Wicked Fate (The Wicked Trilogy) (36 page)

Chapter
27

The War

I begin to pull
Adam down the beach and back t
owards the truck. I have
to get him as far away
as possible. I need
to run j
ust for a little while, j
ust long enough to get Adam to a safe place and long enough to lear
n more about my powers. I pull Adam harder. He struggles
.

“What’s wrong
with you,
Mage? What are you doing?”

“Just pick up
your feet and come on,” I say as I drag him across the beach.

It’
s too la
te. No matter how fast I think I’m moving to get away, they’re moving faster. Before I can
even
get Adam out of the sand I hear the two of them on our heels. There’s nothing for me to do but turn and fight.

“Run, Adam—please just run,” I whisper so only he can
hear me.

I don’t want them to hear me. I don’t want them to know that Adam’s my weakness.

“No, I’m not leaving you,” his face is stern and his eyes beat into mine with his determination.

“I’ll be fine
—p
lease
,
Adam
,
just go.
Please
!”

It’s Eris for sure and with her is the older man, the one with the black and gray hair. He’
s the first to speak.

“Listen to her Adam, a
smart boy would.”

His voice sounds
the same as it did in my nightmares, a
soft caress before the blow. Fear grips my heart. Not only am I fighting for my life, I’m now fighting for Adam’s
as well.

Adam steps in front of me. “Go to hell.”

The old man laughs in his face.

I need Adam out of the way.

I step from behind him and look into his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Adam.”

He looks at me with confusion.

I don’t give him time to respond, I shoot out a small amount of blue flame into his chest. It’s the weakest of my flames, but still it’s enough to knock him into the sand. If he’s knocked out he’
s le
ss likely to be killed. I use my powers to lift his body and then I lay him softly onto a big pile of sand tucked out of the way.

“Smart girl,” the clear eyed man
says
.

This is
it,
this is what all my nightmares were warning me about. There’s no more time for running, there’s no more time for anything.
I
t’
s
kill-or-be-killed and since I’ve
never killed anything in my life, I’ve never been more afraid.

“Who are you?” I ask even though I kno
w the answer.

The man smiles
a sickening smile.

“I’m Craven,” he points to the girl. “Y
ou’ve already met Eris.”

Eris has a huge satisfied smile pasted on her face.

“Nice to see you recovered from
the last time we met,” she hisses
.

“
Why are you doing this?” I ask
.

It doesn’t really matter what they say. I’m
too busy trying to think of my next move
. I can’t
go craz
y with it this time. I can’t
be sloppy and wild with my magic the way I was the last time I came acro
ss Eris. The one thing I’ve noticed
about t
hese evil people is that they’
re always so calm. Maybe that calmness is what helped Eris that day.

While I was busy being crazy and throwing magic whichever way I could, Eris was calm and thinking her next step through. That’s how she beat me. She wasn’t stronger than me
, just a little smarter. I’ll
be smarter today.

“You know how powerful you are
,
Mage. You’re almost as powerful as m
e. Just imagine how powerful I w
ould be if I had your powers as well as my own.”

The more I stare at Craven as he speaks, the more I notice
the resemblance between
him and myself.

“Who are you to me?”

“It doesn’t matter.
Either way
,
one of us isn’t wal
king away from this. I’
ve spent the last eighteen years of my life planning for th
is exact moment, and here it is. I’
l
l celebrate your life when you’
r
e gone. It’s the least I can do,” he smirks.
“
Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours. You either hand yourself over to me or we fight it out; th
e fight will be worse for you—t
hat I guarantee, but like I said
,
it’s your choice.”

His confiden
ce is scary, but I can be confident too. I’m confident that I’ll fight to the death. I’m confident that I’ll fight like I’ve never fought before. I’m confident that I’ll
spend a lifetime with Adam, and no one, not even the man standing b
efore me is taking
that away.

I look over to check and make sure Adam is secure. I have to win. If I don’t, there’s
no one to keep them away from him.

“I think
…
I choose the hard way.”

Befor
e I finish my sentence Eris goes
on the attac
k. One of her red fireballs catches me by surprise and knocks
me into the sand. Th
e tiny granules of earth cover my eyes; I blink
trying to get my vision back.

This isn’
t starting out good.

I hear
Eris approach
ing me so I si
t up quickly and sh
oot purple fire straight into her chest. Her feet lift off of the ground as she flies backward towards Craven. He smiles
a secr
et smile as Eris and I continue
to fight to the death.

