The Offering (The Pledge 3)

Instead she scowled at something just past my shoulder, and then the confusion on her face cleared and she pulled me as hard as she could. She shoved me behind her, and beneath her breath she ordered, “Run, Your Majesty. Run!”

She hadn’t even finished her sentence when I saw her pull her gun from the holster and release the safety.

Before she’d even started firing, I was doing as she’d instructed, no longer taking caution about where I stepped, just knowing that if Eden had told me to run, I needed to run.

There could be only one reason: Elena’s forces had found us after all.

The sound of gunfire was earsplitting, and it rang into and around the rock walls of the rugged hills. It echoed inside my head and matched the pattern of my footfalls.

She fired again and again and again and again, until I didn’t think she could fire any more, until I was certain she was out of ammunition.

My side ached, and yet, still I ran.

I could hear the sounds of a struggle behind me. And then I heard footsteps, heavy and crashing and rushing right toward me. I prayed they were Eden’s, but I never slowed. I didn’t dare look behind me.

I was almost to the VAN now, and a part of me wondered what I planned to do once I reached it.

I might be able to drive it, I told myself. I’d spent hours studying Eden while she’d piloted the beast of a machine, and surely I could manage to start the thing myself. Surely I could steer it long enough to get it moving in the right direction.

After that, I didn’t know.

I’d figure it out.

But I couldn’t leave Eden and Brooklynn behind.

Then I remembered . . . the weapons. There were weapons inside the VAN.

If I could reach them, we still had a chance.

That was when I felt my head jerked backward. I lost my footing entirely, which had nothing to do with me at all. It came from somewhere behind me, as my hair had been yanked—so hard that my scalp felt as if it were on fire.

A strangled half gasp, half scream choked me, rising like vitriol in my throat. I fell, landing on my back, and before I could even blink, I was staring up into the face of a bird.

The mask was melded from black iron, making my attacker look something akin to a steel raven. Metal rivets ran the length of his beaklike protrusion, and round goggles gave his eyes a hawkish appearance that made me feel as if he were peering into my soul.

I imagined him bringing that razor-sharp bill down into my face. Pecking at me. Eating me alive. Goring me, and shredding my skin . . . swallowing it up like worms. “Your Majesty, is it?” Like his beak, his grating voice hovered above my face like an ill-concealed taunt. I could see his mouth beneath the metal mask he wore.

I couldn’t afford to wait to find out what he had planned for me, or what he’d done to Eden. Searching for an inner calm I wasn’t sure I possessed, I tried to recall Zafir’s lessons on defense. I searched for the one that would best help me escape my predicament.

When the man revealed his teeth in a gruesome grin, I breathed deeply and formulated my plan of attack. I reached behind my head to where his gloved fingers were still tangled in my hair, and I grabbed hold of his little finger, making certain my grip was secure. When I was certain I had him, and that he had no idea what I was about to do, I flipped onto my stomach. I moved swiftly, the way Zafir had told me, and when I did, his finger rolled with me.

I felt it—the crunching sensation the moment it separated from his hand.

His surprised screech followed suit, a bellow that filled the skies. Involuntarily he released my hair, and before he could stop me, I was already jumping to my feet, ready for his next attack. And I knew he’d attack again. He wasn’t finished with me.

It took only a moment for his shock to subside and for him to collect his wits. I could see the fury on his face, all of it directed at me.

I was ready, though. I’d been preparing for this moment for months.

Zafir had made certain I could handle myself.

When he came at me once more, he was still clumsy and lurching with pain. He’d given no thought as to how he would assault me, only that he wanted revenge.

I saw his fist, hefty and leathered and enormous, coming at me. But I knew what to do.

I didn’t retreat but instead covered my head with both hands and dropped below the trajectory of his ham-fisted swipe. And then I launched myself right at him. I put all of my weight, everything I had, into my body, so that when I hit him, my head colliding with his gut, I heard him wheeze. His fist missed me completely, flying all the way over the back of my head, and yet I kept coming at him.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and planted one leg firmly while rotating on it. The result was that I spun around him, so that I was at his back, my arms still encircling him.

When I extended my other leg and dropped low, it threw the man, who was at least three heads taller than I was, off balance. He careened backward, his arms flailing as he flew over the top off me and landed on his back. He landed on rocks and gravel, and I heard him exhale loudly. The metal of his mask struck the solid ground like lead.

This time, before he could recover, I straddled him and reached for the weapon at his belt, a knife with two separate but equally deadly blades curving from its hilt. I’d never seen such a weapon, but I didn’t hesitate. He never roused as I unsheathed it.

And then I stuck it through the sinewy flesh at the side of his neck.

His entire body stiffened, and he shuddered beneath me. I froze, my eyes going wide, as for the first time I stopped to consider what I’d just done. I felt the blood drain from my own face as I waited. When I sensed the last breath escape his throat on an exaggerated pant, I released the breath I’d been holding.