Between Shadow & Ruin (Fangs & Fae Saga Book 2)

seventeen.

I was staring at a dark ceiling. I smelled blood and my body was in immense pain. I tried to look around me, but my vision was blurry. My head was on fire. I looked down at my body, trying to focus my vision and saw that I'd had a large wooden stake coming out from the middle of my torso. I tried to move, but I felt the stake reach towards my heart. I looked at my arms and saw something wooden sticking out of my wrists and I felt them burn. I heard the 'drip, drip, drip' of my blood filling buckets on the ground underneath me. I could hear chanting from the distance, and I was confused.

"Jason?" I asked, as I heard a familiar grunt in the distance. "Jason, is that you?"

"Liz? Liz, what the fuck is going on?"

"I'm surprised you don't know, Mr. Born-and-Raised." He was silent, I could hear him struggling. "The witches in the Boroughs..." I said, as I managed to pull one of my arms up, letting the stake rip through my wrist. I muffled the scream to not alert the witches. I pulled the other arm up over the stake, and then used both hands to pull at the one in my chest.

I struggled, but I pulled straight out and hard. I let out a whimper but it finally came free. I sat up for a second, waiting for it to heal – they'd missed my heart on purpose, they wanted to drain my blood. I stumbled over to Jason as my vision was still clearing.

"The witches in the Boroughs... they don't practice regular magic."

"What do you mean?"

"Seriously, Jason? What kind of Puerto Rican New Yorker are you? They practice Santeria!" I said, reaching his body.

"Oh," he said scared, "I don't fuck with that shit!"

"You don't 'fuck with it', but you can't even recognize it happening right under your nose!?"

"I was raised a good Catholic boy..." I pulled the stakes out of his wrists.

"You're lucky I need you to get the fuck out of here, or I'd stake you myself for being such a, what's that word, 'pendejo'?" I said with a perfect accent.

"I didn't know you spoke Spanish," he said, chuckling nervously. "You might just be a New York vampire, jefa."

"I know enough..." I gripped the stake in his chest. "I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt like a motherfucker and you need to not scream." He was already whimpering before I pulled. "Are you praying!?"

"I told you; I was raised Catholic!" I pulled the stake out and nearly knocked over something behind me but managed to catch it. "Hijo de la gran puta, that fucking hurt!"

"Cuss me out later. We need to find a way out of here."

"Uh, Liz..."

"What?" I said, annoyed he wasn't helping.

"Where are our clothes?"

"Seriously? We're about to be killed and you're worried because I can see your dick? We need to figure out how to get the fuck out of here!" He grabbed a towel and handed it to me.

"Toma." I wrapped it around my body and tucked it into itself as he wrapped another towel around his waist. Someone walked towards us. I motioned for Jason to get down behind something. It was Altagracia's granddaughter. I reached out and put my hands around her mouth. She raised her hand, lit with white light.

"I wouldn't do that." I brought her to the corner furthest from the rest of the coven. "Scream and I'll snap your neck. What's your name?"

"Laura," she said, whimpering.

"Laura, you look too young to be mixed up in this. If you help us get out of here... I can make sure you're taught magic properly."

"I know how to do magic."