XF → Harry Hook [2]✔

Huli Jing

It was as if he was staring at the sun, if the star had been brought to within two feet of him. Harry staggered backwards, throwing his hand upwards to shield his eyes. But he was too late, and even as he squeezed his eyes shut, he found that the light had already left a writhing green imprint on his vision, dancing behind his eyelids.

Harry was vaguely aware of Uma doing something similar beside him through gritted teeth. From behind him, he heard Carlos groan and Jane shriek at the blinding, searing light. His hand did nothing to stop it, the brightness leaking in between the gaps of his fingers and shining directly through his flesh, turning his hand a sickly shade of red.

"Xiao!" he roared, his words muffled by his hands in a fruitless attempt to cover his face. "Xiao Jun!"

"Turn around, you idiot!" Uma hissed, her voice sounding farther away than before. "If you don't, you'll never see again..."

Harry ignored her, Uma's voice drifting away like a dream that was as sleepy as she sounded. He was dead set on searching for XJ. Panicked thoughts drove and crashed as if they were racecars with faulty brakes, wreaking havoc within a mental racetrack.

The sparring partner.

The golden figure with no face.

The woman.

The strange, hollow feeling that had washed over him when she had looked at him, beckoning him forward with the twitch of a finger. Only now did Harry recognize what had made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, only now did he realize what it was he had felt in the woman's presence:

Hunger.

And all this time, she had been feeding off XJ.

"XJ!" Harry shouted into the light, taking stumbling steps forward with his right hand outstretched, groping and grasping for one while desperately hoping he wouldn't meet the other.

As abruptly as the sun seemed to have fallen to earth, it returned beneath the horizon in a heartbeat, but the light had left pain and blindness in its wake. Harry blinked, furiously rubbing his eyes to get rid of the black splotches.

A sigh like wind blowing through leaves. "It's been far too long."

The feminine voice was ethereal, shifting in and out of reality as if controlled by a volume dial on a radio being turned this way and that. Her words echoed like she was speaking from deep within a cave, but they were at the same time crystal clear. Something deep within Harry screamed at him that she didn't belong, that she wasn't supposed to be here, that her presence would tear apart the skies.

The instinct was so strong that it made Harry's head spin and his blood turned to ice. His skin prickled, drops of sweat rolling down his back. He fought the urge to shrink back like a scared cat, arching his back and hissing. Instead, he planted his feet on the ground and shouted. "Xiao? Are you there?"

"Ah," the woman said, amused, her voice smoother than water in a stream running over gleaming rocks. "Captain Hook's son. Less simple-minded than the rest, but a simpleton all the same."

For each word that came out of the woman's mouth, Harry could feel the increasing adrenaline that coursed through his veins. Never in his life had he thought that he could react so extremely to the sound of someone's mere voice.

"I'll still be able to rip your head from your shoulders, lady," he forced the words through his teeth, still blind to the world. If he were to attack now, the woman would flick him away without batting an eyelid. But more importantly, why wasn't XJ responding?

"You've caused a lot of trouble, you know," the woman made a tutting noise, as if disappointed. "She went to such lengths to make sure you wouldn't be hurt."