Freak of Nature (The Lost Witch Trilogy #1) (16 page)

Lash shivered in rage, clenching his fists and looking as if he was going to fly at his father any second.
Sarah looked back and forth between the two and realized that that’s exactly what Mason wanted Lash to do. She glared at Mason in disgust. She had to take matters into her own hands before Lash got hurt. She focused all her energy into equal parts rage and the desire to protect Lash. She raised her arm and pointed at Mason, sending her energy spinning out of her and towards him.

Mason blinked at her hand curiously but was then blown backwards three feet, landing on his back.
He arched his back and let out a roar of rage and pain.

Lash turned and stared at her in surprise.
“Did you just . . .
did you do that
?” he asked in awe.

Sarah stared at Mason with a worried frown.
He should be quivering on the ground wetting himself but instead he was slowly getting to his feet and brushing the leaves off his pants. He looked furious, he looked unkempt and the most frightening thing of all, he looked totally fine.

“Lash, let’s get out of here,” she whispered, hoping he could run as fast as she could.

Lash let Sarah pull him backwards towards the short path leading to the street.

“I haven’t had a witch in years,” Mason said with a voice raspy from excitement. He walked slowly towards them, his eyes glued to Sarah in a hungry way.
“There’s nothing more delicious or more powerful than a witch’s blood. If I had you, I wouldn’t need anyone else,” he said reverently, reaching out a hand to touch her.

Sarah pulled Lash with her as they kept walking backwards, away from Mason.
Lash stared back and forth between Mason and Sarah.

“Sarah isn’t a witch.
I don’t know what just happened here, but she’s no witch. Stop looking at her like that,” he ordered, practically shouting the last.

Mason paused to look at his son.
“
You idiot
. Don’t you know what’s in front of you? When you tasted her, didn’t you feel the power running over your tongue? We’ll share.” He said and lunged for Sarah, grabbing her shoulders and bringing her towards him.

Lash roared and threw himself on his father, taking him to the ground.
Sarah stumbled to the side, slipping on the rocks and leaves and landing heavily on her hip. She groaned and stood up as quickly as she could. Her energy and adrenaline were flowing more powerfully than they ever had before. She could throw more energy at him, but she didn’t want to hit Lash. Lash’s fists were flying so fast, she could barely see them. But Mason was just as fast and he was landing more hits. Lash was fighting with the desire to protect her, but Mason was fighting to get to her blood. Her heart stuttered in fear as she realized that Mason was starting to gain the upper hand.

Sarah felt ill as she watched the brutal fight.
She had left her cell phone back in her room at the store. She didn’t know what to do. She circled around the fighters looking for any opening. Mason roared and grabbed Lash and threw him across the clearing into a tree. Lash’s head made a sickening thud sound before he fell limply to the ground.

Sarah ran to Lash and quickly sent some of her power into Lash, feeling the injuries to his head and his body.
She didn’t have time though as Mason wiped a line of blood making its way down his chin onto his hand. He licked it slowly, savoring the taste of his own blood as he walked closer to her. Sarah stood up and screeched as she sent her energy flying at Mason. She thought the word
lacerate
in her mind clearly and then watched as Mason’s eyes flew wide in horror. Lines appeared on every visible part of Mason’s face, throat and arms. Sarah watched, sickened as the lines turned bright red. Mason held up his hands in horror, staring at them and then at her.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”
He said in a normal voice and then threw himself at her.

Sarah flung herself to the side, but Mason was too quick and caught her arm.
He pulled her to him, ignoring his torn flesh and the blood dripping from his face and arms.

Sarah fought as hard as she could, sending out frantic energy pulses that would have killed someone else, but that weren’t even slowing Mason down.
She kicked and screamed, falling to the ground. She stared up at him in horror, noticing the blood on his face and arms was already slowing and the wounds closing up. Mason stood over her, gleefully.

“So much spirit and fire.
So much untapped power. I’ll never let you go. You’re going to be mine for a very long time,” he said with relish.

Sarah got ready to jump to her feet and run for it when Mason’s body flew into the air a few feet.
She stared up at him, her mouth hanging open as Mason was upright, stiff, seemingly floating in the air, his head thrown back and his eyes closed.

Sarah scrambled to her feet and looked down at her hands.
She hadn’t done it. She glanced at Lash, still out cold and then turned around to see Zane walking towards her, staring at Mason with so much hatred in his face she wouldn’t have recognized him. His eyes looked like cold shards of metal. Her breath was now coming in gasps as she turned back to stare up at Mason’s body again. His head was now hanging limply to the side and his body looked as if it were being held up by wires as if he was some freakish Haunted house dummy.

Sarah tried to say something, but nothing came out.
Zane kept his gaze on Mason as he walked slowly towards the body hanging in the air. His face tightened as he raised his hand in Mason’s direction and then made his hand in a claw. Sarah watched in horror as Mason’s body stiffened horrifically and then crumbled, falling at long last to the ground in a heap.

Sarah walked timidly towards Zane, reaching out her hand to him.
He finally tore his gaze away from Mason and reached for her pulling her into his arms.

Sarah sobbed into Zane’s chest, her body shaking uncontrollably.
“He was going to take my blood,” she whispered into his chest.

Zane nodded, smoothing her hair back from her face and kissing her forehead.
“I know. I could feel everything that was happening to you. I could feel what he was saying to you. I could even feel what you were seeing, like your thoughts were my thoughts.”

Sarah looked up at him in surprise.
“But, how?”

Zane shook his head.
“I don’t know. All I know was that you were in serious trouble and the closer I got to you the clearer everything was.”

