Page 43 of Retribution

He stood up. “You cannot control me any longer, Greta.”

“Her power is not greater than mine.” Her voice held anger, and for the first time, I saw that she questioned her greatness. “She is not superior.”

A glow began in Greta’s fingers before chains crept toward us. They came too quickly, too fast, and none of us had time to react before the chain looped around Justice’s neck, pulling him toward the wall where our mate hung. I panicked. If his body lifted toward Lenin’s, he would be strangled, strung up in the air before us, and there would be nothing we could do about it.

Thinking the same as me, Michelle shot a ball of fire at Greta, and the chains stopped moving. Greta turned in her direction, her fingers flaring to life before snakes slithered past my feet toward my friends. I countered fire with ice, hitting each snake as they got close, shooting the threat down while working through the pain that was pulsing through my body.

When it was clear that simply sending snakes against my friends would not do, Greta turned to me, her eyes manic. “I’ll take down every single one of those that you love and make you watch. Then, I’ll make you fall to your knees and beg me to spare your life. I won’t, of course. I’ll slaughter you like I’ve done all the children of fate that came before you, painfully and bloody.”

Then a loud noise filled the room as a beast two stories tall broke through the hole in the side of the building, taking wall and floor with it as it set its eyes on me.

Chapter 24

LIBERTY

With the wallopening as long as a semi-truck, it was clear that inside wasn’t the only place that sustained damage. Outside, our home was on fire, smoke wafting into the building and searing my nostrils and pricking at our eyes. The lawn had smoking craters and was scattered with rubble. Its surface littered with bodies of my people mixed with piles of decaying flesh of the opposing side.

How was this my life? How had it gone from a happy, joyous occasion to something so unimaginably sorrowful? As if to punctuate my thoughts, a broken piece of Ellis’ ‘Happy Birthday’ banner floated into the room and landed at my feet.

“Do not cry,” Sterling ordered, “She wants you to look weak.”

My abdomen clenched, and I fought not to flinch. My voice was a whisper when I said, “But I am weak.”

“You are the strongest person here, Liberty. Now, what are we going to do about it?”

“About what?” I would not sniffle. I would not sniffle.

A single finger gestured to the massive monster, scrapping his paw against the floor, sending pieces of debris and tile flooring in the air. Shit, I had forgotten about him. But he most certainly hadn’t forgotten about me. His red eyes were focused as he stared me down, the smoke rising from his mouth billowed in the air. Then, he charged.

In seconds, his body stood where mine once was, and if it weren’t for Sterling’s quick actions, I would have been a goner. The bull-like creature huffed out a stream of fire, and although its breathing was heavy, it didn’t prevent me from hearing Greta’s laugh echo through the room and funnel into the outside world.

“Why?” I wailed, “Why are you like this?”

Not like it made a difference. It was clear that this witch had no intention of ever turning good, and if I wasn’t the one to kill her, I could only hope one day there was someone who came along that was strong enough to do the deed for me.

“Why?” She laughed again. “Why does anyone do what they do?” Her voice was almost manic as she spoke, and she didn’t wait for me to answer, “Love.”

The bull charged toward us, and I put up a wall of ice, stopping it in its tracks. It wouldn’t hold, I was sure. Not when it could breathe fire. But it would give us a moment to figure out what to do next. “We need to get to the others.”

Sterling looked around. “Can you build an ice bridge to them?”

Could I? I’d never tried it, but that wouldn’t stop me. I let the ice flow from my palm, compacting layers until it landed at Maggie’s feet. We hurried onto the ice as Greta continued, completely unaware. She had lost her mind. So absorbed in her success so far and so sure she had won. I didn’t want that to happen. I wouldn’t let her win.

“When I was a kid, I used to watch parents care for their children. Mothers cry over their births, feel sorrow over their deaths. Fathers carry them around on their shoulders, helping their children learn and grow. But I got nothing. From the time I could function on my own, I was left to my own devices. No one offered love. Caring. A kind word of encouragement.”

For fate's sake, this whole ordeal could have been avoided if she was loved as a child?

“I found a book, the first of many. I taught myself how to read and watched from the schoolhouse's attic until I could fully understand the magic of the words. Then, I read it. I read about the spells and capabilities, learned how to manipulate the elements of the world and how to form them into what I wanted.”

Our feet fell to the ground next to Horo’s, and though I wasn’t sure at this point if we could succeed, I was at least glad there wasn’t a whole monster separating us. We watched as the monster’s fire broke through the ice wall, his angry roar to find that we had escaped causing pieces of the building to crumble, nearly missing us as it fell to the ground.

Greta kept talking, obviously loving the sound of her voice, wanting or needing to tell her story. “That’s how I learned about creating vampires. I wasn’t the first, but I was the most productive.”

She seemed so proud of this fact, uncaring that she had ruined so many lives in her quest for attention. Rolland leaned into us. “What if we sever the artery in his hind legs?”

Sterling scratched his chin. “We would have to get under him.”

“He’s like twenty feet tall,” Michelle snorted, “I’ve been under less.”

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