Lex gasped on the floor, trying to sit up. I bent down, gripping her shoulders.
“I’m fine,” she said, voice croaky, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m fine.” My hand touched her jaw and tilted her head to the side to see if there were any damages, anything I could possibly heal with a quick touch. “I’m fine,” she kept repeating again and again.
I knew those were words she said a lot, even when she wasn’t, in fact, fine. Her pained expression gave her away. Her hand massaged her throat as if trying to soothe it, and she blinked up at me.
I clenched my jaw at that look. Like she wanted me to save her. Like I could. It sent shivers down my spine, my hands curling inward, attempting not to reach out and hold her.
Save her soul and mind and body. At those thoughts, my body bent closer, the urge to shield her with my structure outweighing my fear of getting too close.
My fingers, out of my control, slid across her shaded jaw of bruises and imagining each touch a kiss to heal them.
“Savage.” Steel’s voice drew me away and I stood, turning to face him at the end of the hallway. “They’re gone… and they took out a lot of us.”
“Fuckers,” I said, shaking my head at their cowardice.
“But Tegan managed to catch one. He’s tied up. What should we do with him?” He cocked a brow.
Where the fuck had Danny been through all of this? I hadn’t seen him in all the chaos.
I sighed, looking down at my bloody, bruised knuckles. “I’ll deal with him first. The bastard will give me the answers we need.”
I looked down the hallway, knowing I should move, knowing my feet should walk away from the souleater behind me.
But I looked back, my eyes dropping to the tiny form huddled on the floor. Bruised and hair a chaotic beautiful mess. Her blue eyes held mine, the intensity of the gaze like a shot to my chest, leaving me breathless.
“Wait for me,” I managed to say with a tight throat of unsaid emotions. “I’ll walk you home.”
There was no way she was leaving the Pit without me. Not when we had just been attacked.
Lex visibly swallowed, her lips parting as if to speak and I knew she would protest.
I forced myself to look away.
I went to move, but Lex coughed, standing up, waving her hand. “Wait—that guy—that guy was talking about Scorpios as if he wasn’t from around here. Like he wasn’t from New York.”
I stared down at her rosy cheeks and the bruise forming on her right cheekbone. A bruise I wanted to tend to, but I curled my fingers deeper into my palms.
Not now. Later.
I didn’t say a word and turned down the hallway, marching until I reached the meeting room. The Pit was a mess, fighters tending to the victims or moving the dead into body bags. Shards of glass spread across the floor and blood dotted the black and white tiles. I picked up one of the bigger shards before entering, playing with it, not caring if it cut me.
A man, bent over and tied to the chair, sat in front of me. Tegan and another fighter stood to the side, glaring at him. Bruised and beaten, but this was nothing new to us.
“You attacked the Pit,” I said to him, moving closer, wedging the shard between my pointer finger and index. “A place full of trained fighters.”
The man kept his dark head bowed, his chest heaving fast and hard.
I sat down in the chair opposite to him, letting my hands hang between my thighs. “Who are you?”
I watched as the guy’s jaw ticked, his mouth shaking into a thin line.
I didn’t give him a warning. I jerked forward, stabbing the shard into his thigh, deep into an artery, twisting it deeper as he cried out, his head swinging back.
“Blood and pain is my nature. You can either speak and tell me what I want to know, or I can carve up the names of all the people that died today right onto your skin. I’m warning you, I’ve never been much of an artist, so expect some sloppy fucking artwork,” I hissed out.
The man shook his head, the tendons in his throat clenching and unclenching as he tried to breathe through the pain, his body twisting, struggling with the pressure I continued to apply on the shard.
“You fucker—” he snapped, his face turning red and purple in pure pain and rage.
It was then I noted dark ink on his collarbone and moved forward, tearing open his jacket to reveal a delicate ‘A’ inked into his skin. It only took a moment to put two and two together.
Mother fucking Ares.
“You’re a little while away from home, friend,” I said, standing up. “How’s Boston nowadays, uh? Sad you won’t get to see it again.” I shrugged, flashing my teeth. “Have a bitch at home? A kid?” I looked up in Steel’s direction. “Ever been to Boston, Steel? Now might be a good time to visit, his bitch might have a cozy place to accommodate you.” When the bastard stayed silent, I smirked. “Nothing to say? Well then, better get down to work.”
And I did.
His screams echoed through the Pit. Blood and pieces of flesh decorated the floor at our feet. Knife glinting, blood spilling, I was enjoying myself.
Sloppy fucking artwork, indeed.
Sad the fucker was already too dead to admire.