Broken Circles

Part VIII

Double-crossed and left for dead, Achillean and Yvana must fight to stay in one piece, but with Victus empowered by a Prime, the original goal of the Voltaris fell to the wayside, and Achillean is on the firing line first.

But when the attention is turned onto Yvana, Riorden finally makes a stand, putting his life on the line for her; only for someone unexpected to put a stop to it all once and for all

Author's note: ykw, I started this entire thing putting in the most effort I ever had into it, but fsr when I got to this part, my brain went splat and I actually feel like the quality took a leap which annoys me because this is supposed to be the best part XD

******************

"Stand aside, squirt," Victus growled as he shoved Tygren away. "I want to deal with this rat..." The monstrous diction with which the boss spoke was enough to alert Achillean into thinking that recapturing him was not the endgame, but to kill him here and now, to put an end to his meddling once and for all – that removing him from the game outweighed the joy of making him pay for his father's mistakes.

Tygren looked at his boss and concluded that there was no negotiation to be had on the matter – that the Voltaris was too far gone under the effects of a Prime drug, and he wasn't willing to test those boundaries; not given the roughness with which he was hastily pushed aside – and he turned to Riorden to spot him struggling to stop Yvana from escaping his clutches. Tygren knew that Riorden would have a moral confliction in the apprehension of his other, for he would surely still have the love for her to let her live, to leave her unharmed, but also the loyalty to his newfound group that demanded his attention at every opportunity. Even his grip on the Kaltaris fluctuated and undulated as much as his mind did.

Swiftly, he pulled out his handgun and pointed it at Yvana as he walked toward them on the other side of the bridge.

"Not another move, or I put a bullet in you!" he commanded, looking at the Kaltaris down sights. Yvana froze and Riorden adjusted his grasp to hold her still. "We are going to leave. Victus has the Nestoris covered. You are coming with us."

"Like hell I am!" Yvana yelled, absentmindedly trying to shake Riorden from her.

"I will not hesitate to shoot you, bitch, and I don't very much care if you die or not!" Tygren's grip on his gun grew fierce as he shook with fury, grimacing in his own anger boiling over.

Yvana saw the fire ignite in the younger Voltaris' eyes and she looked at Riorden hoping to see an old glint of protectiveness shine in his; just as there used to be when she first fell for him – the old flames that used to burn in his retinas when Yvana was threatened by someone she could not have provoked. It was not there, yet she could still spot the embers of what once was, dulled by years or torment, of degradation.

Riorden had been used as nothing more than a mule; but he had pleaded his case for most of those years – he had spent the first two years of his absence entirely on the run, knowing that Victus and Allegrous wanted him for a job he didn't want to risk his life doing, yet they had caught him simply by beginning the path of lies that would involve nothing but abuse and threats thrown at the very girl that he lived for. He had succumbed out of fear that it was true, and month by month, year by year, they had weighed him down, diluting his fight and putting out his fire until he felt next to nothing: numb to the bone. Yvana had never seen him look so out of sorts, so conflicted. He wanted to protect her.

But to protect her, there was a chance he had to hurt her.

She looked at the barrel of Tygren's gun and gulped. She knew in that moment that everything she had been searching for was gone. It had disappeared forever.

She was never getting it back.

Achillean glanced across the bridge to spot the gun intruding Yvana's skin and his heart dropped. He couldn't help her from his position being backed against the bridge supports by a Voltaris highly drugged on Mobillium energy. Even if he were to tap into his old high school basketball tactics and play dodge with the mafia boss, he would be caught without a chance to blink for the Mobillium Prime cutting him off barely three steps in. He could only watch on as Yvana remained defenceless against Tygren and Riorden.