Page 149 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“How did you manage to control her?” Boltiex asks, honest curiosity in his voice. “You shouldn’t be able to, not after…” he waves his hand at Gurlien, still out of breath from the dust slowly settling in the air. “It should’ve been beyond you.”

Gurlien’s jaw tightens, such a subtle motion of anger that Ambra almost misses it.

“She should’ve been able to escape your grasp in a second,” he continues, and there’s dust in Gurlien’s hair, powdering it gray, and dust across the cuts on his eyebrow. “Ambra, kill him.”

The words hang dark in the air, before the compulsion wraps itself wire tight around Ambra’s throat, cutting into the skin on her neck, and she chokes on it, scrabbling her hand up to the leash and tearing at it.

And in that moment where she struggles, in that moment where she digs her feet in and fights, Gurlien stands there, his face open.

His brows raise, his lips part, and he looks at her as if he’d never dream of going anywhere else. In the face of almost certain death, in the face of her, he just gazes at her as if she’s just as beautiful as she was on that night in Paris, as she was under the lights of the wine bar.

Ambra jerks back, the snap of anger tight against the leash, and Boltiex spins to her, watches her struggle with the order. Blood wells up in her throat as the leash constricts, as it pulls taut, choking her, coating her lungs.

Before Boltiex tilts his head, sliding his control into her stronger, smoothing down her actions, drifting her arms down to her side.

“Interesting,” Boltiex murmurs, like it’s something to be studied instead of horror and terror and Gurlien being right there, his heart beating. “So you have—”

In between one blink and the next, Gurlien surges forward and punches Boltiex straight in the jaw.

Ambra reels back, the control slipping from her mind in one blessed moment of peace, and she grabs at power, grabs at all the magic she can sense, twisting it up and aroundherself, something to insulate herself away from Gurlien, away from the danger, away from hurting him.

The house shudders on its foundation, cracking from the magic, and all the wards on the house snap apart. The weak stasis chamber three floors below, cracked. The cage around the other demon, shattered. The wards around silence, around stopping people from trespassing, from teleporting out, all gone in one crash.

Boltiex staggers back outside of Gurlien’s range, his ears ringing so strong Ambra can taste it.

Ambra surges up with the magic, snapping it out at him. Boltiex manages to shield his neck, counteract her, but she twists her fist into another strip, slamming it into him, battering.

He grasps at her mind, his control filtering her enough that she falters, enough that she jerks backwards, the power flinging uselessly against the wall, showering her with more Sheetrock dust.

She snaps out more power, the house shuddering around her, before—

There’s a gasp, a choked off sound of fear at the door, drawing her up short.

Right outside the door, her face pale, is the pre-teen. The child in the basement.

Her face is pale, and everyone stills, from Gurlien where he’s scrabbling for the multi tool, popping out the knife as if it could do something, from Boltiex and his face streaked with blood, all turn to stare.

“Dad?” the child asks, her voice lilting up, and behind her, the demon in the cage rises.

Boltiex’s eyes snap to the demon, to the nebulous state of a demon without a body to inhabit, and he jerks forward, clutching his daughter to him.

No, not clutching, hiding behind. Like the girl is another shield, just like the one he had to defend himself moments ago. Like the demon won’t strike him if he uses his child as a buffer.

“Don’t—” Boltiex starts, but the other demon surges up, surges past them, snapping Boltiex’s neck where he stands.

It’s loud, in the silence, before Boltiex slumps back, his arms falling away from his daughter as he clatters to the ground.

Ambra reels back, the sudden shock snapping through her mind. There’s nobody, there’s nobody on the other end of the leash, it’s gone within one moment and the next. All bonds, all pressure, all control, gone.

Her neck, completely free. No tight constraint, no irritation, nothing.

The demon breathes out, and for a split second, Ambra can feel their eyes on her, feel their inspection and their appraisal, before they rest a clawed hand on the girl’s shoulder, teleporting her away.

Ambra staggers, listing to the side, and Gurlien catches her by the shoulder.

Her ears ring, sharp, drowning out her gasping and the pounding of her heart, but she clings to him.

“Oh, hey, I got you,” he’s saying, and she can barely hear him behind the struggle for air. “You’re okay, you’re alive, you’re okay.”

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