My guts tumbled as I pushed open the door. I gasped, and my hand flew over my mouth as I witnessed the scene. I stumbled backward so hard, I nearly fell over. Chancey looked up and gave me an apologetic glance, but nosorrycould make up for this.
Charlie sat in Chancey’s desk chair. I wouldn’t have been able to recognize him if it wasn’t for our bond, because his face was so badly beaten. His entire face was massed with purple bruises, and he had two black eyes, both of which were swollen shut. There were so many cuts on his face from where the skin had split open, it looked like someone had taken a knife and cut into it. His nose was broken, and red streaked from his face and all the way down his neck. His head lolled, like he was still trying to come around.
Chancey was trying to dot the blood away with a cloth, but I shoved him out of the way. I checked Charlie’s mouth and found teeth missing. Blood was still pooling against his tongue.
“Who the fuck did this?!” I seethed. At the sight of Charlie beaten like that, I was ready to kill.
“Deuce. He whacked him so hard he almost got his sight back,” Chancey replied.
“Shut the hell up, Chancey,” Charlie replied in a slur. He tried to push him away, and failed. He was barely conscious.
“Why’d you bring him back here, instead of the medical tent beside the ring?” I hissed. “Don’t you have people who’ll heal the fighters?”
Chancey blinked slowly. “If they’re too badly roughed up— some guys they don’t see the point in trying to help, ya know? They woulda just taken him out back.”
I felt bile rise in my throat at the thought of the guards dumping Charlie somewhere in the back of the prison, leaving him for dead. “He looks like shit.”
“He’ll pull through,” Chancey said nervously.
“He has a fucking concussion!” I shouted. “He needs to go to the infirmary!”
“I did what I could to clean him up, but if we take him to the nurses, they’re gonna ask questions,” Chancey insisted.
“I couldn’t fucking give a damn. Help me.” I hauled one of Charlie’s arms over my shoulders, and Chancey took the other. We walked Charlie to the infirmary, but it was more like dragging him. People whispered and looked our way, pointing at the blood trail Charlie left on the floor.
Lady Helga immediately stopped what she was doing once she saw Charlie dangling between the two of us. She and a couple of other nurses hurried over with a gurney. “Lay him here, please.”
We put Charlie on the gurney. His fingers slipped from my hand as he was wheeled away, and it felt like the action ripped my arm from its socket.
“Will he be okay?” I asked.
“We’ll take good care of him, Miss Mitoh. We promise.”
Lady Helga hurried off to take Charlie to a private room— which I knew was bad. The infirmary was set up with a bunch of single beds tucked close together, with little privacy. If Charlie was getting his own recovery space, it meant Deuce had really hurt him.
Oberi growled and snapped his jaws beside me, feeling my rage. My knuckles cracked as I bunched them into fists, and I swear I saw red.
“Ava,” Chancey started, like he could already read my mind.
“Don’t,” I snapped, cutting him off. “I swear to the ancestors, Chancey, I’ll stick your wings up your ass and send you crawling back to whatever hell hole you came from. Don’t interfere.”
I whirled on my heel and marched down the hallway with Oberi beside me. Chancey didn’t stop me, but ran after me anyway.
All the advice Daddy had given me about lying low completely flew out of my mind as I ran through the prison, looking for Deuce. It was still early morning, so there weren’t a lot of people up, but I wasn’t going to quit until I found him.
Then I heard a mocking laugh emit from the Villain’s Den, and I pivoted on my heel, finding my prey.
Marcus and Kallie were on the other side of the room, playing a foosball game before breakfast. They noticed me striding toward Deuce and stopped their game. They moved to back me up, though I don’t think either of them were stupid enough to try and stop me. Oberi changed into a Fire unicorn, her fiery mane exploding into bright red flames as we drew closer.
Deuce leaned against one of the arcade games with his vampire buddies. I noticed Charlie had gotten in a few good hits on him before Deuce had beaten his ass.
I didn’t care that Deuce was a gang leader, that he was a super strong and super fast vampire, or that he’d just beaten the hell out of my boyfriend. All I cared about was delivering a message. I launched myself on him and put my hands around his neck. Flames began licking around my fingers as I slammed Deuce into the wall, and his eyes widened as he felt the intensity of my heat creeping up his stone-hard skin.
“You’d better take your hands off me, psycho!” Deuce snarled.
“You or anyone else tries to stop me, I’ll ignite your body into flames!” I screamed. I increased the intensity of my Fire until it was rippling up and down my arms, and all along Deuce’s body. Deuce yelped. His gang held back, not sure of what to do. Oberi pounded her hoof into the floor and lowered her horn, like she was ready to drive it through Deuce’s heart like a wooden stake.
“You got a lot of nerve, coming after a vampire who just turned Wahkin’s face into mush,” Deuce seethed.
