Page 58 of The Souls Harvest
“He’s armed, Galen. Shoot him—” I lunge forward, but the man pulls me back by my hair.
“Ah! How observant! What were you expecting? A bunch of flowers?” he snaps, running the barrel up over my spine until it meets the small of my neck, where it rests hard and cold.
I hiss through my teeth, clenching my jaw to conceal any hint of distress my face may show. Galen hesitates, biting at his lips, his nostrils flaring. He is a great shooter and could aim blindfolded, but we both know that no bullet can fly fast enough to hit the stranger before he fires his own gun.
A fire hotter than the one raging around us burns in my veins. Images from the past days, the feeling of being thrust left and right, with no chance to make my own decisions, sparks something inside of me.
Somehow, Galen reads my intentions and shakes his head slightly.
The stranger doesn’t seem to notice our silent exchange and carries on, arrogantly, “I am feeling generous today. You can either let me and your little girlfriend pass before this wreckage of a castle collapses. Or—”
Ignoring the mouth of the gun grazing at my skin with a silent promise of certain death, I tilt my head slightly to the side, faking a coughing fit to distract him while I bend my knee to brace my leg,charging my limb with anger, disgust, hate and desperation.
I have no time to study a trajectory based on our height difference, so I kick back with the sole of my shoe, hoping to hit the stranger, praying for a miracle. This is not a second-chance situation.
My heel crashes against the man’s shin with a sickening sound, followed by his scream of pain. He stumbles back, letting go of my neck, and I promptly hunch down. Everything begins to move as if seconds are stretching like an elastic band about to snap. But at the violent sound of an explosion, time speeds up to normal, and I hit my cheek hard against the wet stones.
For a second, everything falls silent.
I prop myself up, groaning in pain. My hands are bleeding from a myriad of small cuts, and I taste blood on my tongue. But there is another source of discomfort I can’t locate until I sit back on my heels and glance over my shoulder to check if the stranger is still there.
The top of my right sleeve is ripped between my neck and shoulder, and blood is flowing down my arm, dripping from the tip of my fingers in a pink puddle on the floor.
Realising that the wound is real makes it even more painful, but I can’t help gaping, then smiling proudly, at the image of the man behind me, contorting on the floor in agony.
He is trying to sit up, without much success, stretching his arms towards his leg, bent at an odd angle, as blood gushes out from a nasty wound in his abdomen every time he moves. His mouthagape, his terrified eyes almost as wide.
I can’t stop staring. I turn on my knees, wincing when I press my hands, still bound, down to keep my balance. As much as I want to believe he can’t harm me anymore, I need to make sure his gun is out of reach.
I quickly scout around, searching for it until I spot it meters behind him. It must have flown away when Galen shot him.
Reality strikes.
“You. Fired...” I mutter. An odd thing to notice when I was the one who ordered Galen to kill the bastard. But thinking that I was right in the trajectory of the bullet…Had I not moved faster, I’d probably be the one bleeding to death.
“It’s done. We’re safe.” Galen’s voice is croaky when he approaches me, the familiar scent of him carried by the howling wind.
As much as I want to turn around and bury my face in his chest, as much as I need to believe his words, I keep my attention on the stranger. His fingers are battling to put pressure on the wound while life abandons him in violent spurts of blood. The subtle halo of his soul starts misting off his body like fog off warm soil.
It doesn’t have any particular hue but instead just a milky tone to it. That of a soul who’s never needed Roden’s help. Something so rare I’ve never encountered before, and only ever read about.
I can’t take my eyes off of him even when a wet gurgle escapes his open mouth, and the man spits blood.
I blink tears away.
Galen’s bullet must have compromised more than one organ and blood vessels because the man’s face is turning ashen too quickly.
Rain begins to fall again, loud and heavy, like curtains on a stage, when Galen kneels behind me and starts fidgeting with the manacles at my wrists. In seconds, they snap open, and Galen throws them away, spins me around and hugs me against his chest before I can witness the last minutes of the stranger's solo performance. Panic, anger, fear of losing my best friend—every single feeling comes to me in a rush.
I gently push away from him and cup his cheek, shaking.“He could’ve killed you, he…”
Raindrops run down his face, flattening his hair over his eyes. “Sof, we have to go.” He brushes dirt and tears off my cheek with his thumb before casting a quick look at the dying body behind me.
He lowers his hands on my shoulders. I’m paralysed by cold and fear, but Galen’s grip is the only thing that keeps me from shattering into pieces. Until he squeezes too hard, and I flinch.
“He hurt you. Where?” he lifts his hand, hissing through his teeth.
I shake my head, and a faint smile crosses my face. “I’m fine; it’s just a scratch…dark hero,” I repeat the stranger’s early words, if only to release some of the tension still building up in my guts, as I peer down at the wound, where the blood has already turned darker and thicker.
