Scorched Ice (Fire and Ice #3)(71)
Quinn jerked back, flattening herself against the wall when a small whistling sound pierced through the buzzing. Something whizzed past her face, creating a shift in the smoke. Quinn lashed out, bringing her hand down on the arm that had swung at her. She smashed into someone’s forearm with enough force to crack bone. A woman screamed as the coppery tang of her blood filled the air and the stake she’d been clutching clattered against the concrete.
Quinn pulled her arm back and drove her fist into the woman’s face. The woman’s scream abruptly cut off as the punch knocked her teeth out, causing the woman to gag on them. Quinn enclosed her hand around the woman’s neck and dragged her into the tunnel with the flames.
Blood pooled from between the hands the woman covered her mouth with. She moved her hands away only to spit out a few of her teeth. Quinn kept hold of the woman as she dragged her toward the fire. Tentacles of power slithered from Quinn’s palm and into the woman. She gave a subtle tug on the woman’s life force in order to heal the wounds she’d sustained from her fall. Judging by the swell of life within the woman, she was a Hunter.
The woman’s head swung toward her when she felt Quinn taking from her. “What argh ya doon?” her voice was so thick and heavy with blood when she spoke that Quinn struggled to understand her.
Ignoring the question, she drew more from the woman until Quinn was certain the woman wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight or get very far if she tried to escape. The woman’s life fueled her, heightening her senses. Beneath the cloying scent of the fire and smoke, she scented Julian.
The woman’s legs trembled. With a whimper, she jerked against Quinn’s hold when the fire blasted against their skin, but Quinn didn’t relinquish her. They were nearly to where she’d left the trapped man when something crunched behind her.
The woman’s feet flew off the ground as Quinn whipped around to face whatever was behind her. She jerked to the side when a man with a massive bruise on the side of his face, a swollen black eye, and his clothes hanging in tatters on him lunged at her with a stake in hand. The stake sliced down her arm, digging into the bone and bouncing off it.
Biting back a scream, Quinn released the woman and drove her elbow into the man’s Adam’s apple. He choked, and his eyes bugged out as his hand flew to his throat. Using Quinn’s distraction to her advantage, the woman jumped at her. Her fingers hooked into Quinn’s necklace, and with an abrupt tug, her locket gave way. Dismay swelled within Quinn as that piece of her family fell away from her. She punched the woman in the face again, sending her reeling into the wall.
With the woman temporarily out of the way, Quinn lunged to finish off the man before he could completely recover. Before she could grab him, a blast of something hit her in the chest, flinging her back. Her spine screamed in agony when she crashed onto the jagged pile of debris and bounced across it. A broken piece of rebar pierced through her side, impaling her and stopping her from falling into the fire.
This time, she was unable to hold back a cry of pain as agony burst through her body. The man had telekinesis, she realized as she grasped at the rebar and tried to lift herself off of it. Pinned like this, she wouldn’t be able to fight against the two Hunters stalking her. Blackness swarmed before her eyes as unconsciousness threatened to drag her under. If she passed out now, they’d kill her.
Muscle and skin gripped at the foreign object piercing her. Her hands slipped in the blood coating the broken metal, and she fell back down it. Despite the heat of the fire blazing against her back, an icy sheen of sweat coated her. Through the thick smoke, the battered man steadily approached her, but this time he had a crossbow in hand.
“We saw what you did to the others outside,” he said, his voice raspy from smoke. “They want me to capture you, but I think that’s a very bad idea.”
“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Quinn choked out.
The man smiled maliciously as he lifted the crossbow and aimed it at her heart. “Maybe not, but neither will you.”
A roar rent the air. It reverberated off the walls and caused the rebar to vibrate within her flesh. Something charged out of the thick smoke, materializing from another side tunnel she hadn’t seen before.
She got only a glimpse of Julian, bloody with his pants hanging in tatters around him, before he crashed into the man. The impact caused a bone to snap in the man’s body with a loud crack and the crossbow to fly out of his grasp. The weapon skittered away, coming up against the woman’s feet. She lurched toward it and snatched it from the ground before swinging it toward Quinn.
They were no longer touching, but Quinn could still feel her tendrils of power interwoven within the woman. Quinn clamped down on the woman’s life force as she fired the bolt.
CHAPTER 26
Julian lifted the man up and drove him onto the pile of debris. The release of the crossbow broke through the buzzing and fire roaring around him. His head snapped up. The woman stood unmoving before him, her legs shaking before she sank onto her knees. Her head bowed, her shoulders heaving as she gasped for air.
Quinn jerked to the side in time to take the bolt from the crossbow to her shoulder. She rolled and yanked at the rebar until the metal gave way. Reaching up, Quinn yanked the bolt from her shoulder, but the rebar remained embedded in her side as she rose. She braced her legs apart and grasped the end of the rebar. Sweat coated her forehead and slid down her cheeks as she gradually pulled the piece of metal from her. Blood coated the side of her shirt as the rebar clattered onto the concrete beneath her.