Page 27 of Hellfire to Come
Frederic’s hand twitched, and agony bloomed through my ribcage as the invisible bindings forced me to my knees. The pipe clattered to the floor beside me like a useless relic from my paralyzed hand.
Brooklyn took a step forward, arms lifted; Not to attack, but in supplication. “Rowan,” she said, her voice taut with urgency and sorrow. “Rowan, it’s me. You don’t have to do this. Please. I know you didn’t betray us. Dominic assured me. Fight him.” Her voice took that tone again. “Fight him, Rowan.”
But Rowan didn’t blink. His hands continued to dance, sigils flaring brighter, more intricate, twisting into incantations designed to dismantle souls, not just bodies.
“Brooklyn!” I choked, panic rising in my throat. “You have to stop him…he’s going to kill you!”
Her eyes flicked to me, burning with quiet resolve. “I won’t risk either of your lives.”
“You’ll risk your own?!” I cried, heart clawing against its cage.
Her answer was simple. Unflinching.
“Always.”
And then the air shifted.
Not just temperature, but something deeper, like the architecture of reality had flinched. The sigils in Rowan’s hands began to sputter. His arms shook.
Frederic’s pleasant mask twisted in displeasure. “Oh, don’t tell me the puppet has found a string of his own.”
In a blur of motion, Brooklyn sprang, not toward Rowan, but toward me. Her blade arced like a falling star, a desperate gamble, a calculated risk.
Frederic snarled, yanking me backward, tightening the bonds he had around my upper body. Magic snapped around my limbs, pain coiling through my spine like barbed wire.
Brooklyn couldn’t reach me in time if he decided to jerk the blade across my neck but it forced Frederic to shift his focus. Just long enough.
The spell holding me paralyzed weakened.
I moved.
I slammed my head backward, catching him between his legs right over his erection. There was a scream, a satisfying, shrill shriek, and his grip loosened.
I dropped to the floor and seized the pipe, still slick with my own blood and sweat.
And I swung with everything in me.
The blow struck his kneecap with a sickening crunch. He howled, magic flaring wild around him and then, without fanfare, he vanished. Dissolved. Like mist into the night.
He was gone.
The crushing weight on my chest evaporated. The bonds fell away.
I hit the floor, coughing, lungs burning, every nerve frayed to the quick.
“Rowan…” Brooklyn whispered inching slowly to place herself between me and the witch.
He stood as if suspended, mid-cast, arms trembling.
“I know you’re in there,” she said, softer now, each word a balm and a plea. “Don’t let him do this to you. Don’t let him erase you.”
His lips parted. A faint breath escaped.
“I… can’t…”
But he hesitated.
Brooklyn moved with excruciating care, inching forward, her palms still raised.
