Renegade (56 page)

“Did that scare you?” he asked in mock concern. “What a shame.”

I ripped my arm from his grasp and stumbled backward, falling onto my butt, the hard landing effectively shoving my stomach back where it belonged. I swallowed back a wave of nausea and then got to my feet, trying not to stumble.
Don’t let him win,
I told myself.

I’m coming, Heven
, Sam told me, and I looked up to where I’d stood only seconds before. It made me shaky all over again to see the sheer distance I’d fallen.

Please, be careful—both of you,
I told him, not bothering to hide the desperation in my thoughts.

I watched as Sam and Riley raced across the edged of the cliff toward the slope that would bring them to my location. It wasn’t a short distance and I knew it would be minutes before they could reach us. Instead of feeling fear that I was standing here alone with the man who was responsible for my worst nightmares, I was relieved. I didn’t want Sam or Riley anywhere near him. I knew when they reached my side all hell would break loose—another fight of epic proportions. I shivered when I remembered the last epic fight we had with Beelzebub, the fight when Logan died.

No one else was going to die.

I wouldn’t to allow it.

I speared him with a look and the flames started at his feet, incinerating his shoes and burning away his pants. I stood there watching, waiting for him to scream in agony, for him to run around in circles, in need of help.

It didn’t happen.

He smirked at me instead.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t have taken some precautions with you—given our history with flames?”

Seriously? I finally get a cool power as a human flame thrower and he finds a way around it.

I didn’t bother to try to put out the fire. It wouldn’t work anyway, and besides, even knowing he wouldn’t burn to death, it gave me some satisfaction to watch him ablaze.

He put the flames out himself, giving me a dirty look. “Stop trying to kill me. You’re only wasting the energy best used to boss around
my
souls.”

His words angered me—angered me so deeply I actually saw spots before my eyes. “They aren’t
your
souls.” I growled, taking on the same kind of snarl I’d seen only Sam manage.

Up until this point I’d never really felt like the Soul Reaper. Sure, the title was bestowed upon me, but I hadn’t actually felt what it meant until coming to the edge of that cliff, peering over its jagged edges, and looking out over the vast open space meant for suffering. These people had hopes and dreams, family and friends… They’d loved and been loved.

And now look at them.

Reduced to being someone else’s meal.

In truth, they belonged to no one but themselves and the evidence of that was in the chains that bound them. For if they truly belonged here, they wouldn’t have to be held down.

“How dare you?” I snapped, advancing on him, forgetting about the powers he held, forgetting all the wicked things he’d done to me. “How dare you take away someone’s right to die in peace?”

I don’t know what he saw on my face, I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he actually took a step back.

He seemed to realize his action as well and a look of utter loathing and disbelief crossed his face. “What is this?” he growled. “You dare try to intimidate me! Me?”

He threw up his hands and used that invisible power he brandished so well, lifting me off my feet and throwing me backward through the air. My body groaned when I hit the ground, but I jumped right back to my feet. I suspected he, once again, shielded me from worse injury, but I wasn’t about to thank him.

I lit him on fire again, knowing it wouldn’t really hurt him but needing to do something.

It served as a distraction, taking his attention away from me and back to his burning body. I took the chance to run at him, going in low and tackling him. He landed on the ground with a hard oomph and me straddling his waist. The flames still burned, enveloping us both in a curtain of raging red.

Heven! What the hell are you thinking? Get away from him! Run.
Sam’s voice was insistent in my head, but I wasn’t listening.

I was done running. I was going to see this through. Beelzebub wasn’t going to kill me. He already made that clear. I was worth more alive. And he’d already hurt me so many times that he couldn’t possibly do worse. I might not be able to kill him, but I could make him suffer.

I reared my hand back, noting how the flames wrapped around my skin like a glove, like a caress. Then I plowed it into Beelzebub’s face.

“That was for my mother!” I screamed.

His head actually jerked under the force of my hit and his eyebrow caught on fire. He screamed in shock. He was used to me cowering, running.

I hit him again, feeling the sting in my hand from the force of my hit, and I smiled.

“That was for Logan!”

He sputtered, bucking beneath me, ready to throw me off.

“Oh no you don’t.” I growled and drove my fist into his nose. I was rewarded with the splattering of blood across his face.

