ARC: Crushed (17 page)

I want you imprisoned,
Isaiah had said, but that wasn’t all.

Or gone.

Chapter 21

I only have one hope – Armand. My life with the Templars will be over, but that’s better than the alternative: my life over, period. I let out a strangled scream as I go down. I meant it to be a “help”, but it’s more a terrified squawk.

I pray Armand got the message anyway. I pray he’s still near enough to hear it.

I land hard on my arm and it twists under me, shooting fire. The knife, a dagger as long as my hand comes down to cut the life out of me. I snap my other hand around and grab Eli’s wrist, stopping the descent of the blade just six inches from my throat. Eli bears down throwing his weight into it, I try to jerk my other arm around to help, but Isaiah grabs it. I jerk so furiously to get it free that I pull Isaiah off the ground, but I can’t get it free.

Where the hell is Armand?

The knife gets closer, and with a furious grunt I muster as much strength as I can and shove it back a couple inches. I’m stronger than Eli, but he’s got his whole weight pressed into it, while I’m pinned awkwardly and can’t get any leverage. I struggle ferociously, trying to get my other arm free, but only end up pulling Isaiah further onto me. He throws his legs over mine, and now Jacob has joined Eli, shoving down on that blade. My whole world has focused on the shiny blade. It eats up my vision, it eats up my world.

I force myself to shove yet harder, arching my back, trying to buy a few more inches, a few more millimeters. I catch a movement in the woods, straight behind me. A black-dressed blur.

Armand. He’s coming, running toward me, his face a mask of rage.

But then he snaps his head to the right and stops.
He stops
.

He turns back toward me and jerks his head to the right before diving backwards, away from me.
Away from me.

Fucking demons.
My rage comes out as a strangled scream. My scream merges with an enraged shout from the woods. There’s a flurry of motion. I jerk my head around in time to see Chi’s big form as he comes charging at us like an enraged rhino.

The blade disappears. Jacob jumps back and Eli attempts to climb off me as Chi slams into him, sending them over backwards. Jo emerges from the woods behind him, a wild-eyed, wild-haired lunatic. The other boys are holding up their hands like mobsters caught in a sting. Eli lies unresponsive under Chi, his arms out to the side. Chi has him by the front of his shirt and looks like he’d like to pound him into the dirt.

Jo’s expression says she’d like him to. “What’s going on here?” she demands, coming to halt in front of us.

“She attacked us,” they say, at the same time I say, “They attacked me.” We look at each other and snarl.

Jo stomps her foot. Chi climbs off the unresisting Eli and offers me a hand up.

“Having fun without me?” he asks me, as he hauls me to my feet.

“Sorry, man. There wasn’t time to get out an invitation.”

I stand beside Jo, but Chi stays between us and the boys. Jo checks me over for permanent damage. I feel a little tender in places, but nothing that won’t finish patching itself up within a few hours. I spit the taste of blood out of my mouth. It’s not usually a taste I dislike – but then, it’s not usually my own.

The boys start pleading their case, talking over each other, but I sit back smugly.

Jo puts her fists on her hips and her expression is truly terrifying. The Jo the school has seen recently is a pale shadow of the Jo standing before them now. They thought she was weak and ridiculous. But this fury is the Jo I know. The one who faced down demons with me. Hell, the one who faced down
me
when I was planning to eat her.

What? I changed my mind!

“Shut up!” she roars. They instantly silence.

I grin. Get em Jo!

“If I see any of you near her again,” she jabs a finger in their direction, and I get ready for vivid descriptions of disembowelment. “I’m going to tell the Headmaster.”

What? My grin freezes and I jerk to face her. They almost killed me, and she’ll
tell the Headmaster
if they do it
again
?

No, please, dear God, anything but that.

Jo doesn’t look at me. “Are we clear?”

They all nod.

“Come on, Meda,” Jo says, and with one more hard glare at them she turns and walks away.

I stand there stupidly for a minute, still somehow waiting for the climactic finish where she goes all crazy-Jo on some A-holes. But it doesn’t happen.

She just leaves.

My rage switches focus. I jog after her.

Chi stays behind with the guys, wanting to give us a head start, just in case. I manage to wait until we’re far enough away where they can’t hear us. Until I can speak without screaming.

“You’ll tell the Headmaster on them? That’s it?” I hiss, the words squeezed out of a tight throat. “
If
they do it
again
? Nearly killing me once isn’t enough?”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” she snaps, not bothering to turn to face me. “You could take them.” Her shoulders are stiff.

“I punch one of them
once
and I’m busted down to kindergarten – they jump me seven on one, and they get a warning?”

“It’s your word against theirs,” she says flatly.

“They’re lying,” I shout.

She jerks to a stop and whirls on me. “Even if that’s true–”

“
If
it’s true?” My voice raises a notch. “You think I’m lying? You think I jumped the seven of them?”

“Yeah, Meda.
If
it’s true.” She matches me, anger for anger. She jabs a finger back toward the school. “I saw how pissed you were when you stormed off–”

“I stormed off so I–” wouldn’t kill the stupid guard, but Jo doesn’t let me finish.

“You were in a rage, Meda. I saw you. Half the damn school saw you. Then you stormed off to where there were no witnesses. You think that looks good? You think that was smart?” She jabs her temple.

“I did not attack them,” I say resolutely.

“Who cares? Who do you think they’re going to believe?” Her hands punch the air in her anger. “You attacked Isaiah in the middle of class not last week. How is
anyone
supposed to believe you didn’t again?”

Because it’s true. Because you’re my best friend.
But I don’t say either of those things. “So this is my fault?” I demand instead. “They jump me, and it’s my fault?”

