This is just a little something I cooked up out of the middle of nowhere. It takes place near the end of the Huntress book from Lily's point of view.Most of the dialogue is not mine.Hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and the dialogue you find in this chapter comes directly from the book.
Chapter 1Lily Redfern was about ready to strangle the half-mutant freak. She couldn't stand it when prisoners acted like they held all the cards. The thing that scared Lily the most was that the prisoners just might hold all the cards. She had a queasy feeling in her stomach and it was only making her angrier. She hated feeling like she wasn't in control of a situation. And that's exactly how she felt at the moment.
It looked like she held all the cards. The four individuals were trussed up on the floor; a few of them were trying to worm their way out of their ropes. They would never be able to do it. She had inspected their bonds herself as her thugs had tied them with the best hemp cord available.
The annoying one with the dark hair was making pitiful sniffling sounds like she was about to cry. Her eyes were wild and hysterical. Lily nearly cringed as she saw the girl's mouth open to make some pathetic noise. She hoped to god that the girl wasn't the Wild Power. She could hardly stand to look at that sniveling face without having the urge to smack her.
The blond boy with the tawny arms was no better. He wasn't crying like the other girl. He was strangely calm and collected—although he yelled a bit when Lily had set her thugs on Jez. Something in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. She hid it. She wouldn't show any weakness.
If she had any word to describe his eyes, she would have said wisdom. There was so much knowledge in them—so much experience. But the boy was clearly human, she thought disdainfully. Humans were weak and pitiful and lived their shallow, pointless existences, dying before they could gain any real wisdom. She had nothing but contempt for their whole race.
She couldn't help but feel a shiver as the boy looked at her again with disappointment. It was as if he could see past her anger and cold façade to see the woman that lay beneath. It was as if he could see her very weaknesses. There was power in his eyes. If she were to peg the wild power, she would say it was he. But she had to be sure. She needed a demonstration.
If she brought back the wrong person to Hunter, it was all over. She had made so many mistakes over the past couple of years—ruined so many missions. Hunter blamed her for the whole fiasco with Quinn. She should have been paying more attention. She was a Redfern and needed to start acting like it.
That's why Hunter had given her this job. She'd begged for it, wanting to prove herself. He'd given her the job—but he'd as much as said that if she failed then she was no daughter of his. The thought of being cut off from the family sent another sickening wave through her. Beneath her façade she was a bundle of terrified nerves. She was the rightful heir to the Redfern fortune—girl or not and she would not allow it to slip through her fingers.
But there was something wrong with the whole situation. She knew she'd agreed to a suicide mission. She knew what the Wild Power had done to the BART train. If the Wild Power set the blue fire free, they were all as much as dead. It didn't matter how many thugs she had surrounding her when the blue fire could stop a moving train.
Knowing that she would probably die was making her even more vicious and angry. She wanted to hurt everything in sight—starting with Jezebel Redfern. The red-haired girl was staring at her with haughty, almost smirking silver-blue eyes.
Lily was breathing hard, on the verge of losing control. She knew that her naturally porcelain skin was white with anger across her face. Her burn scars must be showing—they always did when she was angry. Quinn was going to pay for every burn she had gotten that day—and for running off with that little tramp. That is, if she got out of this situation alive. Quinn, whom she'd thought of as a brother—he'd betrayed her. He'd thought some weak and pitiful human was more important than his own sister!
"If I have to kill all of you—!"
"Wait," Pierce's cool voice said. He had the audacity to nudge her when he spoke. She wanted to strike him for it, but never got around to lifting her arm. His reasoning pushed away her anger and sent mind whirring with confusion. "There's a simple way to find out. Stake her."
He was pointing at Jez.
She glared at him. "What?"
"She's never going to tell you anything. She's expendable. And there's something you have to understand about the Wild Power." Pierce turned to look at her with his icy gaze. "I think Morgead was right about one thing. I don't think the Wild Power is operating consciously at this point. It's only when the danger is the greatest, when there's no physical way to escape, that the power comes out."
Lily sent a sideways look at the sniveling girl and the boy with the wise eyes. She couldn't bear to hold the boy's eyes for more than a few moments. She looked away, almost feeling ashamed—which was stupid. And it made her angry.
"You mean they may not know which one it is?"
"Maybe not. Maybe it's completely automatic at this point. But there's a way to find out. They all seem—attached—to the halfbreed. Put her life in danger, and see which one of them can try to break free and save her."
Lily was smiling. She knew it wasn't a nice smile. A little of the queasy feeling in her stomach diminished. "I knew there was a reason I liked you," she said to Pierce.
"Go on, do it." She suggested to her hired help.
Morgead started yelling and thrashing like the world was going to end. The two humans added their voices to his plaintively. Lily sent Morgead a disdainful glance. She couldn't stand human lovers. She had planned to let him go if he had taken her side. But he was obviously in love with the freak. It made bile rise in her throat just thinking of it. Vampires who went soft deserved to die.
"Isn't it interesting," Lily managed to speak over the myriad of voices. She was spitting mad and wanted to hurt them as much as she could. "That a stake through the heart is the one thing that takes care of humans and vampires equally efficiently?"
"And halfbreeds too," Pierce was smirking with a cold glance.
His eyes were a little too icy for Lily's sake. She admired the cold in him, the utter ruthlessness. It was what she wanted to be—what she pretended to be. But at the same time she was afraid of him. He was just as liable to turn on her if he could gain from it.
