Kelly Meding - Requiem for the Dead

I avoided her lunge with a quick tumble to my right. I came up on my knees, another knife in my hand. She tackled before I could get my weapon up. Her body slammed me back-first against the cement roof. Fire raced up my spine from the hard hit. She pounded my hand into the hard surface until the battered muscles released the knife on their own.

Certain I'd regret it later, I found my very active tap to the Break. She scooped my fallen knife, poised it over my throat. I felt into the Break, disappearing at the same moment cold heat sliced at my neck. She yelled.

I yanked hard to stay close, to pull out of the Break on the other side of the stair access. A mallet beat behind my eyes, threatening to liquefy my brain. Blood oozed from a painful spot on my throat. It wasn't gushing, so I ignored the wound and struggled to stand. The roof tilted. I palmed my second gun, aware I'd left the other in the stairwell, and stepped around the side of the shed.

No Autumn.

Tybalt shouted.

Oh shit, I'd left him defenseless.

I bolted, then skidded to a stop.

Tybalt must have shimmied his way to the first dropped knife while she-fox and I duked it out, because his arms were free. Autumn was straddling his waist, pressing down against his one-handed grip, the second knife she'd gotten from me pointed straight down at his chest.

I aimed for her head.

She ducked at the exact moment I squeezed the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the stone. It gave Tybalt the upper hand though. He shoved her away, toward me. Autumn used the momentum to roll into a crouch. I followed through the gun's sight, waiting for her to clear Tybalt before I squeezed the trigger again. She flung the knife as I fired.

We both screamed.

Agony speared my gut, low and to the side. Nerveless fingers dropped the gun, and it skittered away. Instant shock sent me to my knees. My left hand coiled around the hilt the knife. At least three inches had gone in.

Movement in front of me stole my blurring vision from the wound. My bullet had caught Autumn in the left shoulder, and she screamed with a furious, unholy chittering noise that must have come from the fox inside of her. Tybalt sawed through the tape around his ankles. He twisted around to his knees.

Desperation brightened Autumn's eyes.

I saw it—the gun, at equal distance from all of us.

Autumn lunged first. I tried, but the pain in my hip turned the effort into a face-plant on the hard ground, and I shrieked as the knife shifted position.

Tybalt must have changed his mind on the gun, because I watched them engage in a sideways scuffle from my spot on the ground. The pair of them punching and rolling around. He got a few solid whacks in with the business end of his artificial arm attachment. Blood spurted from her nose.

I gave the knife in my gut a yank. First I felt the cold. Then the searing pain. I pressed my palm over the wound to stop the blood flow—it wasn't a fatal wound, but damn if it didn't hurt like hell. I scooted toward the gun. Just a few feet away.

Thud. Thump. Scrape.

Something squealed, a sound like a phone alarm. Not from my phone, though, and Tybalt had probably been relieved of his.

"Damn it!" That was Autumn.

My fingertips brushed the gun's stock. I scooted again. Wrapped my fingers around it.

Tybalt made a noise that sent ice down my spine.

I lurched up into a sitting position, immediately dizzy, one hand beneath the other to brace my unsteady grip. I'd missed their fight, but the outcome was horribly clear when I blinked them into focus.

Autumn had taken possession of the serrated knife, and it was planted to the hilt in Tybalt's chest. He was on the ground, her crouching above, dripping blood onto him from her nose and mouth. She snarled once, then scrambled away. I fired twice, missing both times, as she disappeared around the other side of the stairwell shed.

Let her run, the fucking coward.

I crawled to Tybalt's side, careful to keep my grip on the gun. Couldn't lose it again. He was trying to get a look at the wound, but couldn't manage to raise his head to the required angle. His eyes were wide, shocked, and he breathed in shallow gasps through his mouth.

"Don't you fucking move," I said.

"How bad?"

"Bad enough, so don't make it worse."

The knife was nearly centered, just below his sternum, which meant potential lung puncture. He wasn't foaming up blood though, and that gave me hope. I had to get him off this roof and to—

"No hospital," he wheezed. "Watchtower."

"Tybalt—"

"No."

As weak as his body was becoming, his eyes and voice meant business. The question of hospitals came up often when someone was wounded. Hospitals meant police, and police meant questions we couldn't answer.

"Autumn?" he said.

"On it. Don't go anywhere."

He crossed his eyes at me. I squeezed his hand, then lurched to my feet. Felt instantly sick to my stomach. Every joint ached and my skin felt scraped raw. I do not recommend fist fights with Therians, now or ever.

Autumn was back in her sniper spot—albeit trying to position the rifle with one bad shoulder. As I raised my own gun to take aim, she squeezed off a round. Fear seized my insides. God, who did she shoot?

I steadied the gun with my left hand, took a slow breath, and aimed at the back of Autumn's head. Squeezed the trigger. I was no marksman and I was wounded. The bullet struck her in the neck. She slumped to the ground, completely boneless. I limped across the roof and kicked the rifle away from her hands.

She blinked up at me, expression totally blank.

"Why?" I asked. "Was it fucking worth it? Turning against us?"

"Change is necessary." She struggled to get the words out. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

As much as I wanted her to suffer, I didn't have time to enjoy a slow, painful death. I put another bullet in her, right between the eyes.

With the immediate threat neutralized, I pulled my phone out with shaking, unsteady fingers. By some miracle, it had a cracked screen but the damn thing still worked. I sent a concise text to Kismet, because I didn't know who else: East of ferry, Ty bad shape. Medical stat.

I left Autumn and her rifle and returned to Tybalt's side. He was struggling to stay awake, to stay here. "Listen to me, pal, you have to fight a while longer, okay?" I said. "No checking out, not over this mosquito bite."

He pulled a face.

"I'm going to teleport us down to the ground, so it's easier to get you help. Remember what that's like?"

He made another face. I'd teleported him once, months ago, and he hadn't been a big fan of the experience. Today he didn't have a choice.

I carefully pressed my palms on his shoulders, then scooted so my thighs touched his leg. As much contact as I could manage for this. The Break was harder to find because I was so damned tired. My concentration was fried. And it always hurt extra when I was wounded.

"You're lucky I love you," I said.

Tybalt found my left wrist and squeezed.

The teleport was a special kind of excruciating—partly from the previous two teleports, partly from my injuries, and definitely because I had extra weight along. Bringing someone with me taxed my body more than teleporting alone, and using the Break always comes at a price. By the time I realized we'd safely rematerialized on the broken sidewalk east of the ferry port, someone was already shouting my name.

I tried to speak, to shout back, and ended up lolling sideways onto the ground. My body hurt all over, a constant throb that was harshest in my head. My hip was on fire. The cut on my throat felt like it was bleeding more heavily, and it hadn't seemed that deep before.

Rough fingers curled around mine. Tybalt's hand.

I held on tight.