Jo narrows her eyes at me. “Can you stand there and tell me you didn’t bait them? That you weren’t positively
itching
for a fight when you took off into those woods.”

She sees the truth on my face, and hers twists in disgust. “Meda, can’t you find the tiniest shred of compassion for them? Just the smallest scrap of understanding?” She pinches her fingers together in my face. “Do you know what it’s like growing up to be a Crusader? It’s not easy to kill.”

I open my mouth to tell her it is. And how easy it seemed for Eli just moments ago, but she holds up her hand.

“Oh, I know you love it. You revel in the blood and the brains and the power.” She waves her arms around and her voice has a hysterical edge. “But I don’t.
We
don’t.” She points back the way we came. “Those are teenage boys, practically children, and they are asked to murder. To cut demons open and rip out their lives, fake or not. And they have to risk their lives to do it. Take one
second
out of your precious self-centeredness and think what that’s like for them. And this isn’t some hypothetical in the future, either – Isaiah and Abel just found out this week that they’ve been drafted. They could be called any day now,
any day
, to go out and fight for their lives.

“Do you know how they manage it? Dedication. Because they know what’s at stake. Because they’ve been raised their entire lives with one central tenet – that demons must be stopped, no matter what.” Her voice cracks, but she patches it together to continue. “To pay that price requires dedication to the point of blindness, and I won’t apologize for it. They need that blindness in order to do what they do, and then get up the next morning and do it again.”

I don’t even bother trying to say anything anymore. The runaway train of her rant is too strong for me to halt.

“It’s worse for those boys in particular. I know you know Isaiah’s sister was recently killed, but did you know he’d already lost his parents? Did you know Omar’s little brother was snatched on his way to visit their grandparents? Omar was escorting him. Eli lost both his sisters defending the school.” She pauses, then levels her eyes at me. “Because of you.

“You lost who to the demons? Uri, who you knew for what, a week? Luke, who may even survive? And you get to go all bat-shit crazy. Well, each of those boys have lost most of their families, many of their friends. They hate demons. And can you really blame them? Demons have taken everything,
everything
from them. And maybe it’s wrong to hate.” Her chin jerks forward. “But maybe it’s right. Maybe hate is what keeps them going, in the face of everything.”

“And you, Jo?” I ask softly. “Do you hate them?”

She looks away and doesn’t say anything. But it doesn’t matter. I already know.

“You treat living here like a joke.” She hasn’t turned back to me. “You float along, barely civil, and act like they owe you. You act like they should be grateful the Great Meda Melange didn’t kill them today. You want them to treat you like a Crusader?” Now she does look at me. “Then stop acting like a demon.”

Their screwed up upbringing isn’t my fault. None of this is my fault. They don’t get a free pass to kill me; I’m not their demonic whipping girl. “I
am
a demon, Jo. In case you’ve forgotten.” My words are slick and sharp. “As equal parts one as the other.” I step forward, invading her space. “Maybe the problem is, Jo, that I’m not meant to be a Crusader. I’m not meant to be ‘good’.” I make quotation marks with my fingers. See how she likes them. “A hammer isn’t broken because it won’t saw wood.” My lips curve, but not into a smile, for all it has the look. “Or bone in my case. It’s just the wrong tool for the job.”

She doesn’t back down, not one inch. “You’re right Meda; you may not be a Crusader.” She glares. “But you certainly are a tool.”

I growl and she glares right back.

“You
are
meant to be good. You’re a
Beacon,
Meda. Do you realize what that means? It means you have potential to do good, so much good that you will change the course of the world. So no, I won’t believe you if you say you’re trying if
this
is trying.” She waves back toward the river again.

Still I don’t speak. She expects an apology but, believe me, that is
not
what’s on the tip of my tongue. So instead I stand, stiff, and refuse to say a word.

She can’t stand to look at me and turns with a disgusted sigh to stomp toward the school. “Just stay away from them,” she says, but she doesn’t turn around.

“
They
attacked
me
,” I shout at her retreating back. I punched Isaiah because he incited me, and I get punished. He attacks me, and I still get punished. I don’t even mention the knife. What would be the point? I slam my fist into a tree. The wood cracks, as do my knuckles, I’m pretty sure.

Not even Jo takes my side anymore. What am I doing here?

You have options.
Even the memory of Armand’s voice is seductive.

As if the thought called him, he steps from the woods. “Are you alright?” he asks. His voice is stiff with fury, but, unlike Jo, it’s not directed at me. “They’re still in the woods, Meda, let’s get them.” The words come whipping out, thick with French accent and violence. “Say the word, Meda, and I – no, we,” he knows I’d never miss the fun. I appreciate the consideration, though I haven’t the power to smile. “Will rip the life out of them, piece by bloody piece.”

“Then I’d have to leave,” the words fumble out, weak.

His eyebrows shoot up. “You can’t mean to stay?”

I don’t answer. I don’t know what I mean.

“Meda, no. They’ll kill you.” His voice is harsh and he grabs my hands, wrapping his hands around mine. “Please, Meda. Come away with me.” I don’t respond, but my eyes go to the trees between which Jo disappeared. It’s just an empty space now, where she used to be.

“Forget them, Meda. Forget
her.
” He reaches up and puts his hand on the side of my face, tugging it toward him. “I like you as you are. Good, evil, whatever. All I care about is that you’re
alive
. Please, Meda.” His hand on my cheek slides backwards, through my hair and he tugs me forward, touching his forehead to mine. His voice is hoarse. “Please, just come with me. Where you’ll be safe.”

His words beat on my ears, but my eyes stray toward the gap in the trees.
Good. Bad. Alive. Safe. Forget her.

“Meda, please. It’s killing me to see you this way,” he says softly. His thumb traces lightly across my cheek, across a bruise that has not yet faded.