Page 134 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

Sharp, Ambra arcs her back, and he cuts off her air, too, gagging her again.

Gurlien twists his fingers in the leash, desperate even down the hall, and she pulls in one breath, before her throat closes once more.

Hot liquid seeps from the bandage on her chest, and Boltiex’s curiosity snaps off the pain from her nerves, sudden.

“Who shot her?” he asks through her voice, as the door to the room slams open. “Who shot her and what gun?”

Even though she can’t see, even though there’s just the navy darkness over her eyes, the awareness of Gurlien rushing in steals all her attention, even after the Necromancer—Delina—skirts in after him.

“Get her out,” Alette orders him, and Gurlien loops the leash around his arm, secure.

“That won’t work,” Boltiex says through her voice, almost sing-song, and Gurlien’s sharp inhale is almost a music to her ears. “I’ll still find you.”

Before Gurlien twists his hand in hers, in the wrist pinned down, Ambra’s breath is stolen away once more, by that simple action.

“Get me out—” she manages, before Boltiex yanks again, and blood prickles at her neck, at her wrist.

Sudden, there’s a smudge on the demon circle surrounding the cot, some sort of exit route. Power floods back into her, in her grasp, the wild magic all around sparking up in her awareness, as natural with every breath, and she immediately claws it into herself, flash healing the cut on her wrist.

The grab of power creaks the entire building

“Ready?” the necromancer—Delina, her name is Delina, she needs to remember that—asks grimly, and Gurlien tightens his grip on the leash, weaving it through his fingers. Even with the direness, even with someone actively trying to take her back, she marvels at the difference. At how massively more gentle it is.

“Who is that?” Boltiex demands through her voice, and a trickle of fear from him sits in her throat.

He’s afraid. He’s caught off guard.

“There were only four more, who’s that—”

Gurlien must’ve nodded, for in one brief second the Necromancer’s hands are on her, before the binding on her wrist slithers off.

There’s a moment, a breath, before Ambra snaps the magic around Gurlien and her, teleporting away.

32

Ambra staggers, her feet sliding against the floor of the large apartment, the air stale.

Gurlien catches her, half walking half carrying her to the too large bed, and the pain is like a dagger in her chest. He’s controlling the leash, so tight that she can feel Boltiex tugging on the other edge of it, barely managing a twitch.

“I got you, you’re okay,” he mutters to her, and the blindfold still blocks out her sight, the world just a dark blue smudge. He presses her into the bed, into the cool sheets that still smell of him, and she’s gasping, struggling for breath.

“Who’s there?” Boltiex spits out with her voice. “Who’s controlling her, everyone’s dead.”

Gurlien falls silent, keeping the contact with her shoulder, solid. He’s in the bed with her, his body weight dipping against her, warm.

Ambra hadn’t even been aware of how cold she had felt in the cot until that moment.

But he’s here, he’s next to her, out of whatever prisonthey kept him in, and Boltiex gives one more brief, brutal yank of the leash, arching her up, until his touch vanishes.

Ambra sags against the sheets, gasping for air, before she reaches up and tears the scarf off her face.

“I got you,” Gurlien murmurs again, and there are circles under his eyes, his hair completely a mess, sticking up in the back. “I got you, you’re safe.”

She’s not, but she swallows. “He was gonna come after them,” she croaks, and speaking pulls at the wound on her chest, at the barely healing crater against her lungs. “He was gonna find them, he was gonna—”

“We planned for that,” Gurlien replies, his brown eyes flickering down to the wound, and for a split second he’s dismayed, he’s panicked, before he controls his face, smoothing it over.

She reaches up to cradle his chin, and there’s a line of black blood on her wrist where the line of death cut into her, even after her healing.

---