Counterpart (Succubi & Incubi Assn.) (35 page)

Penelope laughed. “Yeah,
Bethany
was a stupid bitch for putting her life in someone else's hand. My
job is to always give her a reality check.” I was so focused on the pain in my
body that I didn't realize that she was raising the glass with both hands,
planning to slice it straight through Tristan's chest.

It felt like everything switched to slow motion. The only sound was
the crackling of the fire around us. Penelope raised the glass over her head.
My heart pounded against my chest as adrenaline surged through. The glass came
down and I reached my hand out instinctively, screaming, “NO!”

Heat surrounded my body and I couldn't contain the agonizing scream
that came from my mouth. All the pain from tonight was nothing compared to what
I was feeling now. My skin was burning so bad that I was sure that I could feel
my nerves dying away, one by one.

My nails dug into my palms, hard. My knees slid across the hard
floor until I was hunched forward. Another scream passed my lips, but this time
I wasn't sure if it was because of the pain or the fact that I let Tristan
down.

I could still hear the sound of the flames around me, but somehow
they sounded closer. At some point in the past five seconds, my eyes had
clenched shut. I couldn't see it when she lodged the glass into his chest—I was
a coward for that—but I could feel every single inch of pain that he went
through.

I'm so sorry, Tristan.

I was numb. My body started to lose its senses. I couldn't smell
anything anymore. The pain that was in my abdomen felt non-existent and I
couldn't help but wonder if this was my death coming for me. The thought was
only distant when I decided to finally open my eyes. The first thing I saw was
shattered glass in front of me. I counted five different shaped pieces.
Actually, now that I looked around me, there was shattered glass everywhere.

A breeze blew my hair and I was surprised by the movement that I
didn't care that I couldn't feel it. My head moved to look to my side and I
felt my eyes widen at what I was seeing. I was so distracted by the breeze that
I didn't wonder
why
there was a breeze. Now I knew. All the windows that
gave you a view of
L.A.
were
smashed. Every single one of them was shattered and half of the pieces were
surrounding me.

What the hell.

My head snapped to my other side and my jaw dropped. Tristan still laid
motionless on the ground, but no blood was on his body. She didn't stab him? I
was confused for a long time until I noticed a slumped pile not more than a
couple of meters away from him. Penelope.

Surprisingly, my legs moved until I was standing. My eyes scanned
the area around me, trying to find out what happened, but nothing but what I
was seeing before was there. Except for the new additions of glass to the
floor, everything was normal.

Except for one thing.

There was no fire. The smoke was gone, yet I was so sure that I
could hear the sound of the crackling before. How did I feel so hot yet there
was no fire?

Slowly, I took a cautious step forward, hearing the glass crack
under my shoes. My eyes stayed on Penelope's body still lying on the ground. I
was planning to run to Tristan's side, but a flicker in my peripheral vision
stopped me. Turning, I found myself staring at my reflection, except... it
wasn't how I remembered me.

At least I finally found out where the sound of fire was coming
from.

I couldn't even recognize the person staring right back at me. If I
was shocked before, I was even more shocked now. Fire. Everywhere. All over me.
The flames ran from the tips of my fingers, creating a surrounding around me.
It covered every inch of skin that I had to offer. And my eyes, they were so
black that I couldn't even tell if I still had eyes or not.

This was me?

I had somehow turned into some flame monster.

I stared down at my hands and back around the room. Did I do all of
this? When I looked back at the mirror, making sure that what I was seeing was
not me day-dreaming, I expected to see my own face, but I didn't.

Instead I was staring right at
Bethany
's face.

A sound of a grunt came from my side and my head snapped instantly.
A new feeling came through me. Penelope's body was starting to move. Anger soon
replaced anything that was inside and I felt my feet move by themselves.

I knew what I was going to do. I didn't know how I knew, but for
some reason, I had a feeling that
Bethany
was helping me, moving my body. My hand moved up and Penelope's
body moved in sync. I wanted to be shocked by what I was doing, yet inside, I
wasn't finding anything weird about this at all. Moving it higher, her body was
lingering in the air the same way she did with me.

All I could feel was vengeance. Not for me, but for Bethany, Conrad
and Tristan too. I wanted to end this now. I wanted to kill her so much that my
eyes only saw red.

A small amount of blood slipped down her face when I turned her to
face me. Her wide-eyed gaze satisfied me and I only felt like giving her the
same treatment that she gave me. “You're lucky I hate seeing your face.” My
voice was lower than normal, but I couldn't care. “Instead of giving you a slow
and painful death, I think I'm just going to make it quick.”

I didn't give her a chance to react before my wrist flicked and her
body moved in the direction of the broken mirror, aiming for her to land right
on the sharpest point.

“Maya, stop.” Penelope's body stopped moving when I heard the
familiarity of the male behind me. It angered me even more that Ethan chose now
to turn up. He seemed to notice this and I felt him step forward. “As much as
you want to kill her, you can't.”

She was less than an inch from being dead, I was sure I could kill
her. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn't.”

Ethan stepped up to my side. “If we can't find Cassandra, then you
and Tristan will forever be in danger. Do you really want to put him through
that?”

Tristan.

“You need to calm down. Now,” Ethan continued saying, his voice now
hard.

I watched Penelope for a few long seconds before I took a deep
breath, and I felt everything leave my body. Penelope dropped to the ground and
before she could come up with a cunning plan to leave, Ethan was by her side
and his hand clamped over her shoulder before a cloud of black smoke covered
them.

