Page 36 of The Death Striker's Partner
Only to land in a pair of emerald arms. I flung my arm up to punch the Ucfeni in the face. If I didn’t feel like I’d just lost a fight with a tumble dryer, I would have connected too.
#
Tumva
“Hannah.” I call her name, drooling blood, spit and venom from my mouth. The battle is over. Corpses lay around me, most of my own making. King Xulei is dead and cold now.
“Peacekeepers reporting for duty! Everyone flat to the ground, hands on the back of your heads and mouth shut!” Good. The Peacekeeper reinforcements have arrived. They make quick work in apprehending the rest of the incursion force. I spit the contents of my mouth to the floor and head towards the edge. Hannah fell down there. Ancestors, don’t let her be hurt. “I said get down!” One of the officers blocks my way. “I will put you down if you don’t get down!”
“Are you talking to me?” I tap my chest and my Peacekeeper uniform. My pierce proof vest is torn, but still recognisable. I don’t have time for this. Hannah could be badly hurt. I look over his uniform and see he’s a rattler and he has markings of the 13th pit. “I am Officer Tumva of the 21st pit. My partner has fallen off the platform. I need to ascertain her condition. She may need medical aid.” I try to move around him and he throws a mouth muzzle at me. It constricts, biting at my scales, and I freeze with shock. He just muzzled me? I can’t talk now I’m muzzled and raise my hands to show submission. Still, I must get to Hannah so I try to go around him again.
“I said down on the ground! Now! Shucking Death Striker!” He hisses and his tail rattles aggressively. I’m torn. I don’t to engage a fellow officer in combat, but I need to get to Hannah. I look over to the platform and the rattler raises his baton to strike me down. I close my eyes and feel old woundsopen wide open. Wider and with far more pain that the bleeding cuts at my back. He took one look at me and assumed I was the enemy. Of course he thinks I’m one of the invaders. I’m a ‘shucking Death Striker’. It possibly doesn’t help that there are bodies around me suffering the clear effects of my venom…but I was following orders…
The strike of his baton came twice. Once across the side of my throat and the other against my arm, but I did not go to the ground. I tried to go around him but made no move against my fellow officer. His fear and hate hurt far more than his weapon. I held my right bicep where he struck me and limped on my tail to get to the edge. “DOWN TO THE GR-your highness you must stay back from the-.”
I open my eyes wider in shock. The crown prince himself is before me and reaching for the lock at the back of my muzzle. It is designed not to allow the wearer to remove, which is why I made no attempt. Another biometric signature, however, can. “My Prince you musn’t-”
“I am your King.” Vrujac hisses with his hood wide and his eyes bloodshot. His chest is bleeding heavily and he sways, so I reach out to hold his shoulders. He looks at me and blinks me back into focus. “I, King Vrujac, gave this Death Striker, this Peacekeeper, the death bite command. He was following orders, and has done Orna a great service.Youhowever?” He nods that he is steady and turns to glower down at the rattler. “Are a disgrace. I heard him tell you he was an officer, and you attacked him anyway. Consider your career over. Now get the shuck out of my palace.”
The rattler is shocked and looks at me in disbelief. He truly did not believe I was an officer like him. He thought I was a monster, not a hero.
“Your highness, you have honoured me, but I must go to my partner. She fell. I-I must go to her.” I swayed, feeling mywounds burning at my back. “I have to get to Hannah.” I shook. I know what that means. Blood loss and infection are setting in.
“You need medical treatment.” King Vrujac waved over a medic in yellow to see to me as I sway again.
“I need Hannah.” I insist and move towards edge, only to fall to my front. “Hannah.” I drag myself by my hands towards the edge but my strength leaves me.
“I have an officer down.” I hear someone talk over me. “Help me cut him out of his armour. We need to seal his wounds.” My eyes half close and I feel like I’m on fire.
“H….na…”
“Move out of my way!” I hear another voice. “What are you doing? You need to clean the wound before you stitch him up. Or are youtryingto kill him?”
“How dare you question my-”
“I’m a doctor, and I know what I’m doing, so give me your medical bag so I can save his life.”
“How d-”
“Shut up before I punch you in the face.” Who is that? Actually I don’t care. I groan and try to drag myself towards the ledge. Towards Hannah. But I don’t move. I can’t move anymore. I think my desire to get to Hannah is making me hallucinate. I swear I can taste her honey fire on my blood slavered tongue. Her touch on my arm. Her voice in the air.
“Give Charlie the medical bag and back the fuck off, before I arrest you for obstruction, mother fucker.” Yeah, that’s what she’s say if she was here. My fearsome Hannah Blac.
Chapter 31
I almost lost you
Hannah
“Hey. How are you doing?” I look up as Charlie comes in to the ward to check on me. I have refused to leave Tumva’s side during the last week and I’ve set up camp beside his bed. Well, it’s hardly a bed. It’s more like a heated mat that he’s curled up on. He’s sleeping in a lose coil of glossy black scales. He has a silvery set of scars on his back that look like a large X. For the most part they kept him sedated whilst the the antibiotics got to work. It was hit and miss with the fever he had for the first few days, but Charlie tells me he is well on the mend and could wake up any day now. A good job too. After Dalahan caught me and I screeched at him to get me the hell back up to the top platform and I saw Tumva out cold like this? I nearly lost my mind. I also nearly tasered myself a medic for not getting out of Charlie’s way too. Thankfully…no one noticed… “Thelia to Hannah?” Charlie chuckled, always thinking he’s so charming and funny. Git. He totally is. It was nice to run into him again, despite the circumstances. He also made a point of coming over from his clinic to check on Tumva. I expressed my worries that the on call staff here might not treat Tumva very well because he’s a Death Striker. That was enough to get Charlie’s proverbial battle horn blown, and he happily bossed his way onto Tumva’s case file. A weight of my shoulders.
“I’m tired of this place.” I wave my hand at the clinical white walls and pout up at Charlie. “When can I take the big guy home?”
“When he wakes up and he is discharged.” He laughs at me and I grumble. Yeah that makes sense, but I’d feel better if he gave me a specific date to go on.
I can’t really complain at Charlie. He’s already done more than a enough for me. Dalahan caught me when I fell over the platform and saved me from breaking my neck. He carried me and Charlie up to the Royal platform to find the right was over and Tumva was out cold. Some sort of medic was doing a bodge-job on Tumva and wouldn’t back off and let Charlie take over until I barked at him. Dalahan helped to transport Tumva to the nearest hospital, and we’ve been here ever since. “Comfy?”
“Yes.” I smirk and I’m unapologetic for the fact that I am on the heated mattresswithTumva. I’m so used to sleeping next to him that it felt natural to get on the cot with him. Besides, feeling his warm body reassured me he was still alive.