“And that…” I snarled as flames roared around us, burning holes in my clothes and making sweat drip off my skin. “That was for me.”

“You bitch!” he roared, throwing up his hands and tossing me away violently.

My body flailed like a ragdoll tossed through the air and I knew with utter certainty that this time when I hit, he wouldn’t shield me from injury. But I didn’t care. It felt so good to punch him that I would take any punishment.

I swear to God, Heven, you’re going to kill me,
Sam said.
I’m not going to make it. God, baby, I’m not going to be able to catch you.

It’s okay, Sam,
I said. And then I hit the ground.

Sam didn’t catch me.

But someone else did.

A bunch of someones, actually.

Where I landed—where I should have landed—was right in the center of the graveyard among the souls.
My
souls.

They had risen up, allied together to form a sort of net to cushion my fall. Instead of smacking into the ground and being stricken with immeasurable pain, I landed softly—so softly, in fact, I didn’t even lose my breath.

The souls glowed around me, hopeful and protective, wrapping my body in security and gratitude. Gratitude just for coming, for trying to set them free. My eyes filled with tears, blurring my vision, as they lowered me ever so carefully to the ground.

I stood immediately, very careful where I set my feet, trying not to harm them or disrupt any kind of comfort they might have been able to find where they lay.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “I haven’t done anything yet to deserve your gratitude, your help, but I swear to you, I will.”

I heard the pounding of feet and looked up to see Sam and Riley skid to a stop at the edge of the souls. “I’m okay,” I called to them. “Stay back.”

Sam’s chest heaved and sweat poured down his face. I could see the whites of his widened eyes, and I felt the panic that filled him.

It’s going to be fine, Sam,
I told him, knowing with absolute clarity it was.

“That little show of defiance will not go unpunished,” Beelzebub roared, drawing our attention. He began to stomp toward me, right into where the souls were chained, his feet pounding them. Each step he took speared me. I could feel their pain; I knew he was hurting them.

Rage swelled inside me.

“Stop!” I cried, and not far from the souls a fire began to blaze. “How dare you treat human beings this way!”

He laughed, a cold maniacal laugh. “All I see here are batteries.”

Tears prickled the backs of my eyes as I looked around for something, anything I could use as a weapon. I was so angry I shook. I began picking my way through the souls, doing my best not to hurt them.

Beelzebub began to laugh, his feet stomping harder, and he kicked out, sending one of the souls still filled with hope into the air, only to be cruelly dragged back down by the chains that held it. I swear I heard it cry.

A strangled sound escaped me and I changed course, moving faster, going straight for him.

He narrowed his eyes and lifted his hands once more to toss me with his stupid, invisible power.

“You coward!” I spat. “You can keep throwing me back, but I’ll keep coming.”

I felt rather than saw Sam pacing the edge of the souls, measuring the distance between us.
Stay back, Sam. Don’t come closer. This is between him and me.

You can’t honestly think—
He began, but I cut him off.

Yes. I do. This fight has always been between him and me, and it ends now.

I felt a stirring inside me, a stirring around me, and I knew what it meant.

I smiled.

“Bring it on.” I taunted Beelzebub, planting my feet among the souls and reaching my fingertips toward the ground.

He flexed his fingers—the smallest of movements, the tiniest of gestures. I felt the power fling from him. I ignored it, reaching down past the deepest parts of me, past my heart and my soul, into a place I never knew was there.

And I began to draw power. It came from the hardness beneath my feet, from the air around my hands. The connection I felt to the souls was the source, and in that moment they were indeed like batteries.

The biggest damn batteries you would ever find.

My eyes snapped up toward Beelzebub and the invisible power barreling straight toward me, and I lifted my arms and pushed.

Everything around us slowed. Time might have stopped. I felt the breath that filled my lungs. I felt every single heartbeat that pumped blood through my veins. I felt the tremor that moved through Sam as he readied himself to shift and leap into the fight, and finally, finally I felt the irrefutable strength that I had always harbored deep within.

There was a great, sharp crack in the space between my nemesis and me, our power colliding. The final battle between us raged.

When I would have normally thrown my arm over my face and hunched toward the ground, I didn’t. When I would have screamed and flinched, I stood tall. I made no sound. I looked out over the souls, their forms solidifying. In fact, I actually caught the outline of a face, of the person that once owned the soul. It smiled.