Page 189 of Dance of Deception

Then I turn back to the woods, where the trail picks up again, and I start running.

My breath is steady. My boots silent.

I keep tracking: footprints, broken branches, any signs of a struggle. My pulse stays even. My grip on the gas canister in my hands stays steady.

The trees blur past. I can hear Arkadi's and Lyra’s voices in the distance. He’s taunting her, twisting her mind, trying to convince her she belongs with him.

I don’t need to get to them.

I just need to make sure he has nowhere to run.

I pop the cap of the gas can, moving fast, cutting a wide arc through the trees. My fingers skim the branches as I move.

Bone dry. No rain or snow for weeks.

Perfect.

I freeze when I hear a yell and the dull thud of wood smashing into flesh. Then I hear Arkadi’s roar of fury, followed by another hit and another wrenching cry from his fucking mouth, and I grin savagely.

That’s my girl.

I keep running, pouring the rest of the gas in a thick, wide circle.

Then I pull the flare from my pocket.

I smile grimly as I remember what I told her once. Then I strike the flare, letting it roar to life in my hand, turning the woods around me demonically red.

Fire ignites instantly when I drop the flare into the trail of gas I’ve poured through the trees. The dry underbrush catches in a vicious wildfire, flames roaring through the forest like living things.

I don’t stop moving.

The wind is in my favor. The blaze spreads back through the path I just took, devouring the forest in a violent inferno.

The night turns red and gold, smoke thick in the air like the fucking apocalypse.

Then I hear it.

Lyra, crying out.

I bolt toward the sound, heat licking at my back as the fire explodes almost out of control, devouring the world behind me.

I smash through the underbrush and burst into the clearing?—

And my vision goes red.

Arkadi is kneeling over Lyra’s limp body, his hands wrapped around her throat.

For just a second my mind blanks, my heart stops beating, and rage detonates through me when I think that I’m too late and he’s already taken her from me.

But then I see her loll her head to the side, eyes dazed, blinking at the fire.

And her gaze finds mine.

I’m already moving. Already with pure diesel and death burning in my veins as I hurtle toward them like an extinction-level asteroid.

I hit Arkadi so hard that my vision blanks out for a second. But I don’t need to be able to see to wrench him off her, sending us both crashing into the dirt.

My vision returns as he scrambles to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth as he raises his eyes to me.

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