Dark Nebula (The Chronicles of Kerrigan) (47 page)

He let go of her throat when Rae stole his tatù.
“You bitch!
Freakin’ Carter’s? That’s all you got
?
”
He was so angry that he didn’t seem to notice what she was doing.

She may have tricked him into stealing a worthless tatù
, but it didn’t mean
he was powerless.
He still had
his physical strength.
Before Rae had a chance to move,
Kraigan
wound his arm back and punched her in the face.
It didn’t stop there.
After the first horrific blows, which she felt to her core, she lost focus
.
On the verge of giving in to the inviting darkness of unconsciousness, a
hum of strange activity
inside her cut through the fog
, bringing her back to her plan at hand. It was his tatù..
Concentrating on absorbing
it
, she felt the change
inside her
just before sliding down the wall.

Her head
hit something sharp as she dropped the last few inches to the ground.
Warm liquid trickled down her neck and became cool, like a breeze
blowing on it.
Rae fought to remain conscious and do something with
Kraigan’s tatù.
Right now, both of them only had human strength
.
She had his ink, but it was obviously useless until she touched someone or something else happened. She didn’t have the energy to concentrate.

Kraigan grab
bed
her shoulder and pull
ed
her forward.
Her head rolled.
Pain punched into her core
. H
er body slammed back
against the wood
.
She was going under.
Passing out seems the only option left.

Her last thought before slipping into
oblivion
was rather weird.
Instead of collapsing into the wall, it felt like she was falling
farther
down, past
a
sitting position, past horizontal and doing
backflips
and somersaults.
Strange,
she had
never passed out like this before.

Chapter 2
6

Demise

M
mmmhhhhhrrrr
—

An
irritating mosquito buzzing
above
her ear
woke Rae
.
She groaned
as she rolled to her side, eyes still closed.
Weird, it hurt to move and t
he
annoying bug
didn’t
stop
or fly away
.
She tried to shoo the insect
with her hand
.
A moan
escaped from her throat
as p
ain shot up her forearm when she moved her wrist.

Why did it feel so wrong in her room?
What happened to the pillow
cover?
It
smelled wrong an
d
scratched her cheek
.
Light shone through her eyelids
.
Mornin’
already?

Like lightning
,
t
he
fight with Kraigan
flashed
in her memory
.
She
froze.
Forcing herself to
breath
e
slow and shallow, she
listened intent
ly
.
R
aspy
, uneven
panting
came from close by, and the stink of sweat filled her nostrils.
Is
Kraigan standing over
me
, waiting to start all over again?
She wait
ed
and exhaled a slow breath when nothing happened.

Where
the
heck are we
?
Peering through her lashes, she lay in a long corridor on rough carpet.
Light came from fluorescent tubes
.
E
xplain
s
the buzzing
.
Did Kraigan have teleportation ability?
Despite her aches and
a
pounding headache, she tried to recall the last thing that happened before she
had
passed out.

Kraigan
had been punching
the crap out of her
.
Then… I
remember falling to the floor,
and
c
u
t
ting my
head on a wood carving
.
Then
she slipped
into the blackness
when Kraigan’s fist came
at
her face again
.
Then
—
nothing.

Rolling onto her back,
cracked open her eyes
and
was immediately assaulted by
nausea
.
H
er eye
s
automatically
flutter
ed
closed.
Kraigan
lay crumpled a few feet away.
Exhausted,
Rae co
ncentrated
on
getting
air
in
to
and out
of her lungs
;
terrified she might
throw up or worse,
pass out
again
.

A few moments later, Kraigan
twitched and she suddenly found the energy to
force herself to
lean on her elbows and
slowly scooted the couple of inches to
settle her back against the wall.
Rae
searched for the hum of
a fighting
tatù and came up empty.
They
’re
gone
.
All of them.

She had
used
everything
in the Oratory.
Even his tatù held no hum. She probably needed to steal someone else’s to get their hum and who knew if that would even work. Kraigan had probably just taken everything away from her.
Except
Devon
.
Th
at
thought gave her the determination she needed to move.

