Maeve smiles. It’s an ugly smile, edged with madness. “There is an old god in Africa, with horns longer than a man and—”
I don’t give her time to finish; she likes to hear herself talk, and I don’t have time for a villain monologue. I step forward, put both hands on her naked shoulders, and release a heavy electric charge. She screams before punching my hands. I wince as two fingers break. I step back.
Maeve shakes herself and glares at me. “Interesting party trick,” she says.
This attack would have killed a normal human. I’ll just have to up my game. No matter how thick the tiger’s skin is, its insides are still composed of water.
TheHighwaymendon’t dare get closer; the bridge seems a little precarious since the rocket hit it. But they cheer their master from both sides.
Maeve jumps back into action, aiming for my head with a wide kick. Once again, I dodge it easily. Her fighting style is crude. She relies too much on her brute force. I regret to say that I learned how to fight with the best teacher: my father. He might have been a terrible father figure and master, but he was a hell of a soldier. Before the Rise, he was a special agent. The kind that the US government sent on difficult missions. A heartless combatant.
Helios taught me kindness. But before that, Sergeant Kang taught me how to be deadly efficient in combat. The only person who ever got the best of me was the Devil of the Wastes.
The next time Maeve comes at me, I pull out the knife I kept hidden in my holster. I stab her in the gut. The blade gets deflected by her thick skin, and I’m taken against my will by the momentum. I hoped that something sharp would be enough. I was wrong. Maeve grabs me into a chokehold, and I barely have time to reach with my arm and stop her from crushing my throat instantly. My arm takes the damage. There is the audible noise of bones breaking, followed by an explosion of pain. I grunt and kick the ground to try to release myself. We fall backward, but she refuses to let me go.
With her strength, I’ll be dead in seconds.
Jude—the impossibly beautiful and incredibly stupid man—has pulled out his own army knife, and he appears above us to stab her in the eye with it. Maeve screams as he buries the blade deep. She releases me. I roll away from her deadly embrace. Jude pulls me away by my good arm while I cradle the other to my chest.
Maeve gets to her feet, blood running down her face and her body. The knife didn’t get deep enough to kill her, but it was enough to take her eye out.
So, she can bleed, too. Good.
“I’m going to make sure to keep you alive while I cut parts off you to feed to Altamaha-ha,” she says to Jude.
“Not if I take your other eye out first,” he says, smiling.
This man loves to play with fire.
Maeve rushes at him. And the fear that surged through me two days ago when she ordered Jude to be thrown over the dam is nothing compared to the one I feel now. If she gets her hands on him, she’ll break him. Irrevocably. He’s only human.
Anything but that. I’m only alive because of him, in many aspects. If he’s gone… I just don’t want to imagine it. I haven’t felt so alive since the day Helios left me, years ago. Jude has taken the broken monster that I was and brought him back to life.
He steps back, barely avoiding her rage. The bridge shakes as she lands.
But as Maeve readies her next attack, I jump on her back and release everything I have. All the electricity stored in my organs. It courses through my dark veins, thanks to the iron-thick blood pumped by my mending heart. My body starts overheating in a matter of seconds. And yet, I don’t let go. At first, she screams loud enough to make my eardrums bleed. She claws at my face with her fingers and nails, almost taking my eye out, too. But eventually, she stops struggling. She stops making any noise. And still, I refuse to let go. She needs to be dead when I pull back. I can’t let her walk away from this. Or even crawl.
At some point, I’m forced to let go as my vision darkens. I’ve spent all that I have, to the point of fading. Maeve falls heavily to the ground, and I tilt back. Jude catches me before my head can hit the asphalt.
“Fuck. You’re burning up,” he says, placing my head on his lap.
Worry shines in his blue eyes as he surveys me. It’s something I could get used to. I reach for his face with my hand and startle when I notice the purple bruises around my veins. I’m covered in them. I’ve pushed my body to its limits.
“You look like shit,” Jude says with a little smile.
“Thanks. And you look stunning, as always,” I retort.
“Of course, I do.”
I laugh. “We need to go before they get out of their stupor and decide to kill us.” I gesture with my good arm to theHighwaymenwaiting on both sides of the bridge. They might figure that the one to kill us will be their new leader. I’m surprised they haven’t started shooting already.
“Where to?” Jude asks. “We’re kind of limited in our escape options.”
“The river.” I try to get to my feet, but I fail miserably.
Jude sighs. “I doubt we’ll survive it.”
“You might, if I use my body to protect yours from the fall.”
