Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(7)

It was only a second. A single moment. A smirk.

Joska shoved him into the ditch of flames, my uncle’s clothes instantly ablaze. Andris’s guttural screams shredded through every tiny molecule, ripping, tearing, and demolishing my heart and soul. He fought to climb out; the agony of his torture howled through me.

My legs moved without thought, the need to save him overtaking any logic.

Joska jumped out in front of me, stopping me.

I heard a crackle of lightning in the distance, matching my roar of fury. My instinct was to attack anything between me and the person I loved, like a mama bear. Yanking what was left of Warwick’s energy, I went for Joska. As he swung to me, I ducked under his arm, popping up, my knuckles striking his temple with such force. He stumbled to the side, his head dipping while my knee slammed up into his nose with a crack. Joska crashed into the dirt with a groan, blood leaking down his face.

Zipping past, I ran for my uncle, stopping short in a horrified gasp.

He had crawled out, but I no longer recognized the body lumped on the ground. His skin bubbled, oozed, and blackened, reminding me of what Warwick looked like on the battlefield the night I saved him.

“Nagybacsi!” I collapsed down next to him, sobs racking up my spine and back down again. The smell of burnt flesh making me dry heave.

He wheezed for air, his lids barely open.

“You will be okay. You can heal.” I rocked next to him, no longer understanding what I was saying.

A louder wheeze came from him, and I realized he was trying to speak.

“What?” I leaned in closer.

“Please...” He gasped. “I beg you.”

A sob broke free when I realized he was begging me to kill him. “I can’t.”

His body was violently shaking, and I knew he was in so much agony. “Please,” his shade whispered next to me in agony. “Do it.”

I peered back at the gun on the ground next to Joska, who was starting to regain consciousness. Swiping it up, I held the cool metal in my hand.

My head bowed as a cascade of tears trailed down my face, landing on my uncle’s.

His disfigured and crisp hand reached up, touching my face. “Let me go. I need to be with her.”

Hiccupping through my wails, I rose, my legs wobbling violently. My arms trembled as I lifted the gun.

Andris’s eyes looked into mine, a plea…for me to end his suffering. “I love you, drágám. Never forget that,” he said through our link.

“I love you too. So much.” The words barely made it out, cracking and breaking my heart.

Bang!

The bullet went right between his eyes, killing him instantly.

The gun dropped from my hands. A wretched cry tore from my chest, my shoulders sagging as I took in my uncle’s dead, burnt face. I could see serenity in his expression, a slight smile on his lips as if he were finally at peace.

I was the opposite. Beyond any hell I could ever imagine. The grief was so acute, so excruciating, my brain could no longer compute anything else. His death wasn’t just emotionally painful, but I could actually feel the bond we shared rip out of me, death’s scythe cutting the connection.

I had just killed my uncle. Even if I was ending his pain and suffering, it didn’t take away the notion his blood would forever stain my soul.

Whatever will I had left vanished from my body. Everything drained from me in a wave of grief. Curling into the dirt, a wrenched wail howled from me like a tempest.

Until I heard clapping behind me, I hadn’t realized the arena had been silent.

Istvan’s applause was slow and mocking, giving life to a deep wrath in my bones. “Well, my dear, deep down I knew you had it in you. I guess those years of training didn’t go to waste.”

I couldn’t move or acknowledge anything around. I was empty.

Joska grabbed the gun next to me, and I almost begged him to take me out too. Because I knew the shock was only temporary. The calm before the storm. The numbness before the fall.

We all had ideas about who we were. What we think we would do and wouldn’t do.

It was all crap.

Even to ourselves, we could be strangers. The moral ground you were so sure about became nothing but crumbled ethics and shattered beliefs in a single moment. A sturdy boat in the middle of the sea you were sure would never sink... until it did.

Hands grabbed me under the armpits, hauling me up to my feet. More guards had entered the pit, seizing me. My gaze found Istvan. His fiancée righteously peered down at me as if I deserved it all and more.

“You did what needed to be done.” Istvan dipped his head at me as if he were prideful of my actions. “I’m pleased with you.”

“Fuck you,” I sneered, spit spraying from my mouth.

“Ah-uh,” he tsked me. “Be careful. I am allowing you your incentives. Be grateful to me you get to live another day. Next time I might not be so generous.”

The feel of the gun still echoed in my hand, and anger at myself for letting it go tightened my shoulders. If I had only pushed myself beyond my grief and thought about the man who made all this happen. He might not be standing here anymore.

I would never let that opportunity pass again.

“Next time, I might not be either,” I replied evenly as the guards hauled me out of the arena.

Craning my head right before they pulled me into the tunnel, I glanced back at my uncle’s body. It was empty now, his soul gone. I hoped wherever he was, he was with Ling.