just to kill him all over again. I get it, because part of me wishes I could have done more to Sandra.
But it’s over.
Right?
Please, tell me it’s over.
A beeping noise rings out from somewhere. It’s coming from my father’s pocket. Donovan doesn’t hesitate to rummage through the thankfully still lifeless corpse’s clothes, finding a phone and pulling it out. He swipes a finger across the screen, stopping the offending alarm from going off. When he looks up at me, a smile slowly creeps across his face. I’m confused, so I stare back at him with an expression that completely conveys that. What the heck is he smiling about? We are standing in a warehouse full of dead bodies. I know we won, if you can call it that, but this isn’t really a smile and cheer in celebration kind of victory.
“What?” I ask, a slight nervous quake in the word.
“It’s past midnight,” he says. The way his voice rumbles sends a delicious shiver down my spine.
Fabien gasps beside me. It takes me entirely too long to realize what it means.
“We’re not dead,” I say, the shock of it written all over my face.
Donovan comes for me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into his body. I’m breathless and speechless. But it doesn’t matter because the moment he presses a hard kiss to my lips, I would have been both those things anyway. My feet leave the floor as he lifts me up. It’s actually quite a romantic moment, despite the horror scene around us. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a moment similar to this, but somehow, it feels fitting for us.
