Page 50 of Ravage
“Negative,” adds another.
“Well, fucking find her then,” a third voice snaps.
It’s at times like these that I wish I had a non-tangible gift.
I hope Jackson knows how lucky he is that he can fight from a distance.
And Aiden owes me a fucking gun.
Heavy boots move up and down the pier as they search the ocean. I move quietly through the water under the pier, careful not to make too much noise to give me away. All it will take is one of them to smarten up and look underneath, and I’ll be trapped.
My feet skim the sandy beach when I draw closer to the start of the pier, but I curl my legs up and keep swimming until I can stand with the water at my waist. Then I wrap my hands around one of the large posts and call on my gift.
There’s a fire in my gut when I call on so much at once, building it up and stoking it until I release it into my hands all at once. My hands glow and burn. The post cracks once, loud and clear for everyone to hear.
There’s a split second of silence.
“Get off the pier!” the one still on the beach commands, but it’s too late.
My gift thrusts out of me and into the post, spreading up and across the planks like wildfire. The thick wood disintegrates before they can take two steps and then they fall into the water.
I run at the one guy not in the water, fisting my hands at my sides and keeping my gift active and at the ready for him. My weapons are useless until I turn this off, and I’m not willing to lose the advantage I have now that I’m warmed up.
He curses and widens his stance while angling to face me. His body blurs for a moment and then there are five of him.
Shit. Not just a regular goon.
A gifted goon.
I keep running at the one who’d been standing there first. He can multiply all he wants, but as long as I keep my eyes on the first one, the others don’t matter.
Or so I thought.
Two leap and tackle me to the ground, breaking my line of sight. Sand scrapes against my cheek. I reach back for anything I can touch, and I grasp whatever I feel behind me.
He screams when I make contact. He tries to pull away, but I latch on to make sure I finish it.
Something sharp sticks into my back, and I buck and push onto my hands and knees, then spin around while reaching back to the syringe sticking out of my shoulder to yank it out. It doesn’t fall apart in my hand right away like I expect, and I check in with my gift. The stab broke my concentration on it, but I hadn’t even noticed with how my hands are throbbing with pain.
One of his clones is dead on the ground. His skin is split, and there’s blood leaking from his eyes, mouth, and ears.
By now, I can hear the others splashing out of the water to join us.
The clone who’d stuck me grabs me by the throat and shoves me back onto the ground. “That fucking hurt, you stupid bitch.”
I slide the thin blades from my thigh holster while he’s busy spitting crap at me for losing a fucking copy of himself. I grip them all in my hand at once and then slash them across his throat as hard as I can. Blood spurts and then sprays over me as he chokes, wide-eyed.
I shove him to the side and scramble to my feet just as something latches around my wrist. I swipe my blades across it without thinking. I don’t care who or what it is. Anything or anyone who touches me is an enemy.
Turns out it came out of one of the other goons who’d been in the water. He sends another rope-like appendage after me, and I’m able to dodge it.
Then it curves.
For fuck’s sake.
Time to start throwing knives.
I aim and pitch the first one at the guy with the weird, growing limb. It embeds into his chest, and he staggers back just as his appendage wraps around my thigh. It drops to the ground, and I heave a second knife at another guy.
