Jennifer Estep - Tangled Threads

Through it all, I held on to my Ice magic. I didn’t know how much damage she was doing to me, how badly she was frying my skin or burning me, and I didn’t care. All that mattered was keeping her here shackled to me so that she couldn’t hurt Bria any more. All that mattered was stopping the other assassin — for good.

While her lightning crackled around me, Elektra also used her free hand to hit me. Over and over and over again, she slammed her tight fist into my face, my chest, and every other part of me that she could reach.

But because of my Ice magic, I didn’t feel any of the blows. Not a one.

Still, I had to do something. Sooner or later, I would exhaust my magic, and I didn’t know if it would be before or after Elektra ran out of juice herself. Somehow I pushed her away as far as I could, then rolled over onto my hands and knees, half-dragging Elektra with me. A steady burn of light caught my eye, and I stared down. My left hand was open, and the spider rune scar on my palm was glowing a bright silver, just like it had that night in the coal mine when I’d finally broken through the block of the silverstone metal in my hands.

I looked past it to my goal — the silverstone knife that I’d slapped away from Elektra. The only one I had left. But the only problem with not being able to feel my body was that I seemed to have zero control over it as well. It was like I was floating above myself, watching all this happen to someone else, and not being able to affect the outcome one bit.

Fuck that.

I needed that knife, and I was going to get it, numb body or no numb body. So I stared at my fingers harder than I had ever looked at anything in my life, willing them to move with the force of my gaze, to curl up, to just twitch .

And somehow they did.

Even though I couldn’t feel them, I somehow made my fingers move, just by the sheer force of my mind. My thumb inched closer to the dagger, dragging the rest of my hand along with it. I got one fingertip on the weapon, then another, then another. All the while, LaFleur kept hitting me, kept raining blows onto my back and head. I ignored her the way a dog would a flea jumping around on its ass. The assassin wasn’t important right now. Getting my hands on my knife was all that mattered.

Twenty agonizing seconds later, my hand closed around the hilt of the silverstone dagger. I might have only imagined it but I could have sworn that I felt the spider rune stamped on the hilt sear my skin with a magic that was even colder than my own.

Meanwhile, LaFleur was still trying to fry me with her electrical magic, even as she kept pummeling me with her free fist. I drew in a breath, concentrating one last time, gathering my strength for this one last thing.

And then I rolled back over and shoved the knife into her side.

It was an awkward blow and certainly not one of my best, given the fact that we were shackled together. Fletcher would have shaken his head sadly at my utter lack of form. But it got the job done. Most anything would, if you put enough muscle behind it. And even though I couldn’t feel my arms, I knew that I’d driven the knife into her with everything I had.

Just because my body was numb didn’t mean that I couldn’t still hear things — like Elektra LaFleur’s howl of rage. The wounds in her foot and shoulder might not have slowed her down much, but a knife in the stomach is a little more serious, especially given just how deep I’d shoved it into her. For the first time, real, raw pain filled her voice.

More importantly, she finally lost her grip on her electrical magic. The green lightning flashing around our bodies vanished in a shower of sparks, as though a firecracker had just exploded over our heads. I’d hurt her bad. But I didn’t stop, not even for a second. Even though I still couldn’t feel my own hand, my own fingers even, somehow I pulled out the knife.

And this time, I buried it in the bitch’s heart.

Elektra let out a final shriek. Her body convulsed once, twice, three times, just as mine had done when she slammed her electrical magic into me. That damn eerie green lightning flashed around us once more, slamming us both into the gravel. Elektra’s final death blow. Then her limbs slackened, and all the fight drained out of her body.

We were still shackled together, with me now on top of her. I stared down into her pale, shocked face.

“You know what, Elektra?” I rasped through my cold, numb, dead lips. “You should have killed me the second you had the chance. Instead, you talked yourself to death, you arrogant bitch. Just like your brother Brutus did.”

I don’t know if she heard me before the last of the green lightning finally flashed, flickered, and faded from her eyes, and she was still.

When I was sure that Elektra LaFleur was dead, I let go of my Ice magic.

Pain immediately flooded my body, cutting through the cold numbness, but I didn’t care right now. I flopped over onto my back, scooting as far away from her as I could, given the handcuffs that still bound us together. The metal had weakened from the heat of LaFleur’s magic, but the cuffs hadn’t completely melted. Something soft brushed against my fingers, and I turned my head to the right.

Elektra LaFleur’s orchid, the one she’d planned on dropping on my body, lay on the ground next to me. Somehow the flower had survived being crushed during our fight. A breeze whistled through the train yard, ruffling the delicate white petals. I shuddered and turned away from it.

I lay there on the loose gravel, riding the waves of pain, and watching the green-gray smoke puff up from my body and drift away like ribbons unfurling into the night sky.

But I couldn’t rest yet. Not until I’d checked on Bria. Not until I knew whether my baby sister was still alive.

I didn’t have long to wonder. Just as I started to force myself to sit up against the pain, footsteps crunched on the gravel behind me, and a second later, Bria’s face came into view above mine. Dirt smeared her features, along with a few scrapes and bruises from where she’d thrown herself onto the gravel, and her shaggy blond hair was a static-charged mess. One of her blue eyes twitched, and similar spasms zipped down her throat and into the rest of her body, making her arms and legs jump ever so slightly. But other than that, she was fine. She’d just been jolted by Elektra’s magic, not killed outright.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief. My sister was fine for one more night. Which made everything I’d just been through worthwhile, including the pain that kept flooding my body like a river relentlessly rising inch by inch. I gritted my teeth and pushed it away as best I could.

“Are you all right?” Bria asked in a soft voice.

Her gaze locked onto the macabre smoke drifting up from my body. I could smell it, of course. But for once, the acrid stench didn’t bother me and didn’t trigger any old, unwanted memories. Maybe that’s because I was still alive and LaFleur wasn’t.

“I’m still breathing,” I rasped. “That’s good enough for now. Help me up, please.”

Bria gave me her hand and pulled me up into a sitting position. Despite my attempts to ignore the pain from my injuries, it took me a moment to get my breath back. My wrist was also still cuffed to LaFleur’s, and her arm flopped against my own. Dead weight, in every sense of the word. Elektra’s green eyes stared sightlessly up into the night sky. Blood still oozed from the stab wounds on her chest and stomach, and the warm, coppery scent of it filled my nose.

I didn’t have any magic left, not even enough to make another Ice pick so that I could unshackle myself from her dead body. I just sat there and stared dully at the handcuffs.