Page 67 of Truth Revealed

Give a girl a fuckin’ shovel, please.

“Excuse me? Uhm, no. This twit belongs to me.” Pandora had the audacity to argue.

In that moment, with her adrenaline sky-high, her heart pounding and possibly broken, her chest aching and anger rushing through her veins like fire, Daria acted.

She rushed forward, shoving Pandora back with two palms to her shoulders, and then whipped the blade out of the back of her waistband. Calling up a minimum amount of self-defense training, the thin knowledge she’d gained from Death’s lessons, and far too many action movies, Daria slashed her knife forward. Pandora dodged to the side so the blade caught nothing but the edge of her flowing top. Daria advanced anyway, pressing forward and throwing them into the midst of the fight.

Everything narrowed down to that one woman. Nothing else mattered. Not the fights around them or the grunts of pain. Not the smacks of fists against faces or the swish of blades through the air. Because if she watched one of her guys take a hit, she didn’t know quite what she’d do. Advancing on Pandora, Daria kept her steps quick and light, avoiding the bodies and limbs around her that shot out in her direction as the fight continued.

Lips twisted in a snarl, Pandora dodged attack after attack before she leapt over a table and grabbed an abandoned blade. She brandished it like a pro, and Daria barely blocked the first strike, their blades glancing off one another with a metallic scrape.

Pandora’s blade was more like… a short sword.

The curved blade Daria grasped was just a dagger.

And all those fighting moves Daria channeled?

Turned out all those moves weren’t nearly as effective when the partner you attacked didn’t work with you like it was a choreographed dance.

“Why are you still fighting this?” Pandora spat, when their blades hissed against each other again. “They’re just demons.”

“They’re not just demons,” Daria argued, darting around a wooden pillar to avoid Pandora’s dagger. It thunked into the wood and Daria winced. That could’ve been my body.

“Do not give me a spiel about how they have feelings and shit.”

Daria crouched low to the ground with her back to the pillar, waiting for Pandora to round the corner. Her voice grew closer as she kept talking.

“They’re inherently evil, and they’re supposed to be kept inside the jar. Just let me do my job,” she shrieked. “And give me my damn daughter back!” Her voice rose to a yell as she stepped around the column.

“She’s not your daughter!” Daria growled in response, extending her arm and slicing the blade across the back of her calf. Pandora stumbled forward and Daria leapt up, taking advantage of her weakness. Daria grabbed the arm Pandora had thrown out to catch herself against a nearby table, twisting her wrist up and back until Pandora growled out a curse. The table wobbled when Daria forced her torso down onto the rickety top.

“Make them stop fighting,” she demanded, yanking hard on her arm when Pandora didn’t respond. “Tell your demons to stand down.”

The fighting seemed to have slowed while she had her little tête-à-tête with Pandora. Daria leaned low over Pandora’s back, hissing into her ear, “Tell them to stand down. We’ll even let them leave.”

A grunt sounded nearby, feet away, before Hope called out, “Daria, turn around!”

But she didn’t process the words quickly enough, and only turned her head. Her eyes widened as that asshole Deceit got away from Hope, shoving her demon back with a booted foot and a slice of a long, thin blade. Everything slowed so Daria could count the blood droplets that arced through the air with his dagger.

Here we go again, she thought sourly. Wonder if I can recover from decapitation?

In a last chance of defense, Daria released Pandora’s arm to turn and bring her blade up to block, but she didn’t have to. Someone slid in front of her, their body blocking Deceit from her sight, and the blade from her body. Instead, when it hit the person in front of her, it was strangely absent of sound.

Vaguely, she was aware of the scuffle behind her, the quick retreat of light-footed steps.

But none of that mattered as much as the person in front of her. At first, it was like her brain refused to process who had been stupid enough to put himself in front of a blade. For Daria.

But slowly, the shoulder-length blond hair came into focus, the lean but strong figure she’d spent hours caressing, learning every inch of him.

Everything faded away—every second seeming to extend into a full minute as every bit of Daria’s focus centered on the demons before her. Deceit, with his smug face, the flex of his muscled arms as he yanked the blade from Truth’s body, a soft hissing sound cutting through the air as effectively as the weapon had. His blade was still extended with a fresh stripe of blood lining the edge.

Truth, her blond surfer demon, stumbled back, and Daria reached out to catch him as he lost his balance. Her arms went around him instinctively, palms flat on his stomach. The warmth of his blood poured over her hands as she held him, his knees weak and barely holding him up.

As if someone pushed play on a remote, everything swam around her, coming into focus. Hope’s shout of alarm as he advanced on Deceit like a storm cloud full of lightning and raging thunder. The tip of a blade as it pierced his chest, the demon’s mouth falling agape as he glanced down at the protruding metal. Then the jerk of his body as Hope tore the short sword from his chest and pushed the demon aside.

“Daria… Daria, are you okay?”

She heard his voice, recognized the words, but she couldn’t respond. The words just wouldn’t come.