Page 72 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
Ashen holds my gaze. Resignation claims the building fire in his eyes and snuffs it out.
He reaches across the console and pushes mykatanatoward me. We look at one another as the sound of breaking branches draws closer and Ember calls my name.
“There is still Angelwing on the blade,” Ashen says. I glance down at the sword and back to him. My face must say a thousand things, none of them good, all of them about fear and confusion, about loss and rage and despair. Ashen lays his hand over mine and squeezes as I grip the sword with blanched knuckles. “Keep your word and run, vampire.”
I don’t press my lips to Ashen’s in a last kiss. I don’t say any kind words. I just give him a final, venomous look before I turn away, blade in hand. I hold onto the determination in my mind, the hurt in my heart.
“Vampire,” Ashen says as I grip the edges of the broken window. I stop against my better judgment, but I don’t turn around. “I love you, Lu.”
His words catch in my chest and land as cold as ice.
“Right,” I say, without looking back. “Just not enough.”
I push my sword out the window and follow it. I land on the ground with a dull thud that radiates pain through my broken bones. With the angle and the twisted vehicle between us, Ember can’t see me, though I’m sure she won’t be far behind. I’ll leave a trail of blood and footprints in the snow. No matter how quick I am, she’ll catch up.
I keep low as I roll and scramble across a rocky outcrop. It gives enough cover that I can slip further down the hillside toward a clutch of evergreens. When I reach them, I squat low and look back up toward the van. A path of shattered trees and scarred earth flows down from the road to where the broken heap of metal rests, hissing in the snow.
“I grow weary of cleaning up your messes, little brother,” Ember says. She’s at the driver’s side of the van. I can’t see her from where I am. I can’t see Ashen either, I can only hear his ragged exhalation. “I will be back for you.”
I turn and run.
I scramble over rocks and between trees. Their branches pull at my clothes and skin. I stagger through a shallow creek and slip on patches of ice hidden by snow.
“You might as well stop, LuLu. I’m only going to catch up,” Ember calls. She’s already closer than I thought she’d be.
I follow a game trail and burst into a small clearing. I make it to the far side before I turn and unsheathe my sword, dropping thesayain the snow.
She’s right. I might as well stop. My body is still too broken to keep going.
It feels like an eternity waiting for Ember, even though she’s not that far behind. That stupid saying rings through my mind on repeat: a watched pot never boils. I feel like I spend a thousand years watching the crack of shadows between the trees for Ember to finally appear.
But, of course, she does. She saunters into the clearing like she has all the time in the world.
Ember’s hair is scraped back in a high ponytail, her makeup unblemished by the crash or the effort of climbing down the hillside after me.
“I don’t suppose you’ll make this easy on me, will you, LuLu?”
I raise my sword and shake my head.
Ember smiles, withdrawing a set of twin short swords strapped across her back.
“I didn’t think so.”
She surges ahead and I meet her in the clearing, swinging my sword against her uncompromised strength. She strikes fast and hard. I fend off her attack but can’t land a blow. Ember is quick. She’s skilled. And unlike me, she’s uninjured. She lands two strikes in rapid succession, both to my left arm. The cuts are deep enough to force me back.
“Oops,” she says with a menacing smile. “Sorry about that.”
I say nothing, but my glare intensifies. So does her grin in reply.
She comes at me again. Flashes of sunlight glare off our blades. A hot lick of pain courses through my skin as she strikes my arm a third time. The smell of snow and blood and pine fills my nostrils. If I could just land a cut, that’s all it would take to bring her down. But Ember meets every swing and parries every attack.
I finally manage to kick out and get her in the hand. One of Ember’s blades pinwheels behind her. A dark and menacing laugh is the only warning I get before she comes at me with renewed ferocity.
Ember uses her strength to hack at me in an attack that’s both brutal and graceful. She’s relentless. Her sword hits mine again and again. She twists out of reach only to hit my blade with punishing strikes. It’s all I can do to stay upright. But maybe that’s the problem. I need to try something else. So I drop to the snow to kick her legs from underneath her.
It’s like slow motion, watching my mistake unfold.
Ember jumps up beyond reach but comes back down with her weight in her blade. The polished steel slides through the back of my ankle. My Achilles tendon snaps with an audiblepop. Blinding pain follows and I cry out in fury.
