Page 12 of Coerced

“You might as well forget it now, Anthony. Harker’s going to destroy it.”

Before I could shoot a missile into the gargoyle’s spine, one of those red flask things shattered against its side. I didn’t want to know what it would do to me, so I leapt off and skipped back. The gargoyle began to freeze, but still tried another swipe at me. It was like watching a movie in slow motion as it returned to stone, its clawed paw still reaching for me, the talons stretching out.

“You don’t need to kill an enemy to defeat it!” screeched the curator Ms. Chapman had called Anthony. “The Keeper is not going to be happy! Not at all! I can’t believe you were actually going to destroy an ancient relic to save one lousy nephilim! You stupid boy, her life isn’t worth—”

And Imoved. Towering over the fussy man, I leaned down until my nose was an inch away from his.

“Shut. Your. Mouth.”

The curator whimpered and his eyes bugged out. To stop myself from choking the life outta him, I clenched my teeth and my fists and stepped back. Clem was right. Iwastoo dangerous to be around people. And this time, there was no Gemma to calm me, no Gigi to teleport me, and no Jax to make me safe.

I was on my own.

Deep breaths and move away. Move awaynow. Good. Try another step. And one more. Okay. Whoa, start breathing again. Slow and deep. Don’t pant. Focus! You can do this. Control the tiger. Control the tiger!

I clunked my fists and forehead against the wall. My heart beat with the need to kill something. I could start with that squealing little man who’d looked at me like I was dirt—

I shook as I pulled myself back from the edge. I tried to ease the tension from my shoulders by stretching, but that pulled my wounds so they burned and the pain fueled my temper. From the way my skin was sticking to my shredded shirt, I knew I was bleeding good.

Aw, Gemma can fix me up. She’s gonna be mad, though. Well, she never really gets mad. Upset, then. She’ll cry when she sees this. I could go to the clinic to another healer, but she’d be even more upset if she found out. She’d think I don’t trust her or something. At least she lets me hold her when she cries. That almost makes up for making her cry in the first place.

Finally, I could drop the spikes. I sank to one knee and bowed my head and panted for a different reason now. Hollow after the rush and exhausted from holding myself back, I was shutting down.

“Are you with us, Kerry?”

I cut my eyes over to see Hank hunkered a few feet away.

“Hey.”

“You okay, kiddo?”

“That guy gone?”

“Who? Anthony? Yeah, he’s gone.”

“That’s good,” I rumbled. “Yeah.Realgood.”

“John’s here. He came to teleport you to the cottage.”

John?My brain took a minute to process.Oh, yeah. Morgen. A friendly. Gemma says we don’t kill friendlies.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” I mumbled.

“It’ll be quick, and I can hold your sleeve or whatever,” John said. “I don’t need skin contact to ’port you.”

“Let’s try it.” I stood and held out one arm.

“Got you good, didn’t he?” John said.

“Nah.” My eyelids started to go down. “Just a little bitty scratch.”

“Hank, I’ll drop him at the cottage, then get Gemma.”

“Gemma?” That perked me up a bit.

“Better go. He’s almost out.” Hank sounded like he was laughing.

John grabbed my shirt and I fell into the dark, conscious only of landing on my bed. I sighed, curled into my pillow, and might have heard John chuckle before my brain called it quits.

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