Sophie Littlefield - Banished

“Kind of funny, really,” Bryce went on. “If you could get to big boy here, you could probably fix him up, but I’ve got lots of extra clips, so I’d just keep shooting holes in him. No doubt who’d win that race, huh, sunshine?”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Prairie muttered.

“Oh, but I do! Who’s been running those tests for all these months? Hmm? I’d say I’m intimately familiar with just how your special little powers work, wouldn’t you? In fact, I think I’d be able to hurt your young friend here just badly enough that you’d have a very difficult choice to make. Isn’t that so, Prairie?”

She looked stricken, a choked sob dying in her throat. I remembered her promise to Anna. I’ll guard him like my own .

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Bryce went on, smiling lazily. “I don’t need you anymore. I found someone new. She’s not as pretty as you, and I doubt she’ll prove as… amusing. But she’s cooperative-very cooperative, considering she’s become, let’s say, a permanent guest of the laboratory. And now that I have Hailey, the two of them are all I need to get the last of our work done. It’s a shame, really, that you won’t be around to share in the glory.”

So Kaz’s vision had been real. Bryce had found another Healer, and locked her up here just as he intended to lock me up. My heart sank as I realized that all our work might have been for nothing. Bryce planned on keeping me alive, but he clearly didn’t intend to keep Prairie or Kaz around. I felt despair overtaking the determination I’d started the night with.

“You won’t live that long,” Prairie said, surprising me with her fury. She stepped toward Bryce, unafraid. “Shoot me if you want. Go ahead, I dare you. Your new girlfriend’s never going to make zombies for you. That’s not what was ordained, and you can’t fight it.”

Bryce chuckled, genuine mirth crinkling his eyes at the corners. “Oh, Prairie, such idealism, it’s so refreshing. I’ve always loved that about you. If you only knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Where do you think I found out about your little niece here?”

Prairie hesitated, and I saw uncertainty flicker in her eyes.

“The guys you hired,” I said, trying to edge closer to Kaz. “Your men. Your dead men.”

Bryce laughed harder. “That is so amusing to me, you see, because once they traced Prairie’s true identity, we found an unexpected ally. Someone who was willing to tell us everything we ever wanted to know about you, little Hailey, for a price. Someone willing to set up the perfect opportunity for my men to come and get you, someone who not only wouldn’t miss you, but would make sure no one else did, either.”

A murmur started inside my ears and built quickly into a roar. I shook my head and whispered “No,” but I knew exactly who he was talking about.

“Your grandmother, Hailey,” Bryce said, barely able to conceal the smug satisfaction in his voice. “Alice Tarbell. Gave you up for five thousand dollars and a ticket to Ireland. Oh… and the promise that, not to be indelicate, when it was time for you to procreate, we would furnish you with one of your own kind.”

Kaz shot forward, launching himself low against Bryce’s torso, trying to knock him down. But I could see that Kaz’s injury had weakened him, made him miscalculate. Bryce stepped neatly out of the way and his finger tightened on the trigger, almost in slow motion. I heard the shot and saw Kaz’s injured hand fly out at an odd angle and bang against the wall in a spray of blood.

THE HOLE IN Kaz’s bicep stayed neat and round for a second before blood began to leak from it. I could see now that his hand was badly damaged, the fingers bloody and bent at odd angles, his index finger hanging by a thin strip of skin. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, followed by shame. I was supposed to be a Healer -how could I be so weak?

Prairie reached for Kaz, but Bryce jammed his gun under her chin and drove her back against the wall. Kaz sank to the floor, his face going white as he tried to squeeze his uninjured hand around his arm, above the bullet wound, and stop the flow of blood.

Bryce sighed. “I told you we could do this the hard way or the easy way, Eliz-I mean, Prairie.”

I stepped toward her, but Bryce swung his arm around and aimed at me. “That’s far enough, Hailey. It might be wise for you to remember that your aunt won’t be a bit of good to you if you get hurt. Kind of an interesting arrangement, wouldn’t you say? It’s going to be fascinating to study that, Healers’ natural resistance to each other’s gifts. I’m certainly looking forward to that research.”

Prairie was inches away from Bryce, backed up against the wall, and the second he turned away from her, she tensed. I could tell she was going to attack him. I shook my head and tried to form the word no , because I knew Bryce would kill her, but I also knew that she was past caring. As she lunged at him, I waited for the sound of the gun, a silent scream building inside.

But Bryce surprised me.

He brought the gun crashing down against Prairie’s skull, above the temple, and she crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

But he didn’t kill her.

When he looked up, there was something in his expression I recognized. It was part longing and part defiance. It had something in common with the way Rattler had looked at her. The ancient blood connection was missing, but in that second I realized that Bryce too had loved her, in his way. Enough that he couldn’t shoot her.

And I realized that love could be dangerous. “Don’t think I won’t enjoy killing her slowly,” Bryce said, but now we knew he had a weakness, and for the first time I saw uncertainty in his eyes. He kept his gun trained on me, but he knelt beside Prairie and felt for her pulse.

If only there was a way to use his weakness against him. I glanced at Kaz. His eyes were squeezed shut with pain. I could tell that he was starting to lose his balance. A shocking amount of blood was leaking from his arm. The bullet must have hit something important.

The need to heal surged hot and demanding inside me, pulsing its way along my nerves to the tips of my fingers, and my desire to put my hands on Kaz, on his wound, was irresistible.

I willed him to open his eyes and look at me-and he did. The second his eyes found mine, I felt it again, the connection I’d noticed when he first took my hand.

Only, now his life depended on it. All of our lives.

I stared deep into his eyes and tried to shut out everything except the gift that was a part of my lifeblood. Kaz’s eyes flickered, his lips parted slightly. I could feel my heartbeat slowing and then I sensed my breathing diminish to almost nothing. Something happened to my vision, too; the edges fell away, replaced with a haze of shimmering shadow, and there was nothing but me and Kaz. My vision began to fade and my lungs screamed for air, but it was beautiful, too, exquisite and so sharp that it felt like it might tear my heart in pieces, this link between us that was more powerful than either of us could ever be alone.

I fell.

I didn’t realize it was going to happen until I collapsed onto the floor at Prairie’s feet. Bryce yelled something and turned his gun from Prairie to me, and I braced for the impact of the bullet, wondering where he’d shoot me, wondering whether it would be better if he merely disabled me and kept me alive in his laboratory-or if he killed me.

And then Bryce slammed into me hard. It took me a second to figure out that Kaz had shoved him, that he had found the energy, a last reserve of strength, to attack.

“Get away, get away from him!” Kaz yelled. I tried, but Bryce was so heavy and he was scrambling on top of me, heavy knees and elbows-God, it hurt-and what about the gun? He still had the gun, and then he was pulled off me and slammed into the drywall and that was Kaz. Kaz, whose good arm was plenty good; Kaz, whose bad arm was good enough, because I’d healed it, not very well because it was damn hard to heal without putting your hands on someone, but enough. Enough.