Page 63 of Too Cursed To Kiss
“Let me the hell go!” I squeaked, twisting and smacking Sert with my good arm. He rubbed at the spot like a child had slapped him and began to speak in a language I didn’t know.
Frank had circled the book and was heading back to me with his tattered friend.
The Mother-monster’s talon was poised for another piercing round, and this time I was a sitting duck. Wald was on the ground not moving, and that meant Britannia had won.
In the moment, which I knew in my gut would be my last on this earth, I twisted in Sert’s grasp and decked him with my good fist. The collision of my hand with his chin hurt like the bejeezus, but it was nothing like the mind-numbing pain of my broken wrist jerking with the exertion. Sert let go of me.
Now with two hands on fire, I turned and threw myself at the marble. Frank was almost on me, and the talon was coming. The moment I knew the talon was going to be in myback, Sert dropped on top of me. The talon ripped through him like a meat hook on a rear quarter, spurting blood in a spray that hit me dead in the face.
Frank roared through the blood fountain as my bruised hand closed around the glass orb. I balled up, praying for any hope as Frank’s smoke pulled the blood from the floor into him. His tattered buddy swooped at me. I was a goner.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Iclosed my eyes, bracing for the death I knew was coming. When all hope was gone, what did I think of? The mannequin’sAnxious & Hornyundies and the fricking burrito.
The tattered smoke-thing screeched and cloaked around me with an air-stealing smother. The tendrils of whatever it was made of wrapped around me, crushing what life was left in me. I gripped the marble in agony, unable to speak or move as smoke entered my mouth and nose, literally pushing the air out from my insides. This was it. Sert had died my temporary hero, but I bet he’d died in those daffodil panties. At least I was wearing black. Sert’s death was going to be meaningless. My lungs burned. My vision dimmed. This was it. I was dying, and it frigging hurt.
A voice sounded in my head.
I’m sorry, dear. It was the only way. It’ll be in your pocket.
The voice was Aunt Agatha.
Everything went black.
Coughing sent searing pain through my lungs, which felt like they’d dried out from the inside. My entire body roared with pain, from the slice on my leg to the swollen agony of my wrist. I couldn’t check my pocket because I couldn’t move. The only way I could put my hand in the jacket would be to let go of the marble, and that wasn’t happening.
I was alone. Mother-monster had disappeared, and the family album was lying by itself in the middle of the floor.
The two prone bodies near the door were human-sized. The bloody, glassy-eyed body of Sert was about ten feet from me. The slithering pit creatures had disappeared.
Wald.
It came out as a creak of a whisper. I tried to get up four times before I was able to roll onto my left hip. The wound on my grated cheek felt like a gaping hole, and the blood from my sliced leg had crusted to the ripped leggings. Every time I moved, it tugged on flesh. My left hand was useless, and frankly, I couldn’t look at it. Every breath tore me apart from the inside, but I wasn’t dead.
Using my good knee and a balled fist, I inched toward the fallen Wald, every movement a descent to another circle of hell. What if Wald was dead? I prayed to the God I didn’t believe in that I’d have the strength to deal with his death. We hadn’t even slept together. Hadn’t had a chance to see if anything between us would work. I needed him alive to help me fix my life. If I was being honest, I needed him alive because I needed him in my life. He had to be alive because alternatives were unacceptable.
It took me way too long to get to him. Ten minutes? Who knows. I can tell you it seemed like an eternity. The last two feet took endless days of agony.
Wald’s eyes were closed, and there was a pool of blood around him. It must have been from his back as I didn’t see any gaping cuts. His skin was far whiter than it had been on the sidewalk. His chest wasn’t moving, or I couldn’t tell.
I wasn’t stopping to see if his chest was rising or falling. My entire focus was on getting over to him.
I made it, but I couldn’t touch him.
The marble.
Knowing the marble had been the only thing that had kept me from death, it was the hardest thing I’d done today to let it leave my fist.
The round glass ball rolled out of my fingers. The touch of my bruised hand on Wald’s leather jacket was a thing you never forget, like biting into a ripe peach. A connection in time.
But Wald didn’t move. Didn’t rouse. He wasn’t breathing.
I dragged my body over his chest and pressed my lips to his firm, cold, smooth ones.
Nothing.
I would have cried if I could have made tears. The tightness in my chest quadrupled, and I sucked in shallow painful breaths.
