Her Shadows

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

AMELIA POV

I reinforce the blockade around the storage closet before re-joining the fray. Trying desperately to push the image of his shell-shocked expression from the fore-front of my mind.

As I fall into the dance and sway of the fight before me, every ounce of training and preparation courses through my limbs. Forms every move, kick and slice. I fall into perfect synchronicity with the music of gurgles and screams.

I drop to a crouch, viciously slicing the tendons on the back of a woman's knees. Before her paralysed body can crash to the ground, I'm bouncing on my toes and driving that same knife into the shoulder of another scumbag.

I carve my way through death and decay toward the back staircase. Yanking the door open, I race down the stairs. I can hear the rattle of cages and cries as bodies collide in a fight to the death.

I jump the last few steps and slam into the concrete floor, immediately joining the bloodbath.

I join my colleagues and channel the Goddess of Death.

That fateful trip to the Parker's secret facility had been more significant than simply gathering the information of items for this auction. It was about changing them.

Now every man, child and woman could return home safely.

And as for the unfortunate visitors of the Auction's dungeons in the weeks leading to the event?

I look around at my fighters, every single one I had faced in combat all those years ago.

Every single child of the France training facility that I had bested.

Now joins me in our shared goal of ending this horrendous trafficking scheme. Of paying off their life debt, for the generosity of a simple dinner on a night they were destined to starve.

We fall into a perfect tango of death and fatality.

A shot between the eyes of a man who almost caught my fighter off guard.

A stab to the chest for a woman who almost sliced my neck.

A howl of injury.

The smack of flesh on concrete.

The splatter of blood on the walls.

Until every single trafficking criminal scum lies dead and sprawled on the floors.

With a simple nod of thanks to my temporary teammates I run back toward the closet.

Smoke fills my nostrils as my companions set the room alight.

I watch everyone run to leave, quickly slithering through the cracks before the walls are filled with fire and flames.

I grit my teeth as I push the barricades away then yank the door open.

I run inside only to find him curled into a ball on his side, rocking back and forth with his hands to his ears, trying to drown out the sounds of killing.

My heart aches but I have no time to comfort him as I grip his arms and pull him to standing.

He barely flinches as I carry him from the room.

Smoke overcomes the building, my vision completely filled with wisps of reds and oranges. It's spread quicker than imagined.

The roof caves in and threatens to plummet toward us. I run, dragging Jayce with me as his sense of urgency finally kicks in.

Too late do I see the burning log fall and I desperately throw us to the ground.

I scream when the fire melts through my leg and scorches my calf.

Jayce reacts quickly, standing and grabbing my hand, pulling me from under the fiery log. I grit my teeth at the immeasurable pain.

"AMELIA! WE HAVE TO GO!"

I limp to standing and my nostrils singe as the smoke enters my lungs and I almost collapse under the paralytic agony in my calf. It's as though a million fire ants are running through my singed muscles and stabbing the flesh with poison ivy over and over again.

"SUNSHINE? COME ON BABY, WE GOTTA GO!"

I can't even fumble a step without alighting the burn once again. Jayce, my saviour, scoops me up, a hand beneath the knees and another on my back. He cradles me to his chest as he coughs and stumbles through the fire.

We finally make it outside and we collapse to the floor. Dry heaving into the grass, I curl up into a ball as coughs rack themselves from my chest.

"Jayce-" My body shakes as I involuntarily curl over and cough spit into the grass. I push the words from my singed lungs, "Jayce, we have to go."

Jayce crawls to me on his hands and knees, wiping the spit from his jaw and draws in choked breaths that rattle his chest.

He rips the offensive wig from my head and the remaining fragments of my mask, chucking them away.

Then he moves to my calf.

"FUCK! Jayce! Don't touch it."

I grit my teeth and force myself to sit, before inspecting the injury.

Oh my god, thank god. It's not third degree. I can treat this.

"Jayce, honey, we have to go. Take me to your house."

His eyes are wild, his hair standing on end and his clothes are charred but he seems to pull himself together just enough to help me stand, then together, we limp to the safety of his home a few blocks away.

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Omg the 'Jayce, honey' killed me

Also, is Jayce going to accept her now that the truth is out? Will they escape this matter unnmarred?

Happy reading everybody!