Page 107 of High Stakes and Soulmates
Dread washes through me as someone rushes me and I drive them back. Yorick tears them to the ground and Cyrus squeezes my hand. But it’s like another person is there the second they’re torn back. I hit them away but three more fill their space and I can sense even more coming at me from behind. I turn as one lunges for Cyrus, and I drive the attacker to his knees before another rips into me. I nearly lose my grip on Cyrus as I tuck him in, not caring what they do to me as long as I’ve wrapped him up safely in my arms.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re panicking,” Cyrus says, his grip on me tightening. “Calm down. Please. Just calm down.”
But I can’t. It’s all rushing back to me—everything I’ve ever done wrong, and the very moment I lost Arturo. I tuck Cyrus close as they swarm around us, cutting us off from the others. I know I need to stay by the rest of my group, but how the fuck can I when they’re pushing me away? Any time I try to make it back to Casimir and the others, I’m driven farther from them.
I can’t lose Cyrus. I can’t lose him.
Cyrus places a hand on my cheek, and it draws my attention back to him.
“Ezio, you told me you specialized in assassinations. You told me that you were the best killer in your unit. That the very reason they never wanted to let you go is because you were the best.”
“I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not going to! I’m right here! I’m right fucking here!” he says. “Louis is fucking with you. He’s getting in your mind. He’s making you panic. I have my gun and I also have a knife. I didn’t know what I would need for tonight.” He sets the knife in my hand as he forces me to let go of him so he can hold his gun.
Cyrus gives me a reassuring smile. “Come on. We can do this together, okay? It’s going to be okay.”
Someone grabs for Cyrus, and I lift my hand to block him before I drive the blade into the side of his head. He reels back and I slide it over his throat, hoping he’ll bleed out or be downed at the very least.
I hear Cyrus’s gun go off as I pull him back toward the SUV, but before we can even reach it, someone rams into the vehicle, flipping it onto its side. There are so fucking many of them.
“Move!” Atticus snaps. He shoves me and I cut down another man before I grab Cyrus. I don’t know where Casimir and Julian are, but Yorick and Atticus push me into a run, trying to urge us away from the crowd of vampires where I now see Casimir fighting.
“It’s okay,” Cyrus says. “We’re doing okay.”
Why is he over here trying to reassure me when he’s the one who has to be terrified?
I draw him close and quickly rush from the crowd… only to realize that they must have been driving us in a certain direction and I fell for it. At least twenty more vampires wait for us, and I question how the fuck Louis could have so much influence. I recognize some of them… some of the faces that’d been there the night my brother died, like the woman who’d spoken to me who had been in the group blocking my path.
Will tonight turn out the same as that time?
“So we meet again,” she says as she rushes forward. I sidestep her at the very last second, narrowly yanking Cyrus out of herpath. Yorick pulls her back, but there’s a man on him just as quickly.
“Keep moving,” Atticus urges. He throws the woman back as I hear something behind me. I turn just as Yorick shoves us back and blood hits me. I can hear Cyrus’s heart beating wildly while I hold him against my chest.
“RUN,” Yorick yells, holding a hand over the stake driven into his chest.
“How dare you touch him?” Atticus shouts as he tears the heart out of the vampire who’d staked Yorick.
“Yorick,” Cyrus yells, trying to run to him, but the vampires cut us off. I can’t even see Yorick or Atticus. They’re breaking us apart one by one, keeping the others occupied to get Cyrus and me away from them. But I don’t know what else to do.
I try to fight them off but there are too many, and anytime they rush me, they try to tear Cyrus from me. I can’t even get a moment to think before I’m turning to kill another who has grabbed on to him, resulting in someone stabbing me in the back. I tear the blade out of my back and use it to cut the head off the man who placed it there before drawing Cyrus back to gain even a bit of space, but every time I do, I find myself farther and farther away from the rest of the group.
One comes in on my side and I manage to kill them, but how long can I kill them one by one? Every time one dies, it feels like three take their place.
I grab Cyrus and push forward, hoping to turn in a way that will allow me to meet back up with Casimir. I can’t even see or hear Yorick or Atticus. All I can do is see the other vampires pushing me away from the safety of the others and closer to whatever hell Louis has set up for me.
I pick Cyrus up and run. If I can make it back to Casimir… if I can make it back, it’ll be alright. If I can?—
The moment my foot hits the ground, I realize I’ve stepped on something. I hear the clank of metal before the blast throws me off my feet. Pain tears into my legs as I lose my grip on Cyrus and hit down hard on the ground… and then they’re on me. They tear me back while Cyrus rushes for me. They’re dragging me, but my legs are torn apart and I’m unable to get them under me to escape.
“Get back! Let him go! Get back!” Cyrus screams.
I can hear his gun go off again and again, but what the hell does he expect he’s going to accomplish? I’ve fucked up again just like I did with Arturo. Louis has proved to me again and again that I am nothing up against him.
Agony rips into my chest when I feel something slam into it, pinning me to the ground like the victims who’d been staked to the walls. But I’m not human, and it’s not enough to put me down. It’s not enough to stop me.
I tear it out and roll up on my hands and knees as blood runs from the hole in my chest that slowly heals, just like my legs. I lunge forward, driving the stake through the heart of one man before I ram it through the head of another. They start to pull back when I rush for another, no longer aware of what direction Cyrus is even in.
