Vanish (Firelight #2)(41)

Her eyes hold mine, the vertical pupils shuddering, vanishing and reappearing with the rest of her. She’s like rippling water, seemingly amorphous, constantly altering, there and then gone again.

Bodies clamber from the vehicles. I tear my attention back to these men with their merciless faces, search among them, looking for a chance, a hope.

Will’s not among them. Even as relief runs through me, I can’t help wondering why. Why isn’t he here? Where is he?

I recognize the man striding at the front of the group. Will’s father. Still handsome and well-groomed even in his hunting apparel. A hot trickle of terror shivers up from my core. Because I know what this man is capable of.

He looks different. Not the cordial man who welcomed me into his home when he thought I was a normal girl. His brutally cold eyes assess me, see me as a creature. Prey. And I see him. Truly see him. He’ll have no problem snuffing out my life.

“What do we have here, boys?”

“We’ve got two . . . well, we think.”

Mr. Rutledge stares hard at us for a moment. Miram’s out of control next to me, and I know it’s useless to tell her to hold it together anymore. She’s too afraid. Too panicked.

I scan the thick press of trees, each beat of my heart a loud, reverberating thump in my chest. My razor-sharp gaze skips over each hunter, hungry for the sight of one face. Against all sanity, I still hope. Will, where are you?

Xander steps close to his uncle and motions to Miram. “That’s one of those invisible ones.” He points at me. “Know what type that one is?”

Mr. Rutledge studies me without answering, his head angled as though he can dissect me with his eyes. And I suppose he can. I have trouble meeting his gaze—this man who is Will’s father, who butchered my kind and infused their lives’ blood into his son. For that he is a monster. But for that his son lives, a boy I love.

It’s a twisted reality, and I can’t help hearing Cassian in my head, insisting that someday that very thing would drive a wedge between Will and me.

Mr. Rutledge stretches out a hand and flicks his fingers, apparently reaching a decision. Instantly, a weapon appears, placed in his hand. A gun of some kind. I know nothing about them except that they hurt. They destroy.

He aims.

Miram thrashes wildly, watching in horror as I do.

Only I cannot simply watch. Not when the core of me is a weapon.

Hot purpose rolls over me. “Stop,” I snarl, for all they can’t understand me, shoving Miram away from me so that I can do what needs to be done. What I’m born to do. But we’re tangled in the net, and she won’t stop clinging to me, pleading in low rumbling draki-speech.

Shaking hair from my face, I part my lips and blow.

Fire fights its way up my throat. My windpipe shudders with raging heat. The steam releases from my nostrils an instant before flames burst from my lips. With a roar the blast of heat arcs across the air. The hunters cry out, dance back from the far-reaching flames.

The net falls from us, incinerated to tufts of ash. The taste of char and cinder coats my mouth. I grab Miram’s arm and haul her up off the ground. She’s uncooperative, dead weight in her fear.

My face tilts to the sky, eager for escape, freedom, hungry for wind, but not without her. “Get up!” I cry. “C’mon! Fly!”

She starts to rise, her movements sluggish. With all my strength, I lift her up, ready to ascend even if it means carrying her.

My feet leave the ground just as I’m hit. Pain erupts in my wing, misery that lances through the membrane. They’re deceptive; draki wings look gossamer soft, but are really quite strong, laced with countless nerves that make them all the more sensitive. I’m in agony.

Twisting my body up into the air, I tear the small harpoon from my wing, fling it until it impales in the soft ground.

I collapse back down, head bowed in pain.

Miram breaks from my side, stumbles, lost from me in our fall.

Will’s dad steps closer, his weapon aimed at me. His eyes are cold. He feels nothing.

There’s a whistle as I’m hit again. In the thigh. This time the pain is less, not another harpoon. My gaze jerks down, rests on the dart protruding from my red-gold flesh. I yank it free and glare at it, see that it contains a vial. A now-empty vial.

A second whistle cuts the air. My gaze swerves, watches as the dart hits with a solid thunk into Miram’s body. She screams. The sound is bewildered, stunned only as one who’s never endured physical pain before can feel.

And yet I know it’s more than the pain. It’s the fear, this horror of being treated like an animal without worth. Something to be hunted, caught, and ultimately destroyed.

I drag myself to her side. She slumps against me, her tears moist on my shoulder, a chilling hiss on my scalding flesh.

I shout at the hunters even though I know that I probably appear more animal to them with my strange, growling sounds. More the beast that needs exterminating. I cringe, wither inside at the sensation of their cold, apathetic eyes on me.

In moments, my vision grows fuzzy. My head feels warm, insulated. And somehow I don’t care anymore. I feel good all over, tingly.

The hunters descend, smudges of dancing black. A roaring fills my ears, but not loud enough to cover Miram’s gasping sobs. Those I hear. Those I will always hear.

I squeeze her hand, or at least I try to. My muscles are so tired, feeble and sluggish. I’m not sure I do anything more than cover her fingers with mine. Then, she’s no longer with me. They take her, drag her from my side. I stretch for her, but I’m too slow. Her talons claw through the earth, leave deep gouges in the soil. Her screams don’t sound so close anymore, but they’re still there, fading in the distance like a dying wind.