Sarah shivered and looked at Mason.
“Is he dead? Did you kill him?”

Zane walked over and kicked him with his foot so he landed on his back.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. I can feel his blood still moving.”

Sarah walked over and touched Zane’s arm.
“How did you do that? I mean, your mom told me that you were powerful, but I thought that was just with metal objects.”

Zane grimaced and looked at Sarah.
“Blood has a lot of Iron in it. I could feel you walking towards me that first day because somehow I could feel your blood calling out to me. I’m in tune with all forms of metal. I can manipulate it. The iron in someone’s blood is no different. I can stop it. And if I’m really upset, I can look at a man, pick him up, and cause an aneurism or a heart attack.”

Sarah’s mouth dropped open.
“Is that what you did?”

Zane shook his head.
“No, I could feel what he was saying to you Sarah. I want this guy to pay for killing Jill. He’s just passed out from lack of oxygen to the brain. I give him fifteen minutes. In the meantime,” he said and took out his cellphone. He dialed 911, glancing over at Lash finally.

Sarah
wondered how she could have forgotten about him. She ran to Lash’s side, pulling him onto his back and resting his head on her lap. She placed her hands on both sides of Lash’s head, feeling the blood swelling against the tissues of his brain. He had a pretty serious head injury. She closed her eyes and thought the word
heal
as she felt her energy flow through Lash. She felt the swelling subside slowly.

Zane touched her shoulder gently.
“They’ll be here any second. Let’s get our stories straight. This is the second time in two days that the police are coming to the woods to rescue us. We better start thinking fast.”

Sarah felt wobbly, but got to her feet, feeling better about Lash at least.
“I don’t have a taser this time to blame it on. We could just say we were innocent bystanders between the fight between Lash and his dad. We can say we were here the whole time and heard Mason admit to killing Jill and how he threatened me too. Should we bring up the blood drinking?” she asked, biting her lip nervously.

Zane ran his hands down his jeans, frowning as he heard the sirens come closer.
“Crap, I don’t know. I think we have to. But I don’t want kids at school to know Lash had a problem with it too. He deserves a break.”

Sarah felt her heart warm at the compassion she heard in Zane’s voice.
She walked over, stood on tip toe and kissed his cheek. “You’re amazing. And you’re sweet. But if Lash tells them what his dad did to him and I tell them what he threatened to do to me and they have all the forensic proof of Jill’s body, I think this guy might actually go to jail, which in the end, would mean that Lash could be free from his dad and wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder.”

Zane nodded his head but turned when he heard Mason groan and attempt to turn on his side.
“I can’t believe how strong he is. For him to withstand what you were throwing at him and for him to be able to recover this fast is outrageous. He must have had a lot of adrenaline or he was on a blood high.”

Sarah felt like gagging.
“Yeah, Jill’s blood.”

Zane’s face darkened and he walked over and kicked Mason in the ribs.
Mason groaned and fell back on his side. Two police cars pulled up to the sidewalk. Four police officers jumped out of the cars and rushed to their sides. Two of the officers had been there when Zane had been rescued. They looked confused and surprised, but Zane took charge of the situation, gesturing to Lash and Mason. One police officer radioed for an ambulance.

Mason took that opportunity to roll to his side and jump to his feet.
He stumbled at first but then started running back towards the woods. Zane took off after him and used his power over Mason’s blood to bring him down into submission again.

Zane stood up, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans as the police officers caught up, their weapons drawn and pointed at Mason.

“I think I knocked him out when I tackled him,” he said, sounding apologetic.

Officer Davis, the one with a buzz cut and who looked like a big bear smiled at that.
“No apology needed kid.”

They cuffed Mason and hauled him to the back of the police car.
The ambulance arrived and Sarah watched worriedly as they strapped Lash to the stretcher and placed him in the ambulance. Gretchen and Agnes, followed by Race arrived then, standing back and looking grim as Sarah and Zane gave the officers their statements. When Zane told them Mason had bragged about killing Jill, the black officer made a quick call back to the precinct.

Sarah grabbed the police officer’s arm as he put his radio back in the clip.
“Those cuffs won’t hold him officer. He’s incredibly strong.”

The officer laughed and shook his head.
“He was just taken down by your boyfriend here pretty easily. He’s not that tough. Don’t you worry about it.”

Sarah and Zane ended up being escorted to the police station where they were separated to give their statements again.
A few hours later, Gretchen insisted on taking them home. Sarah was grateful to escape and slumped against the leather seat in the back as Zane held her hand.

“Do you know what Officer Davis said to me?
I can’t get it out of my head,” she murmured.

Zane rubbed his thumb comfortingly along the back of her hand.
“What?”

Sarah stared unseeingly out the window, surprised at how dark the night was.
“He said, it’s so funny that all of this crazy stuff is happening right now and you’ve been involved in both situations. He said that it couldn’t be a coincidence.”

Zane frowned and nodded.
“Well, he might have a point, but regardless of your bad luck, they told my mom that Lash is awake and doing great at the hospital. He gave his statement and corroborated what we told them. Mason’s going down. They’ll do the DNA testing right away. He’s going to prison for killing Jill. There’s no way he’s getting away with it now.”

Sarah nodded but felt uneasy.
She couldn’t forget how easily he’d recovered from her energy attacks. “Do you really think a prison will hold him?”

Zane sighed heavily and sat back against the seat. “They laughed me off when I told him how strong he was.
But after explaining about the blood lust, they checked the back of Lash’s neck. They know we’re telling the truth about that. Whether or not they take the right precautions is up to them now. If he does get out? I’ll be right here,” he swore softly.