Lena turned and ran on.
Find him. Find him and then—then what? A plan. I need a plan. Every thought slipped away. The injury to her head acted like a collar, destroying her focus.
An image of the man she’d killed back in the caravan flashed. She still had touch. It had to be touch. She had to get close enough to lay hands on Lucas.
Ahead, he’d stopped to meet up with another man in black and grey. At the sound of her crashing through the underbrush, they turned together. She slid to a stop, reaching one hand out to use a rough tree trunk as a support.
Lucas took a sliding step back, warily watching her. Was he waiting for the attack on his body? It didn’t come. He paused.
“Is that—” the other man said.
“Yes.” Lucas stared, assessing.
She shoved at the darkness that threatened to overtake her. Her head throbbed in time to the blood pumping in her veins. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t reach out.
It has to be touch.
Lucas curved his lips into a smile. “She has a head injury. She can’t do anything. Kill her.”
The other soldier crouched, moving in cautiously. He feinted at her and pulled away.
Her fingers curled into the bark. It’ll be brain bleeds for you both. Vessels bursting. Blood flowing. Vessels bursting….
The soldier lunged in, grabbed her arm, and pulled her from the tree.
With the contact, the desire she couldn’t project sang through him to the Dust.
He froze. Stiffened. His hands jumped up to paw at the sides of his head until a long breath gasped out of his lungs. He fell.
Lucas stared at them in horror.
She gave him a little smile, just a quick flash of teeth. “A brain bleed,” she whispered. “A massive bleed for you both. Just like my mother. Remember?” She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers, urging him to come closer.
Lucas lunged to the side and came up with a long, thick fallen branch, deadweight from a tree. “No. You’re damaged. You have to touch me, don’t you?” He laughed, lifting the branch between them. “That’s not going to happen, demon bitch.”
Lena moved toward him. Her fingers curled.
Vessels bursting. Blood flowing. Vessels bursting. Blood flowing.
He waved the branch between them, as if he could hear the chant she kept up in her head in anticipation of the moment she made contact with his skin. He glanced behind her, and new panic bloomed.
Dimly, above the throbbing of blood and her private chant, she could hear crashing behind her as someone came toward them through the woods. Jackson? Or Alex?
Lucas didn’t wait for the new threat to arrive. Desperate, he lunged forward, swinging the branch back and around.
She curled away from it. It cracked into her side and shoulder.
New hurt bloomed and then faded to join the pain already crashing through her blood. She scrambled away as he swung again, the branch passing short of her. She dove in, arms outstretched, hands reaching.
He scrambled back, then stumbled in the undergrowth.
Even as he regained his footing and swung the branch back, she rushed to take advantage of the opening. The branch swung around, but she had poured her body into the breach, fingers outstretched for his face.
The branch cracked into her chin and nose. Her head snapped back. Her lower jaw smashed up. She was weightless, flying away for a terrible, stomach-twisting second before landing facedown in a heap.
Her vision went dark. The must of leaves and the metallic tang of her own blood filled her nose. A rhythmic thumping came closer and closer, and something thrashed near her. Pain engulfed her face and neck like flames racing along her nerves, fire that consumed, leaving behind char with a glowing core.
Noise coming. Danger?
She got her arms under her, her push feeble with shock but enough to roll her over. Movement flashed by her feet, and a body came toward her with the sound of crashing leaves.
Her legs automatically kicked out and caught him, one foot low in the belly and the other in the thigh, sweeping his leg out from beneath him. She closed her eyes, braced for an impact on her body that didn’t come. The thumping behind her stopped and became air pressure shifting above.
Air rushed from a man’s lungs with a hoarse groan and the dull thud of bodies colliding. They crashed to earth beside her.
Even as she reopened her eyes, Lena scooted back away from them. She tasted metal. Blood bubbled as it flowed from her nose. She panted through her open mouth.