It was my turn to shake my head. “Destroy it how?” I glared at the thing. It looked so harmless, lying there in the sand. “Can’t we just go bury it somewhere?”
“It has to be destroyed. If we leave it floating around out there, then Zenak could find it. It could use the stone to get to you. We have to be sure. And then we have to get the other half. I don’t care if it takes the rest of our lives, Sammy. We have to be sure.”
“That still doesn’t tell me how to destroy it.” I shifted, leaned to the side, and stretched my arm to reach for the stone. The tips of my fingers grazed the edge—but that was as far as I got before something heavy crushed my hand into the sand.
I looked up and saw him. The one person who could still ruin everything. The brother of the man I loved. The host to the demon who had vowed to kill Jax.
Chase.
…
“Thank you.” Chase’s voice echoed through the small space. He put more pressure on my hand and bent to retrieve the stone. “I’ve been looking for this.”
He twisted his foot once more, hard, before letting up. I held my breath, terrified that if I tried to speak, I’d do nothing more than scream. Surely he had to have broken my fingers. The thumb and pointer, if not all of them. The pain brought tears to my eyes, the throbbing radiating down past my knuckles and up my arm in quick, sharp pulses.
Van stood beside him. She was soaked, like the rest of us, and her lip was swollen. She looked terrified, but at least she was in one piece.
I scanned the cave and saw no trace of the black smoke.
Behind me, Jax stumbled to his feet. He wobbled, hands shaking as he teetered back and forth. Whatever it took for Azi to leave, it had left Jax weakened. It had left him vulnerable at the worst possible moment.
Chase laughed and dug into his right front pocket. A moment later, he produced the other half of the stone. “I’ve been waiting a long, long time for this.”
Then, as we all watched in horror, he held both pieces next to each other. For a moment, nothing happened. But the relief I felt was short lived. A smell filled the air—the scent of burning rubber mixed with pungent sulfur. The edges of each piece of the stone started to spark—
In a brilliant flash of light, the two separate pieces were one again, reuniting the ancient rock and spelling trouble for every living being on the planet. I could feel it, the power humming through the thing. And if I could feel it, I didn’t want to even think about the destructive force Chase now held in the palm of his hand.
“Chase.” I took a step toward him. “Please—”
The ground rumbled and shook, and from the dirt beneath our feet, thick vines burst from the earth. They twitched and churned and wrapped themselves around Van and me, acting like ropes and securing us firmly to the spots where we stood.
He laughed, a disturbing cadence of amusement and fury. “How long has it been since I’ve felt such power?” He glanced down at the stone in his hands, then threw it up and caught it. “Of course, it’ll probably pale compared to the juice you have running through your veins, Samantha, but for now…” He turned to Jax. “It’s just what I need.”
“No!” I struggled against my bonds but it was pointless. The vines might as well have been made of steel.
“Gonna kill me?” Jax asked. He threw his hands in the air, a show of mock surrender, and grinned. “You’re welcome to try, brother.”
“You have the stone,” I called. “You don’t need him. Azirak isn’t even—” The vines twitched again, and this time they wound farther up my head and covered my mouth. A sense of unparalleled panic overcame me.
“You’ve been the thorn in my side since the day we were born,” Chase said as he advanced on his twin. “I mean, it had to come to this, right?”
Jax’s grin widened. “Guess it did.”
“Any last requests?”
“Yeah,” Jax said. “I’ll take a burger, rare, and an order of extra spicy fries.” He spread his legs apart just a little wider. “And your fucking head on a platter.”
Jax launched himself forward at the exact moment Chase did. They crashed together, a flurry of fists and rage. Chase swung hard and pivoted as Jax retaliated. The blow sailed painlessly over his head. He ducked another onslaught and buried both fists into Jax’s gut.
He stumbled back and gasped for air, and again I fought my bonds. Again I failed. This wouldn’t last long. With Azi gone, Jax was nothing more than human. He didn’t have demonic senses or strength to help him anymore. And while I had all the confidence in the world that under any other circumstance, he wouldn’t need those things, he wasn’t facing off against another human. Zenak was still inside Chase.
I watched in horror as Chase’s blows landed more and more. One to Jax’s jaw. To his kidney. Another to his shoulder, which knocked him off balance… He crashed to the ground and dragged himself backward in the dirt in an attempt to put some distance between himself and his brother.