“Skyla,” I croaked. She turned to look at me, her eyes reflecting the scarlet flames. “You talk too much.”
The blade I’d hidden between my fingers flicked out in a move faster than I ever thought possible. Her hands flew to her throat, and for a moment I thought I had missed, until scarlet blood flowed from between her fingers and down, snuffing the flames around her arms.
She fell to her knees, wet, gurgling noises coming from her throat. The fire she had summoned swept out of her control. It began to burn her clothing, the smell of burning flesh making my nausea even worse.
I did my best to ignore her, dragging myself to Hel’s side. A piece of masonry from her trap had landed on my leg. I didn’t think it was broken, but it sure hurt like hell.
She had certainly played me for a novice. The deadfall she had set up had been perfect, right at the edge of the firelight. The campfire had made me night blind, and I hadn’t spied thedeadfall trap above us. Her simpler traps had obviously been designed to make me underestimate her skills.
“You okay?” I asked.
Hel’s gaze seemed mesmerized by the fire that was slowly consuming Skyla’s body. I tried not to follow his gaze, to see her body twist and jerk under the flame’s touch.
“Hel? You okay?” I asked again, shaking him.
His gaze remained locked on the flames. I tried to break his line of sight but couldn’t get to my feet to move between him and Skyla’s body. So I did the only thing I could think of. I dragged him to me and kissed him.
His touch hit me like lightning. The brush of my lips over his set off sparking explosions all over my body, like the feel of static electricity, but a thousand times stronger.
Suddenly his gaze was no longer on Skyla’s twisting corpse, but caught in mine, his silver eyes gleaming in the reflected firelight.
When we finally separated, we were both gasping for air. His hand came up and gently pushed my hair out of my eyes, tucking it tenderly behind one ear.
“You keep doing that,” I whispered. “Maybe I should cut it.”
“Don’t even think about it. I love your hair,” he swallowed roughly. “But as much as I’m enjoying this, we need to get of here.”
It was my turn to be a little out of it. Dazed, I glanced around, seeing the flames from Skyla’s corpse was spreading across the old books, their dry pages crackling as they caught fire.
With Hel’s help, I struggled to my feet, and we escaped through the billowing smoke and out the front of the building.
Out in the cool evening air we made our way across the boulevard. The smoke seeming to follow us out into the night.After a few minutes I was able to walk without having to lean on the Soma, but it just felt so right to be pressed up against him, I didn’t want to let him go.
We made our way to one of the many safe camps that Hel had created around the city, this one in the basement of a small office building.
Hel triggered solar lights around the room. It was relatively clean, and a pallet of some kind sat in a corner with some plastic storage crates scattered about. It had been a bit chilly outside after the heat of the fire, but the air in the room was comfortable.
“Sit down, I want to take a closer look at your head,” the Illyrian ordered.
I started to snap, but bit back the retort, reminding myself he was just trying to help. I sat on one of the crates near one of the lights.
Hel pulled a small first aid kit out of his pack and peered cautiously at my head. He grumbled something about “stupid Mageia” and pulled some gauze and antiseptic from the kit. I was more than a little surprised to see the gauze come away red after pressing it against my skull. I hadn’t even realized I’d been bleeding.
“Hold this,” he insisted, moving my hand to hold the gauze against my head while he began rummaging through his backpack. He found some kind of rectangle shaped plastic container. He bent the plastic in half, and I heard a cracking noise. He shook the bag for a minute then handed it to me.
“Put that over the gauze,” he ordered.
I took the bag, surprised to find it was cold, and getting colder by the moment. I held it against the gauze and winced.
“Yeah, you’ll probably have a good-sized goose egg tomorrow, but I don’t think you’ll need any stitches,” he said.
The Soma pulled a penlight from his pocket and took turns shining it in my eyes.
“Will I live, doc?” I asked sarcastically.
“I don’t know,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “It depends on how many more pissed off Mageia we run into.”
“Knowing me? I doubt our chances are very good, then,” I said. “My people skills need work.”