Before she’s ready,
I sh
o
ot out another bur
st of purple flames directly at her stomach. It lifts
her higher this time knocking her
into a big palm tree. She cries out when her body arches around the tree. I think I hear something snap, but I don’t
stop to check on her.

It’s either her or me…kill-or-be-killed. I repeat that in my head over and over again.

I lift her with one hand and hold
her suspend
ed in air as I try to figure out what to do with her. Even from afar, I can see fear in her red eyes. I can’t find it in me to kill her.

I look over at Craven who’s still smiling, even though I have Eris’ life in my hands.

“This stops
now!” I growl
at Craven. “Promise to leave and I’ll let her go.”

He sniffs
to himself. “Go ahead and finish her. She’s obviously useless to me.”

I can’t
believe my ears. He’s telling me
it’
s
ok
ay to kill someone that I think is close to him. He’s
an animal, a sick creature.

I lift
her higher before tossing her towards the heartless monster st
aring back at me. Craven grabs
her by the arms forcing her to stand dir
ectly in front of him. She looks afraid for her life. I feel her fear. Before I have
time to try and pull her away from him
, he lifts
his hands to t
he sides of her head and snaps
her ne
ck. I gasp as her lifeless body falls to his feet. There’
s no rem
orse for what he’s
just done.

“Useless,” he shakes
his head in disgust. “I have no time for use
less people. Come here, my sweet,” he waves me towards him.
“
Let’s get this over with
.
I’m tired of
these games.”

“Please
,
just leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that. What you fail to
realize is that you were born for me. You were made for this very
moment. It’s your destiny. Just let it happen—accept
your destiny.”

“It’s m
y destiny to die for you? Yeah, I
don’t think so.”

Craven let
s
out a growl before shooting a huge ball of purple flam
es directly towards me. I lift
my hand and my purple fire me
e
t
s
his. It’s just as it was in my nightmare. We both push
harder and
harder trying to see who’
s more powerful.

He looks perfectly capable and he seems
con
vinced that he’
s going to win this
fight. I’m not
s
o confident anymore—I’m
scared.

We both drop
our hands at the same time, both j
umping out of the way of each other’s fire.
I
send out another flame. It doesn’t
connect with its
target either.

I reach
out my hand and sho
o
t different fires at Crave
n over and over again. He dodges each one. I can
hear him laughing as he starts jumping
from pa
lm tree to palm tree. I follow him—closer to the water. He doesn’t consider me a threat
.
He could ea
sily finish me off; instead he’
s here playing
tag
with me.

I stop and decide to wait for him to attack. My wait doesn’t last long. Craven holds
out his hand to me, but no fire
comes out. Instead, I feel
his
hands around my throat. I stare back at him—his clear eyes reflect the ocean.

M
y feet leave the ground and
the grip on my throat tightens. My oxygen is slowly
being cut
off. I try
to lift my hand to stop him,
but I can’t move my arms. My body begins
to
convulse. I don’t know what he’s doing or how he’s doing it.

I think
of all the different things my m
other said I could do. I focus
on bending hi
s mind, nothing happens. I try
harder to force him
with my mind to put me down—to release me. He shakes his head.

“Don’t even try it.
I’m way too powerful to bend my will. I’m not one of your little friends.”

The world is starting to tilt. I’m suffocating! I need oxygen and I need
it now!

“Please,” I croak
past his choke hold.

I’m
startin
g to get dizzy.
I need to breathe!

“Leave her alone!” I hear
Adam scream.

I panic when I see him running across the beach towards us. In my head, I’m screaming for him to stop.

I’m about to die, little swimmers fill my vision. I take
one f
inal look at Adam who’s
running in
full force. I can’t give up. If I give up and
Craven
wins then Adam’s next. He’
d kill him just for the fun of it.

Adam mak
e
s
it
to Craven and his fist connects
with Craven’s
jaw. The choke hold disappears as Craven falls
to the gro
und. Oxygen floods my lungs and I choke
trying my
hardest to suck in more. I’m shaking so badly I can
barely move.

Once I can stand, I
see Adam
and
Craven
fighting. Craven sends
out a purple ball of flames straight into Adam’s stomach in the
form of an upper cut. Adam flies
to the side.

He gets back up and goes for Craven once more. It’
s
like slow motion to me. I try
one mor
e time to lift my hand. There’
s hard
ly anything left in me. With my last ounce of strength
I sh
o
ot one final fire ball at Crave
n. It’s completely unexpected so it connects with his arm and flips him
into the sand.
I fal
l to my knees
again and suck in as much air as I can.