Page 12 of Scars Run Deep

I was there as one of them went to grab her. I wrenched him off her and hauled him into his companions.

She was off the trunk in the next second and by my side, her arm brushing up against mine and sending a wave of awareness through me.

The scent of gas hit me. “Get away from the car,” I warned her, dragging her off to the side.

One of them, in their haste and determination not to lose us, jumped up onto the car. It rocked under his weight, and it was the final push. An explosion tore from it, blowing him off it. He screamed as he sailed several feet away and landed in the mud, rolling frantically as flames licked his body.

His comrades cursed, one of them moving to help him, the other two coming at us.

Aurora blasted one of them back with a spin kick.

I snagged the other one and tossed him into the car, right into the flames over by the hood.

He screamed as they seared his skin, melting through his clothes.

As he fought to pull free, I roundhoused him. He slammed into the guardrail of the bridge, lost his balance, then toppled down into the ravine below, screaming the whole way down.

I spun Jonah’s knife in my hand as I turned to deal with the guy who’d just finished putting out the flames on the burned bastard sprawled out in the mud.

I didn’t get to act as Aurora noted one guy breaking from Jonah and coming at us. She bolted forward to handle it, but she got too close to the car.

It exploded again, another burst of fire and metal.

The force of the blast blew her back.

She skidded, trying to maintain her footing, but the slick ground failed to provide the necessary fiction and she slipped, heading right for the ravine.

“Aurora!”

I ran toward the edge, skidding in the process, only just managing to maintain my footing.

Relief like I’d never felt before rolled through me when I saw her hand holding onto a piece of the mangled guardrail. She looked up at me, her eyes wide as she struggled and failed to throw her other hand up, while her body dangled over the edge.

“Hold on, sweetheart!” I called down to her.

“Not much choice,” she rasped.

I got right up to the edge and switched Jonah’s blade to my left hand, then drove it into the ground until it was buried in there deep.

I held onto the handle, then reached out over the ravine with my right hand, inching toward Aurora.

The guardrail she was clutching creaked and jolted.

It was giving way.

In my peripheral vision, I felt the masks coming at us.

I couldn’t pay it any mind, though.

I’d take the hit.

Pulling Aurora up was all that mattered.

She flailed her right arm, trying to swing so she could grab my outstretched hand without letting go of the guardrail with her left.

“I can’t… I can’t make it,” she cried.

I moved closer, feeling the blade shifting a little, straining to hold there in the ground compromised by all the fucking rain.

---