Desperate, she glanced around for something to tie
up
Kraigan
.
There was nothing in the hallway.
Her right hand brushed
against something bulky in her pocket.
Eye
s
train
ed on Kraigan,
she reached inside her jacket and pulled
it out.
T
he
t
aser
.

Almost delirious with hope
, she crawled over to him.
“Kr
-Kr
aigan?”

He didn’t move.

Rae shook his shoulder and slapped his face.
Oh
—
that’s rather satisfying
.
She slapped him again.
“
Dick-head. Wake. Up
.”

He moaned and blinked several times.
His eyes
slowly
focused
.
H
e smirked as he reached out for her.

No way
are you ever
going to touch
me again
.
She zapped him in the shoulder
with the
t
aser
.
Then
a random thought popped into her head.
She had
used his
power
so
they were both tatù-less at the moment.
A hysterical laugh
echoed along the corridor.
Hers
.
She hit him again with the
t
aser
.
First
in the neck
,
and
then
jabbing everywhere.

When
Rae
lost her balance on
her
knees, she
reached out with her left hand to prevent
herself from crashing
face
first
, forgetting about her injured wrist.
S
cream
ing, she ended up eating the carpet anyway.
Her face stung.
B
lood
began
oozing
and she touched
her cheek
, wincing at the pain of a
large bruise around a
barely closed
cut
.
Her left wrist
throbbed and burned
— t
he
torture distracting her momentarily from her face.

Devon
. You have to keep
Devon
safe. Focus, Kerrigan.
S
he rolled away from Kraigan
into a
crouch
.
Although he couldn’t move she wasn’t taking any chances.

H
is
gaze
flicked
around the room
,
then
smoldered
when
it landed
on her.

“
Go ahead and try
to fight
the freezing.
It’s useless
.
I’ll do this
forever
if I have to.
”
She grinned, wondering if being evil always felt this good.
If so, it might bear looking into
. This felt a lot stronger than the terror
she had
felt in the car.
“
Not so tough now, are you?
”

Ta
s
ering him again gave her a moment to clear her head.
Where are we?
“Did you transport—”
She
stopped mid-sentence when
she
caught
sight
of a set of stairs.
I
must’ve
hit a
hidden
switch
in the Oratory and
we
tumbled down the
hidden
stairs
.
S
he hi
t Kraigan with the
t
a
s
er
again
after she checked her watch
.

A weird buzz and vibration came from the
t
a
s
er. Then it made
a
sad, dilapidated
beep and shut itself down.
Eyes wide
, Rae
smacked
it
s side
on the ground
.
Crap! Th
e battery
ha
s
to die now?

She
searched frantically down the hall.
It
stood
empty except for a fire extinguisher
sign screwed into
the wall.
Throwing
the freeze-gun, s
he ran over to
the extinguisher. It was
enclosed
in a
glass case set in
to
the wall.
Kraigan
cackled with
laughter
when
the
effects of the
freezing
began
to wear
off.

Reaching for the latch, Rae swore when it broke off.
Using both hands
and
s
wearing from the incredible pain in her broken wrist, s
he managed to unclick the lock.

Kraigan pounced on her before she got the door open
.
He shoved her away.
Rae stumbled but danced to keep her balance.
She spun around and hit
him
hard in the middle of the chest
with her elbow
. He
sucked back air
and a
surprised
look crossed over his face.
She made a fist and punched him in the jaw.

He scowled at her and rubbed his chin.
“Bitch!
You’
ll pay for th—
”

Before he could finish
,
she
punched him again, in the same spot.
She grinned
.
“Take that
, asshole
!
”

“I’m gonna kill you.” Kraigan wound his arm back.

Rae
managed to duck
his swing.
As she
straightened
, she kicked him
hard
in the knee.
It twisted in an awkward position and Kraigan dropped to the floor howling.
Rae
jumped
over him and
ripped
the fire extinguisher out
of the wall case
.
Stepping on his chest,
she keep her foot near his neck so should she slip,
she had
crush his airway.
With her good
hand,
s
he held the nozzle inches from his face.