They would only be together for this one mission, she thought to calm herself. She had promised him power and glory, but she hadn't meant a word of it. After the thugs disposed of all the three who weren't Wild Powers, she'd get them to turn on Pierce.
"Lily, listen. Listen!" Morgead was calling out around an obstruction in his throat. The idiot almost sounded as if he were about to cry. "You don't have to do this. I already told you, it's me. Just wait a minute and talk to me—"
"Don't even bother, human-lover," Lily snapped. His desperate need to protect this freak was absolutely infuriating. "If you're the Wild Power then save her."
The halfbreed was being so disgustingly selfless. "Don't any of you do anything! Not anything, do you understand?"
Azarius positioned himself above Jez. He held the stake over her heart with a malicious grin, holding the hammer high. He looked to Lily for further instruction.
"Do it," Lily ordered the man. "Right beside the heart first."
The tall dark man moved the stake an inch to the right. He raised the hammer for a second time. Lily watched as his muscled arm tense as it readied to strike. Azarius swung down in a perfect arc, slamming the stake into Jez's chest.
"Jez!" Morgead was screaming.
Lily wanted to slap him. No, she wanted to stake him. She wanted to stake them all. None of this was working out as she'd planned. She just wanted a little control back, but Jez wasn't talking.
Her face was contorted in pain; the red curls about her face were damp with sweat.
"What's wrong with you?" Lily screamed over all the voices. "Don't you see what's happening to her? Don't you want to save her?"
The other three were all yelling or muttering incoherently. Not one of them seemed to be paying her any mind. All their attention was turned in on Jez.
So Lily appealed to Jez instead. She moved right over the halfbreed so that she had no choice but to look Lily right in the face. For a moment, her eyes were sightless with agony. Her eyes finally focused on the girl above her.
"Don't you understand?" Lily yelled in exasperation, feeling her heart beat oddly. Tension was rising in the room. Something bad was about to happen. She could feel it. She ignored the roiling in her stomach and continued. "I'll have him kill you cleanly—all the pain will be over. All you have to do is tell me who it is."
The girl lying on the floor smiled faintly and Lily turned red with fury. Jez had as much as said that she was taking her secret to the grave—just to spite her. Lily wanted to throttle her for it, but it would have done little good.
"How can you be so stupid!" Lily screamed and her face twisted. She was so angry that she couldn't seem to get in control of herself. She turned to snap at Azarius. "All right," she said. "Stake Morgead."
Azarius nodded with vicious glee.
Lily turned to Jez again. "We'll have to stake all your friends one by one until the Wild power decides to reveal itself."
She saw the anger in Jez's eyes—the fury. And the fear for her friends. Lily was too angry to care; too angry and too scared. The only thought in her mind was that she couldn't lose. She didn't have that luxury.
"Jez, I love you," the vampire was whispering as Lily's thugs dragged him to lie next to Jez.
Lily felt a little ache in her heart, almost like pity. She pushed it away ruthlessly. She would not feel sorry for vermin-lovers.
Azarius lifted the stake over Morgead's heart.
Lily stepped back, feeling the tension zinging through the air. It had been building slowly. The hair raised on her arms and she felt an electrical tension move along her arms. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Lily glanced quickly behind her, checking for escapes. There was a small window on the wall behind in, in case she needed it. It was a two-story drop, but nothing her vampire reflexes couldn't handle.
Lily turned back to look at Azarius's expectant face. "Do it!"
Something made her look over at Jez as Azarius lifted the hammer. There was a look on Jez's face, worried but almost peaceful too—like she knew everything was going to turn out all right.
That's when Lily saw it—a small crackle of fire coming from Jez's chest where the stake was embedded. It was a pure and blinding blue. Lily's heart caught in her throat, but her limbs didn't betray her.
She dove for the window just as Jez let it free. Blue fire streamed from her chest in a torrent, sweeping through the room. It blasted into Pierce and he was dust within seconds.
Lily glanced forward just as her feet hit with all the force of her weight behind her. The window shattered. Bits of glass embedded into her skin as she flew through. Her arms scraped through the opening leaving fresh blood.
Lily only had the chance for one backward glance before gravity took control. The whole room was alight with flame and the walls were disintegrating before her very eyes. Her body was swept downward, plummeting the two feet toward the ground.
Her vampire muscles knew just what to do. She twisted into an upright position, her legs crouched beneath her. She hit the grass with the balls of her feet and leaned back to her heels to take the shock.
She thought she heard a noise and glanced up just in time to see a chunk of debris land on her head. Lily fell forward, her skull cracked with a dull sound. Her vision was red and black dots were beginning to form in front of her eyes.
She shoved the debris away, instinctively knowing that she couldn't stay here. She hopped too her feet, feeling woozy. She took off at a half-run, half-limp, her vision becoming worse by the second as more black dots appeared.
She slipped into the trees, managing a last backward glance. The building was nearly gone and the fire was still shooting up in a fury. A few walls remained.
Lily only managed a few more steps. She fell forward, brambles lashing out against her arms. She landed hard, her hair falling across her face. It was a good thing that she was completely hidden by the underbrush because she could only manage to keep herself conscious for another couple of seconds.
The dots took over her vision. A moment later she fell into a thankful oblivion.
Just thought I'd ask if you guys wanted me to continue this. It was just a random thing that I decided to write today. I'm in the middle of writing two other books so I won't continue this one unless enough people are interested.
Thanks,
-Polished Gem