Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

Shots sounded, thudding into the rear window. Bulletproof glass apparently. My hand on the wheel jerked in surprise, causing the car to swerve. I had to put both hands back on the steering wheel to regain control as I sped up.

Lowering his window, Dante leaned out and fired back. After several seconds of return fire, our car suddenly dropped a few inches on the passenger’s side, pulling the steering violently to the right. I knew in an instant our back rear tire had been shot out. Our smooth ride turned bumpy as we rode the metal rim of the hub.

“Good news and bad news,” Dante said, sticking his head back inside. “I shot out his front tires, but he blew out our rear wheel.”

“I can tell,” I grunted, fighting to keep our car straight without overcompensating so much that I accidentally ripped out the steering wheel. Despite the lost tire, the car was still drivable, though at a much slower speed. But with two of their tires out, our pursuers weren’t going any faster.

“Pull over,” Dante said.

“What?”

“Pull over and get out!”

I started to ask why but then glimpsed the reason in the rearview mirror. Roberto and his men had abandoned their car and were coming after us on foot. And Roberto was running with superfast speed, faster than our car was going, apparently no longer hindered by the silver bullet I’d jammed in his back, though Dante did his best to remedy that by shooting at him. But he missed. Didn’t even come close to hitting Roberto, moving as fast as he was, and with Dante slowed down to sluggish human reflexes and speed.

I jerked the car to a halt and sprang out, gun in hand. Roberto’s men were firing at Dante—not me, just Dante. Some of the hail of bullets struck our car, others Dante managed to deflect with his wrist bracelets—a pretty miraculous feat considering how much the silver slowed him. He slid back into the protection of the car, but Roberto had come close enough that he now had a clear shot at him. They drew on each other, but it was an unfair match. Roberto was much faster.

I fired before I gave myself a chance to think and watched blood blossom on Roberto’s right shoulder. He cried out, dropping his weapon.

I turned and emptied my gun, laying out a round of fire that hit the asphalt in front of the four bodyguards, making them scramble back to their car for cover. Before Dante had time to lift his gun and fire at Roberto, I yanked him out through the driver’s seat door and took off, carrying him. A quick sprint and we reached the cover of trees. I heard Roberto yelling orders at his men. No gunshots followed us, but I didn’t bother slowing down, just kept moving deeper into the forest.

“You missed his heart,” Dante said after ten minutes of running through the woods.

“Surprisingly, I hit exactly what I was aiming for—his shoulder. I guess you’re right: I do know how to shoot a gun.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head. “You can put me down now. Are they following us?”

I listened and heard only the quiet life-sounds of the jungle, no sound of pursuit. “Not at the moment.”

“Roberto will want to get that silver bullet out of his shoulder before coming after us again. He’ll go to a hospital,” I said, setting Dante on his feet, dropping down to the ground to rest for a few moments. “Several hours at least.”

He eased down to sit beside me. “You’re amazing, you know.”

“No, you are. You must be hurting terribly—you were shot twice, stabbed once by me, a second time by yourself!—and yet you can still smile.” More softly, “You should do that more, you know. Smile.”

“As you wish, milady.” He took my hand, kissed it unexpectedly. “One more thing I must ask of you.”

“Your back,” I groaned. “God, you have a one-track mind.”

“Hard not to. The silver burns my flesh unpleasantly.”

I sighed. “Do you have the knife?”

“Sorry, left it on the floor. I was fortunate to hang on to the gun, not that it will do us much good,” he said as he popped the magazine out and counted. “Only three bullets left. One of them was aimed quite nicely at Roberto’s heart before you jerked me out of the car.”

“Would it have killed him?”

“Maybe. He’s a three-quarters Mixed Blood like you.”

“You’re too bloodthirsty, Dante.”

“And, surprisingly . . . you are not.”

“Why is that surprising? Was I different before?”

He gave me another one of those small, fleeting smiles and turned, presenting his bloody back to me.

“All right, all right! You want the damn bullet out, I’ll get it out.” I pushed and squeezed my fingers down to the end of the cut he had made. “You were off by an inch,” I muttered, feeling viciously angry, at him, at myself.

“Hard to aim when you can’t see a bloody thing,” he returned through a tightly clenched jaw.

“Goddammit, I hate this. I really, really hate this.” No help for it. As he said, I was strong enough to tear through his flesh with my fingers, and almost puked as I did so.

I finally came to the bullet, curved my fingers around it, and pushed the troublesome thing back out the hole. Then I proceeded to throw up.

ISHOULDN’T BE So happy , Dante thought with remorse. Not when the lady I love is heaving up her stomach contents. But the truth of the matter was, it was more than he had expected, to be with her again like this—the ease and trust between them.

“Gee, that was fun,” Mona Lisa muttered when her stomach finished its violent heaving. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”

His lips quirked. “My pleasure, to be alive and here with you.”

“Even with me torturing you and getting you caught and injured? Why the hell are you smiling?”

He smoothed her hair back in a gentle gesture. “You.”

“But I’m not the you that you knew. I’m different, aren’t I? Because I can’t remember.”

“You’re still the same person at your core. And I like seeing the core you—someone who’s upset enough after inflicting deliberate, unwanted pain on someone she cares about to become physically ill.”

“Cares about?” She aimed a mean, narrow-eyed glance at him. “Honey, I don’t even know you.”

His small smile grew broader. “You will.”

Funny , she thought. He doesn’t look so fierce or frightening when he smiles.

The smile evaporated as resonant energy swept across them. Monère—more than a half dozen.

“Your friends?” she asked.

“No.” One word, icily sure.

“Roberto’s men?”

“They’re coming from the opposite direction.” Grabbing her hand, Dante sprung them forward in large, bounding leaps that took them sailing over the eight-foot-tall brush in graceful arcs, the fastest way of traveling through the jungle-like forest, heading back where they’d come from.

He jerked to a halt that had Mona Lisa stumbling into him as they both felt another wave of men closing in on them from that direction. Not Roberto and his thugs, unfortunately. These were all entirely Monère.

“Organized group,” Mona Lisa noted in a soft whisper.

“This way,” Dante said, heading north.

“What if they’re deliberately herding us this way?” Mona Lisa asked as they went sailing over the thick brush again like human kangaroos.

“No choice.”

Behind them they felt the hot energy signatures of their Monère pursuers and heard the sound of swift movement, many of them. They weren’t even trying to muffle the sounds of pursuit. Indeed, a primitive, undulating hunting cry sliced the air like a sharp blade, quickly taken up by others. The excitement in the raised cries raised the hair on the back of Mona Lisa’s neck. “What the hell is that?” she asked.