"Fuck!" that punch hit me way harder than any she's thrown in training. The crunch is so devastating I can hear that both my nose and her fist are going to be damaged from the impact. Ignoring the pain radiating through my whole head, I reach for Isla's hand, pulling it toward me like I could somehow undo the pain she just caused herself.
"Let go of me," she shrieks, pulling awayfrom me. I'm so confused as to what could possibly be happening right now. The other person sitting at the table she was at barely registers, my whole world focusing on all the hurt, physical and mental, that Isla feels right now.
"What's going on?" I plead with her.
She shoves at my chest again and I let her go.
A man dressed in all black appears at my side, "Hey. You three need to leave. Right now. Or I'm calling the police."
The vaguely familiar-looking guy sitting at the table groans, "Goddamn it, Isla." He throws a few large bills on the table before standing.He finally makes eye contact with me, and by the tone he used with Isla alone, I'm tempted to throttle him.Itake a single step forward, ready to strangle him right here in public, but he holds up a hand, bored annoyance plain in his expression. "Save it. You can fuck me up once we're somewhere the Sanctum won't grab her while you're distracted with tearing my limbs off."
What the fuck?
"I'm not going anywhere with either of you," Isla grits, shoving to walk past me. I grip her arm, aiming for gentle, but I'm sure with my panicked state, I'm definitely holding onto her too firmly for comfort.
"Go," he gestures with both hands toward the exit, "Go, go, go. We'll have to discuss this somewhere else."
"You're not coming with us," I scoff at him.
His gaze drifts from me to the furious woman in my grip, then back up at me, his meaning clear with the cruel tilt of his grin. I'm not getting her out of here without his help.
"Fuck you, Al," Isla spits. "Just leave me alone, both of you."
He rolls his eyes, grabbing her other arm to help me drag her out of this place before she can make a further scene, "You have to calm down," he tells her. "Or when they call the authorities and give them your description, who do you think is going to show up?"
"I don't care," she sniffles, "I'd rather deal with them than the two of you."
I hate pulling her like this, dragging her along while she fights against my hold. I'm so fucking confused about what's happening; her mind is spinning too quickly, too chaotically, for me to pin down any one clear thought.
"You," the man tells me, "Do your mind thing and make sure no one is thinking about reporting this."
I bite my lips between my teeth, hating this motherfucker even more every time he opens his mouth. With his mention of my abilities, Isla's fury sharpens to a point, her every thoughtfocusing on the ways she'd like to kill me for keeping that from her.
I glare daggers at him, knowing he's responsible for her finding out the one last secret I haven't found a way to share with Isla.
But... he isn't wrong about needing to mitigate the damage here. The security guards are suspicious, but not enough to do anything about it. Mostly, they're laughing at the fact that she socked me in the fucking face. Fortunately, it's dark enough in here that they can't tell the blood running down my lips and chin isn't quite the color it's supposed to be.
Myrealconcern is the woman behind the bar. She's apparently brought this guy no less than seven drinks since he's been here, and she doesn't like the look of two men dragging off a woman who very clearly does not want to be with them.
In any other situation, she would be right to be worried, but in this one, I need her to leave it alone. So I ease her mind, assuring her that Isla is safe and, quite frankly, is more of a threat to the two of us than we ever could be to her.
Dragging her out into the hotel lobby, she straightens her legs, digging her heels in and trying to scramble out of our hold. She's not panicking, not fighting, just being so goddamn stubborn I almost want to laugh at her petulance.
Al, or whatever the fuck his name is, pulls us toward the stairwell, and her fighting kicks up a notch, quietly screeching at us that she's not fucking going in there while still trying not to make too much of a scene.
At least she has the good sense not to draw any more attention, but a struggle like this is bound to catch some eyes no matter what.
"There's an elevatorright there," I tell the man.
He looks at me disdainfully, like I'm somehow the asshole in this situation. "Do you want to be trapped in a box someone can stop from the outside? Cuz I sure don't."
Islalooks like shecan't decide who she wants to glare at first.
Rather than wait for her to decide, I open the steel door to the stairs and shove her inside, figuring, if nothing else, we can at least talk in there, away from prying eyes.Her yelp of surprise, followed by a flurry of colorful language, almost makes me laugh, but her current fury is notthefunkindat all.
"I'm on the sixth floor," the man says.Alastor,hisname finally registers, the familiarity of it clicking into place.He's the one who managed to not only take down the compound where they took Caspian, but he somehow slipped the Sanctus Sculitis' forces altogether. But if that's who this is... then he's also the one who-
Before I can think better of it, I grip him by his dirty collar, slamming him against the wall. His head ricochets off the concrete behind him, his eyes rollingin his headfrom the impact before they look boredly at me.
