Page 106 of Raze
The second cuff clicks open. Spinning around, I dive to the side, throwing air and knives at Thorne to bring his attention around to me. There’s no sign of the air I’d sent his way, and my knives are thrown back before they can get within a foot of him.
I reach out to draw the blades back to me before they can be used against me or Raegan, grasping them in hand. Thorne smirks at me, then turns and keeps walking to Raegan rather than me.
Anger swells in my chest, threatening to blind me in a red haze, but I shove it down and out of my mind. This isn’t the time for me to lose my head. I need a clear mind while Raegan is still restricted and in danger in this room. Once I know she’s safe, I can let it out.
I flip a blade between my fingers, resting a foot back against the wall behind me, and then use my gift to help propel me across the room at Thorne.
I hit an invisible wall between us, but use my gift to keep me airborne and pushing against it. My hand shakes with the effort and strain to shove my blade through whatever whirlwind of protection he has up around himself. I’m almost through when Thorne grunts and shoots me a look before I’m blown back.
My gift catches me before I slam to the ground, and I try again.
And again.
Each time, he tosses me away.
I can feel the pressure in the room shifting. Whatever attack he’s been building up is almost complete, and there’s nothing between him and Raegan. She’s trying to pull at the collar around her neck, but it’s futile until I get the lock picks to her.
Thorne smirks at me, raising his hands, and there’s a rush of wind around us. He looks back at Raegan.
No.
I use the air around me to shift my trajectory to Raegan instead of Thorne this time, stopping just in front of her chair and widening my stance before her. I throw a shield of air around us that I know will only lessen whatever blow is coming our way rather than stop it. I barely get the shield in place before the second of silence, like the room is holding its breath, warns me that my time’s run out.
His attack hits me from behind like a sledgehammer. I throw my hand out to catch myself on the back of her chair before I crash into her. White-hot pain sears across my back, and I’m momentarily blinded from the pain of it.
“Jack!Jack!”
I focus on her voice like a lifeline. I can’t pass out. Whatever Thorne threw this way, he didn’t lessen it just because I’d stepped between him and his target. That, or he expected this and wanted me down for good.
Thorne’s footsteps get closer. I keep my eyes closed and my body still. It’s torturous to keep my body immobile while drawing in ragged breaths through the pain. But I do it. So, when he sighs from above me, and I can feel his presence within reach, he doesn’t have time to react before I slam a knife into his chest.
I yank it out with a grunt from the strength and motility needed for that move while my entire back seizes in agony. My arm slashes in an arc on autopilot, seeking his throat but missing entirely when Thorne uses his gift to hop back and add some distance between us.
His face is contorted with more anger than pain, and I’m forced to wonder again how he’s even alive. Is he alive? There's blood, but it doesn’t seem to flow as heavily as it should where I’ve just stabbed him. Or I’m only thinking that’s the case because something has felt off about him since I first saw him again.
Whatever method he used to survive or come back last time, I’ll have to be sure there are no third chances.
I look at my little one’s collar next, and when I see it isn’t attached to the chair like her other cuffs, I pass her my lock-picking tools. “Your ankles first.” She can work on them while I finish this, and then I’ll remove that collar from her.
“No!” Thorne shouts when he sees Raegan halfway free already. His hand reaches out to her, readying to cut off her air, but I shove off the ground and use my gift to propel me through the air without having to move my body.
My knife swings at his arm. He’s forced to drop it to dodge, stopping his attack on Raegan and bringing his focus back to me.
He catches my wrist and tries to turn my knife on me. My back screams as I fight to hold him back, my arm trembling as I keep the blade from touching me. I open my hand and drop it into my other hand, where I thrust it up into his gut.
Thorne’s fist smashes into the side of my face. I bite my tongue, and blood fills my mouth and flows freely from my nose. My body hits the wall from the force behind his punch, and my back is pounding to the rapid beat of my heart. I lost my grip on the knife in that attack, and Thorne pulls it free from his midsection and holds it in his hand as he stalks past me toward Raegan.
“You’re blinded by that woman. Once she’s gone, then you’ll remember what you were born for. You won’t have any excuse anymore not to stand by my side.”
No.
I don’t feel the pain when I turn and launch a gust of wind at Thorne, throwing him against the wall and holding him there. I see the knife already flying at Raegan and use my other hand to catch that, too, redirecting it to Thorne so his body catches it in the throat instead.
I walk over to him, even as I can feel his gift pushing against mine and trying to get free. It feels like a kitten batting at my sides. Like nothing. My hand flexes and his gift dies beneath the pressure of mine. Not even a whisper or tickle of it left.
I always had the stronger gift between the two of us. We both knew it, though Thorne tried to play it off that he would always be better. Just because he’d mastered power before control. But now I have both.
My head cocks to the side to study him once I’m standing in front of him. He has three stab wounds now that, for any normal person, would have put them in critical condition if not killed them by now. The throat wound, in particular, should have been the end of this.
