Kelly Mendig: Three Days to Dead

Gina Kismet appeared, with Milo and Felix—the rest of her Triad team—in tow. Kismet was the only female Handler I’d ever met. She was built like a gymnast—short, muscular, and not an ounce of extra fat anywhere—but looked like a pixie, with short red hair, angry green eyes, and a voice like a Marine drill sergeant. She seemed more suited to being a Hunter than a Handler, but I’d never bothered to ask her story. It had never mattered.

“We thought you were dead,” Kismet said to Wyatt.

“Not for lack of trying,” Wyatt said through gritted teeth.

“Rufus?”

“We saw him taken away in an ambulance, but Nadia never got out.”

She nodded, then gave me her full attention. A quick sweep with her eyes preceded a terse, “Stone?”

“In someone else’s flesh,” I said.

“When Rufus called and asked for our help, he said you’d … ah, changed.”

“He’s a master of understatement.” I had to get their brains back on the continuing bloodbath on the other side of the Jeeps. “The Bloods are on our side right now. We know Tovin is inside the Visitors’ Center. Goblins are here, too; we just haven’t seen their numbers yet. Anyone got a bandanna or something?”

A nameless Hunter whose face I barely remembered handed me a red-checked cloth. I pulled Wyatt’s hand away from his still-bleeding arm and tied the bandanna around the wound. I tightened it, until he hissed.

“Big baby,” I said.

“We need to form a perimeter around the Visitors’ Center,” Kismet said. “Just in case Tovin gets any ideas about leaving. Morgan, Willemy, take your teams to the north side of the Center. Nothing gets past you.”

Eight people tore away from the group. One of them was the baby-face newbie. I tapped him on the shoulder as he passed. He looked up. I punched him square in the mouth. Teeth cut my knuckles. He yelped and stumbled back, blood seeping from his lip. Someone snickered, but no one reprimanded me.

“That’s definitely Evy,” Tybalt said.

“That idiot could have killed him,” I said. Maybe ended the fight sooner, rather than later, but I was not giving up hope of an alternate solution to one of us dying. Not yet. We had time, dammit.

“Once Morgan and Willemy are in place—” Kismet started, only to be cut off by a raucous war whoop that started as one voice and rose into dozens. Screeching and inhuman, it signaled a fresh attack.

Goblin warriors streamed from the cover of the trees behind us. Too clumsy for guns of their own and too fast for us to shoot them down, they swarmed over and around the Jeeps. The sight of them, barely clothed and aroused by bloodlust, flooded me with fury. Hatred pushed pure adrenaline through my veins, and I found myself looking forward to the carnage.

“Use your blades!” Kismet ordered, barely audible above the din of the war cry.

Claws swiped; teeth gnashed. Serrated knives in hand, I dove in.

Movement blurred around me as I searched for the hunched shapes of goblin males. They were faster than they had any right to be and outnumbered us four to one. I still heard scattered gunfire as I plunged one knife into the back of a goblin. Fuchsia blood spurted in stinking jets. Thoughts of anything but slitting throats and spilling blood fled with my first kill.

One of them jumped on my back, its razor teeth sinking into the flesh of my left shoulder. Muscle and skin ripped. My right hand swung sideways and buried a blade into its skull. It dropped away, taking some of my shoulder with it, and two more goblins quickly took its place. I killed them with fast slashes across their throats.

“Don’t kill her!”

My head snapped toward the familiar, tingle-inducing voice. Kelsa stood on top of the last Jeep, hands on hips, like the battle had already been won. She seemed unconcerned with the rate at which her warriors were falling. She bared her teeth and held out her hand. Light glittered off a silver chain and cross. I dropped one knife and reached for the gun still tucked in the back of my jeans. Bitch had my necklace.

I hadn’t seen it since the mall. I’d written it off as lost during capture. But Halfie-Alex had said Kelsa was at the jail while I was unconscious. She may have taken it then. One of the Halfies who captured me may have given it to her. The details didn’t matter. I wanted it back.

Teeth clamped around my right ankle like a bear trap. I shrieked, pulled the gun, and fired, splattering the goblin’s head against the pavement and my jeans. I yanked my leg free. A red-tipped dart struck the ground, barely missing me. Hell, no, I was not going to sleep again. Not this time.

Loneliness, that’s what I needed. Wyatt was shot. He could have died. That fear remained fresh and close to the surface, and I latched on to it. Focused on Kelsa atop the Jeep, and felt the familiar tingle of the tap. The power of the Break. Dissolution. Movement.

The pain was duller this time, likely due to the shorter jump distance. I gained my bearings quickly. On the Jeep roof, right behind Kelsa—exactly where I wanted to be. She was still staring at the fray, dart gun in hand, seeming unsure where I’d suddenly gone.

I smashed the butt of my gun against the back of her head. She dropped like a stone. The necklace fell from her hand and clattered to the Jeep’s roof. I rolled her over and knelt down hard on her arms, knees against elbows, until I heard one snap. She shrieked. Gleaming red eyes glared up at me, pained and slightly unfocused.

“You’re not so tough when I’m not tied down,” I said.

“I killed you once. I can do it again,” she snarled.

I popped the anticoag clip out of my gun and replaced it with the fragmenting clip. Snapped one into the chamber. “This isn’t going to be fast. You aren’t going to enjoy this, but you will remember it in whatever hellish afterlife your kind goes to.”

She spit in my face. Her saliva smelled like sea-water. I wiped it away, but the stink lingered. I reached back and placed the barrel of the gun against her foot. Her eyes widened. Lips parted in a fang-baring snarl.

Two goblin males slammed into me sideways. I tumbled over the roof of the Jeep and hit the blacktop on my back. The impact exploded oxygen from my lungs and left me dazed. A dark blur leapt from the Jeep. I rolled sideways, barely missing Kelsa’s landing — precisely where my head would have been.

I tucked and came up on my knees and fired a wild shot. It glanced off her right arm and took a chunk of flesh with it. She kept coming, too fast to shoot again. She kicked the gun out of my hand and followed through with a serious swipe with her left hand. Sharp nails furrowed across my ribs and belly. Agony flared hot and immediate. Blood flowed.

My high kick connected squarely with her nose. The crunch rang out, mingling with her scream. Her head snapped back, but she refused to go down. I dropped to one knee and thrust upward with my knife. She blocked it and her good elbow smashed into my ear and set my head spinning. She had my wrist in her hands and was trying to turn my knife against me. I fought, but I had lost leverage.

She hissed, baring her bloody incisors, and snapped at my face. I gave her a well-deserved head-butt that drove her broken nose a little deeper into her snarling face. She faltered; I wrestled the knife away and plunged it into her stomach. Putrid blood pumped over my hand. She slashed again with her claws, catching me across the left cheek. Pain ripped open with the soft flesh. I shoved against the knife handle, and she fell backward.

I was on top of her again, ignoring my own pain, operating on fury and adrenaline and a very selfish need for personal vengeance against this monster who’d held me captive for days. Who had tortured me mercilessly. Ordered me raped. Allowed me to die.