Page 107 of Mud

“Stop!” I shouted with all my remaining strength.

She did.

Fuck.

I was breathing heavily, and so was she. She growled, showing me her sharp teeth, but she didn’t try to reach for me or claw my face off. She knew I’d stab her faster, and she wouldn’t recover fast enough to end me. She knew, so she kept her paws down and those beautiful moss green eyes on me.

My hand was steady as I went closer and closer, holding her head down with all my strength.

“Stop it,” I whispered, my nose almost touching her muzzle. “I don’t want to hurt you. I have no magic anymore and I can’t show you how much I had before I became…this.” My eyes closed and I gritted my teeth, willing myself to keep going. “But I promise you, I don’t want to hurt you. If you don’t come after me, I won’t.”

The vulcera blinked her eyes slowly.

“Do you understand me?”

Another blink.

She didn’t move, didn’t growl, didn’t even show me her teeth anymore. She just stared at me, and in that unusual green of her eyes I could almost read the thoughts in her head, how she promised me, in return, that when she freed herself, she was going to swallow me fucking whole.

Kill her,the reasonable part of me insisted. This was an animal—she couldn’t think rationally. She was in this game to serve a purpose and she was programmed to kill me even if she didn’t want to. She wasn’t going to stop chasing me if I let her go.

Do it, do it, do it!

I screamed—in frustration this time. I couldn’t kill this vulcera while she was tied up like this, unable to fight for her life at least. Fucking hell, I just couldn’t do it.

I fell back on my ass on the branch, so angry at myself I could set something on fire with my eyes alone.

“I can’t do it,” I kept whispering. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”

Andthiswas another weakness of mine that was going to be the reason why I never made it to the Rainbow.

Raising my knees, I rested my elbows on them, lowered my head, and breathed. The vulcera didn’t make a single sound, just watched me, probably thinking I had lost my fucking mind.

“Enough.” I’d wasted enough time with this. Death was inevitable—whywas I still insisting, still fighting, still hoping?

A couple of minutes later, I stood up and cut the ropes I’d tied her with one by one.

Yeah, I’d definitely lost my damn mind.

I reached for my guns again as I stepped back becausefreeing her didn’t mean that I was just going to let her eat me. I was still going totryto get away. So, I stepped back, my limbs shaking with exhaustion. I stepped back while she finally shook off all the pieces of rope on her body and looked up at me.

I was ready.

“Go ahead,” I whispered, waving her over with my gun, knowing full well that I was too weak to even fight properly anymore. She wouldn’t even need to put much effort into killing me.

Except she wasn’t coming.

She wasn’t moving at all as she watched me.

“Come on, what are you waiting for?”

The words came out slurred, my voice barely there.

“Fuck,”I breathed when my hands became too heavy to hold up—or maybe my weapons had somehow magically gained a few pounds?

My legs, too. They gave up on me before I even realized it, and then I was on my knees in front of the vulcera, completely helpless. The vulcera who sat on those strange hind legs, watching me curiously as if to say,you’re just going to make itthiseasy for me?

Why, yes, I answered her in my mind.Yes, I am.

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