“There is that,” Valak chuckles in my ear, the both of us watching Wendy as she gathers her strength again. But Val isn’t finished playing with her, and he waits until she’s watching us both before he leans down and kisses my neck, his hand falling away from my hip. “Go get her, tiger.”
This time, I’m the one that attacks. I also don’t let up. She falls backwards against her car when I snap a kick in her midsection and I follow my first hit with another brutal stab of my fingers into her wound again.
Wendy tries, I’ll give her that, but for every punch she lands, I get in five.
The scent of her blood, the pain on her face feeds my anger. I feel power vibrating up my arm with each punch. Or it might be, each time I hit her, I reclaim more of the power that was taken from me.
I move on to reclaiming what she and every other person involved in the Regalo project took from me and the other people locked in cages alongside me. By fucking destroying her.
I know I’m winning; I know I’m vicious and nonstop in my attack on her, but in a lot of ways I can’t hear her pain, I can’t feel myself anymore, lost in what she did, as I try desperately to find the reasons why she never helped any of us.
Valak’s voice is in my ear. I hear my name, but it sounds far away.
“Lennon,” he calls again, and I turn, fighting my way out of years of repressed memories and emotions to find him.
“Len, baby, come back to us,” Gabe calls out. His voice comes from right in front of me and I have to blink a few times to see him properly. My vision is out of focus and blurry.
My head’s spinning. “You were fighting,” I say confusedly. He puts his hands out for me to hold on to and I reach for him straight away. “What about Wendy?”
“She’s done, dove.” Lincoln comes at me from the same side as Gabe, and it really is still a bit weird. “Look at her. She won’t ever hurt you again.”
I drop my eyes and am stunned. A rush of peppery scent wraps around me, barely a moment before Noah lifts me up off Wendy.
“You did it, Len. She’s a fucking mess,” Gabe says, standing with us. And I watch still a little lost and completely shocked when Lincoln drags Wendy to her feet, passing her to someone standing behind him. Several someones actually, because Wendy can’t stand. I’m not sure she can see or hear either. But I sure hope she can fucking still breathe because killing her with my bare hands might be long overdue and therapeutic, but it would ruin my intention of making her suffer for a long time to come.
41
LENNON
As I prod Valak with my foot as opposed to interrupting the flow of conversation around us, he turns slightly and glares at me. Again.
“I told you five minutes ago to wait,” he hisses out the side of his mouth, his eyes at half-mast. Because he’s a little fucked off with me. He asked me to not get any more injured, and I kind of messed that up. He also told me to stop eating, and I didn’t listen to that either.
“I feel a bit icky, Val,” I whisper. And making sure to keep up appearances, I smile up at him, but instead of looking sweet, my gurgling tummy makes it so I push past him, sprinting to the toilet, barely making it before I’m throwing up.
One moment he’s grumpy, the next he’s rubbing my back sympathetically, with a smidge of I told you so. I can feel it in his touch and turn to growl at him. Of course, he’s already got one eyebrow tipped up expectantly.
“You always have to be right, don’t you?” I pout, standing up and wiping my face over his t-shirt before he can stop me. But it’s not going to make either of us look or smell worse. The five of us stink. And that’s putting it politely, even poor Mrs. Jones is struggling to not look offended by our presence in her home.
“I told you to slow down, is all,” he says softly, leading me to the bathroom. And he did, but once the rush of adrenaline left before the pain medication took hold, I think I inhaled about ten warm scones with jam and cream in the space of three minutes.
Gabe follows behind us, and even before he opens his mouth, I know whatever he’s going to say is going to be bad. It’s the wicked twinkle in his brown eyes that gives him away. “So weird, you can usually stomach lots of cream, Len.”
Mrs. Jones, who pops out from behind him, looks a little mortified. “She got sick from my cream?”
Gabe fucking smiles like a goddamn, cheeky-assed crocodile, looking at me again before he turns and cuddles up to Mrs. Jones, steering her back to the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Jones, we found out that Len’s not got a stomach for anything but Couser Cream. She can swallow gallons of the stuff.”
And that’s the point I stop fucking breathing.
“I’ve not heard of that brand. I’ll have to…” Her sweet little voice floats back to where my feet are glued to the spot.
“Oh my fucking god, I’m going to kill him,” I groan, hiding behind my hands. The pain of this embarrassment is about a thousand times worse than the injuries I got tonight.
Val gives a deep, throaty laugh that makes my head spin while he waits for me to restart breathing. Swinging around and fisting his shirt to pull him down to my height, I whisper furiously. “We need to go this goddamn instant, Val. She’s going to want all the details.”
He laughs louder, knowing how right I am.
The Alliance came through just in the nick of time. Five or six packs converged on what was left of Serenity Lane, bringing with them patrol cars full of honest, law-abiding officers, a medical van big enough to deal with the number of injured and dead, and a small bus ready to transport the real criminals straight to Desert Rose.
