Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(10)
I shuffled forward until we were standing face to face with only the wooden door between us. I slipped my hand through the bars and willingly exposed my wrist to him.
He looked back at me, his eyes filled with lust as he surveyed my face, and then my neck. “Oh, how I long to be on the other side of this door.” His eyes stayed pinned on my now pulsating neck vein.
“Actually, I think it would work better if I was on that side.”
He didn’t bother meeting my eyes. “Either one would be fine with me, love.”
With a reverberating click of his teeth, he picked up my hand and brought it to his mouth. I took a breath and held it in as his lips glided over my palm and then to my wrist.
His teeth broke through the tender skin and I released the air from my lungs as my ever-shrinking world turned vast again. Every care and concern I had slipped away from me like sand in a broken hour glass. Fleeting and flawed and inconsequential. I gripped the bars with my other hand and pressed my body against the door, unconsciously drawing myself closer to him. My lids were already weighty with euphoria and threatening to shut down on me, but I forced them open a moment longer so that I could take in the beautiful angel of death before me.
How could something so deadly make me feel something so divine?
It was the question I asked myself time and time again before slipping away into oblivion.
5. THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN
My eyes snapped open at the sound of my cell door being cranked open. My two escorts from earlier this week stood at the threshold of the door wearing a pair of matching grins on their faces. An eerie feeling of unease fluttered over me as if my body knew something was coming; something I wasn’t going to like. I noticed they always came down in pairs now, usually Maz and Damon, and sometimes Maz and Baldy—Engle’s right hand man.
“Wakey, wakey, Hell-girl. It's time to go,” said Maz, the doofus that knocked me out the other night. I'd heard one of the guards refer to him by name and smirked to myself as I remembered how stupid it sounded.
My eyes shifted to Damon, the blond one with the deep, throaty voice. His black tattoo was peeking out from under his shirt. It looked like an owl’s head, but I couldn’t really make out enough of it to be sure.
“Are you hard of hearing?” snapped Damon when I didn’t move. “He said get up.”
Without breaking eye contact, I slowly stood up from the corner I’d been perched in and straightened my back. My feet were at shoulder width and my fists were balled at my sides, but I didn’t move another inch. I just stood there without saying a word, staring at the two of them.
“You best not try anything,” warned Maz. There was a nervous pitch to his voice, like he was scared of what I might do—of what I was capable of doing to him, even in this semi-useless state of being.
The sound of it empowered me.
I continued to stare silently, my eyes taking in each of them, judging their abilities, calculating their distance to me. Looking for any hidden weapons. My gaze locked on a short black handle sticking out sideways from the back of Maz's pants. I quickly veered my eyes away from it so as not to draw any attention to what I'd just seen.
“Why’s she just standing there?” Maz turned to Damon.
Damon didn't answer him. “Start moving. I'm not going to tell you twice.”
“Alright, alright. Don’t have a cow.” I took a slow step towards them, and then another one. Each one causing my skin to prickle with anticipation.
Both of them stepped back, presumably to clear the path, though maybe just to keep their distance. I smiled, and then, like a savage prisoner with a tiny taste of freedom, I barreled forward, rushing into Maz and then pounding my fist into the bridge of his nose. He immediately folded inward, covering his broken nose and leaving himself wide open to my waiting hands. Before he could figure out what was happening, I pulled his weapon from his back pocket and then spun him around, pulling him in against my chest and using his body to shield me from Damon.
I didn't waste time with idle threats. I raised the knife and promptly slid it across Maz's neck, easy as slicing through butter. He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
I didn’t move. I just stood there, air swooshing in and out of my lungs as remnants of adrenaline settled in my blood.
“You're going to regret that in a minute,” warned Damon as he kicked Maz's motionless body. “You can't kill a Revenant with a knife. Even a youngster like Maz.”
“Oh, I know.” I wiped the blood-stained blade against my dress and then flipped the knife around in my palm, handing it back to him handle-first. “But it felt really good doing it.”
The truth was, I was testing them—testing myself. I wanted to see how easy it would be to overtake one of them. I wanted to be ready when the time was right. Taking down Maz had proven to be easy, but something told me the other one would be a whole different story. Either way, my confidence and strength were increasing every day.
It was only a matter of time now…
“I hope it was worth it,” he said as he took a backwards step through the door. His arm came up and reached for something that appeared to be hanging on the wall outside my cell.
“It was,” I answered and then swallowed the last of my moxie as he produced a rusty, nail-spiked bat.
His dark, soulless eyes met mine and a wicked grin curled across his face. “Good,” he said, gently swaying the bat back and forth as he moved in closer to me. “Because it's time to pay the piper.”