What— How?—?
My confusion muddles my reflexes. When Kenneth hurls himself toward me again, I don’t flinch fast enough.
His hand snatches at my wrist while the other lifts his knife with the blade aimed right at my heart.
Forty-Three
Elodie
The flash of Kenneth’s blade jolts me out of my startled daze. As he stabs down, I wrench out of his hold and duck low to ram the top of my head into his gut.
Uncle Nik said sometimes it’s better to run toward the danger than away. Take control of the fight.
Kenneth clearly isn’t expecting the headbutt. His breath spills out of him with a grunt. His knife only grazes my wrist.
But somehow it manages to slice right through the base of my flexible leather gloves to nick my skin. A sting radiates up my forearm.
Doubling over, Kenneth staggers into a nearby tree trunk. I scramble away, palming my own knife and sliding my backpack off one shoulder. With carefully spaced breaths, I steady myself through the thudding of my pulse.
My gaze latches on to the weapon he’s gripping. The blade is twice as long as mine, with detailing that makes me thinkmilitary grade—the kind of thing Nik might have given me if he thought I could keep something that size concealed.
Is it imbued with magic to enhance its cutting power? Where would Kenneth Hearst have gotten his hands on a knife like that?
Why in the nine circles of Hell is he attacking me at all?
“What are you doing?” I demand, shifting on my feet as he peels himself off the tree. “Whyare you doing this?”
In my reality, he was a victim. He didn’t seem hostile in this world either.
Kenneth doesn’t answer me, just sets his face with determination beneath the tufts of red hair that poke from beneath his hood. He’s only got a few inches on me, and his slim frame probably doesn’t weigh much more than mine. Now that he’s lost the element of surprise, I can’t imagine this will be a difficult stand-off.
If only it made sense.
He can’t be attacking me because I didn’t immediately chat about my dad’s workplace with him, can he? Surely this hostility isn’t completely unrelated to Other Elodie’s death—a classmate going off the deep end over the mildest of rejections?
Kenneth throws himself at me with a little more strategy this time, lunging straight at me and swerving the way he assumes—rightly—that I’ll dodge at the last second. I whip up my knife to clang against his and whack him across the head with my magically weighted bag hard enough to provoke another grunt.
He doesn’t fall back this time, though, just keeps coming, swinging his blade. I leap backward, farther out of the shelter of the trees. The moonlight glints off each arc of the deadly metal, and a twinge runs through the scars on my back.
Agony searing through my flesh, spiking sharper again and again with each plunge of the blade. Gritty wet pavement beneath my cheek; vision blurring with pain.
My lungs squeeze at the awful memory, and my feet skid on the slick grass beside the path. I whirl myself around as I slip, but Kenneth manages to slam his fist into the base of my hand.
My fingers spasm. My knife slips from my grasp and patters somewhere on the dark ground.
I fling my backpack in front of me as I grope for my only real weapon, not wanting to take my eyes off my attacker. My voice comes out rough with exertion. “Please, Kenneth. Tell me what’s going on. You don’t have to do this. We can figure it out.”
My appeal to him as a human being only tightens his angular features. His lips pull back from his even teeth.
He lashes out his foot faster than I’d have thought he was capable of and hooks it around my ankle.
I crash right over, rolling as I hit the ground to avoid his next slash. My shoulder jars against a rock. I swallow a hiss of pain.
Fire all through my back. Footsteps thumping away. A panicked yell; Asher dropping to his knees next to me.
No, no!my mind screams, even though the first boy I loved isn’t here, isn’t anywhere nearby. I flail out with more instinct than intent.
My heel smashes into Kenneth’s shin, and he trips to the side. But as I heave myself back to my feet, he’s already hauling himself around.