As soon as I felt all the heat leave my body it was like the
exhaustion and the pain in my abdomen were welcomed back. My knees met the
floor and I felt the weight on my shoulders pressurize. My legs felt weak. I
felt my body fall to the side and I landed on the ground with hardly any air in
my lungs.

What the hell just happened?
I couldn't
even process what I just did. I couldn't even see how I did all of that. Then
there was Tristan... I could've fucked it up for both of us.

Using the remaining strength that I had, I pulled my body closer to
his. He still hadn't moved and it worried me. Why hadn't he woken up?

With every movement and breath, I lost more energy. Clouds covered
my vision and I was so close to him that I could almost feel his arms around
me. But as if the world hated me, I felt my body lose the battle. I was
mentally and physically gone. I could see his hand and I reached out with my
own. I could feel his hand so close to mine, but not even I was sure that I
managed to reach it until I lost conscious.

One last breath passed my lips and then, everything was blank.

I stepped through the wide doors that led into the empty hall.
Receiving a text half an hour before
midnight
only made me curious. The echo of my shoes walking along the hard
floor grabbed the attention of the male inside the ring, and he turned. I felt
proud that I brought a grin onto his face. “Glad you could make it.”

My own grin matched his and I continued walking until I was standing
just outside the circular cage. “You want to tell me why you wanted to meet me,
Tristan?”

Tristan was throwing punches into the air when I walked in, and now
he stood casually in the middle of the ring, his arms crossed over his chest.
He shrugged. “Guess I wanted to catch up. I haven't really seen much of you
lately.”

There was a reason for that. “You've been busy with your
girlfriend.” I did my own version of the shrug. “Don't want to disturb that.”

I heard him sigh. “You won't disturb it, Maya.” He inched towards me
slowly. “And don't think you'll get in the way.” He opened the gate to the ring
and held it with his hand, nodding his head inside. “You've still yet to step
inside this.”

“I plan to keep it that way.” The last situation I wanted to be put
in was trapped. If I were to go inside a small room, I needed to know that I
could easily escape.

I'm probably claustrophobic.

“Come on.” He held his glove-covered hand out. “I won't let anything
happen to you.”

I trusted Tristan. I always have. Ever since the first day we met, I
knew I could. It was the fact that he was inviting me out, almost at
midnight
, while his girlfriend was
probably waiting for him that confused me. “Won't Tori be wondering where you
are?”

They'd been dating for at least a month now, and by this point I was
just over the fact that she actually made him happy.

Yet, it still didn't answer why I was here.

“She's—” he paused and pursed his lips out momentarily. And just
because I’m an idiot, I was distracted by that single movement. “She's busy
doing other things.”

“Ah.” I moved my eyes when his words came out. I laughed amusingly.
This was typical. “Let me guess, she's either found a foreign nail salon that
needs her attention, or she simply didn't want to see you tonight.” The look he
gave me was one saying I should drop it, but I couldn't and I wasn’t going to.
“So, you text me because you want a girl's point of view, even though you won't
even take my advice—”

“Okay, okay,” Tristan said before I could continue. “I see where
you're going with this, but this time it's different.” I doubted that, but
whatever. “Tori's doing whatever she wants to do. I can't control her. I text
you because I thought we could improve your little fear for this cage.”

Suuureee. “At
midnight
?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah, at
midnight
.” He pushed his hand closer
to me. “So?”

I wasn't going to fall so easily for this. Firstly, I needed to
think about the pros and cons about this.

The pros consisted of: Hanging with Tristan… Well, I could do that
anyway… okay, scratch that. Start again.

Pros: I could eventually get over this eerie feeling every time I
saw this steel framed slaughter house, and it could help with future fighting
events. Another one could be that... I get an excuse to take Tristan's hand...
you know, just because it's that tempting.

Ah, fuck the lists. My head wasn't really bothered at the moment,
and right now, I'm kind of glaring at his hand like it's going to betray me in
a way.

Taking a deep breath and releasing the tension in my muscles, I let
him have this one and I slid my hand into his. Instantly, I felt my chest rise
and lower easily when the warmth of his skin captured mine. I could feel his
touch travel from my fingers all the way through my body until it settled in my
stomach, where a usual flutter would occur.

Slowly, he pulled me up the stairs, all while watching me for my
reactions. He was probably waiting for me to cry or something, beg to be let go
so I can run away. In all honesty, I wasn't feeling anything but his eyes on
me. His fingers wrapped securely around mine, telling me that they weren’t
going to betray me as I thought, and within five seconds, I was inside.

I hadn't even realized it until I felt him stop tugging.

“See.” His hand never let go of mine and I managed to find myself
looking around. “I told you it's not so bad.”

He was right. Half of me was wondering why it took me so long to
even get in here. Originally, I wanted nothing to do with this ring. The only
time you would see me anywhere near this thing was if Tristan was inside
it—well, sometimes—other than that, I was a negative.

Now though, it didn't seem that bad.

“You okay?” he asked, starting to walk around me while my hand had
still yet to leave his. “You've been still for about thirty seconds now, and
I'm starting to think you're entering shock or something.”

Releasing a short laugh, I sighed—a relieved sigh. “Just trying to
figure out why it took me so long to enter the slaughter area.”

“It's not a slaughter area,” he laughed.