Bitter Blood (BBi)

Chapter 50: A Lethal Cure

Chapter Fifty
A Lethal Cure

I don't move an inch.

Blue is rigid beside me, body poised to launch himself forward at any moment, always ready to fight, to protect.

There's a pause filled with heavy silence. I don't move. I don't breathe.

"Parker?” a voice shouts through the door, shocking me with the sound of my own name. “It's Raina. The coven's here. We've come to help. Open up!"

Elise wants to help?

I glance down at Blue.

“We caught word that someone was coming here to try and kill you. We thought maybe we were too late but we came as fast as–“

I move forward and pull open the door, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Raina is leaning both her hands against each side of the doorway, panting as if she's been running, hair a damp mess around her face. Dark clouds are covering the night sky behind her and a light rain has started to fall. There's no one else in the driveway.

“Where are they?” I demand.

“They've already gone to help.” she says. “Your mum told me to come here and get you.”

I turn away and head for the cupboard in the hallway, giving her free entrance into the house behind me. There were whole shelves filled with weapons the last time I was in that cupboard. I need a knife or at least something to take with me.

“I heard you were cursed.” Raina says as she walks inside.

“Yeah, I was,” I cross the lounge room, seeking out Blue with my eyes as I go. Everyone in the coven must have listened to me yelling at Elise.

“It's such a shame to know that you're better now.”

For a moment I think I've heard her wrong.

I stop walking forward and turn slowly around to face her. Raina closes the door and flicks the lock without taking her gaze off me.

What is she doing?

Outside, thunder booms as the light sprinkle increases to a heavier downpour.

“Elise isn't here, is she?" I ask her.

Raina shakes her head.

I take a careful step back, maneuvering myself around the armchair blocking my path.

"And you came alone?"

"I wouldn't say that." she reaches a hand behind her back, drawing something long and metallic down to her side. The light above us flickers along the length of the knife. “I needed something to keep your wolves distracted.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Blue. He's a black shape slinking close to the pale wall, molten eyes locked on the girl ahead of him, spine already rising to his new form.

He doesn't have the chance to change.

Raina spots him right before he leaps. She turns, dropping down at the same time, and plunges the knife into him.

The point pierces me, a phantasm of his pain blossoming inside my chest, ripping open my ribcage. He yowls and curls around the blade.

“Blue!” I cry.

Raina lets him fall.

A crimson circle puddles around Blue almost instantaneously. My throat burns as he struggles to get up, his body unable to hold itself with the knife buried in his chest. His paws slip in the blood. He slumps to the floor and doesn't move again.

No no no. Get up, baby boy. Get up.

When I move towards him, Raina steps in my way. I snap my eyes to her, my vision blurred with tears. She doesn't have a weapon anymore but she's completely unharmed while I'm feeling like I'm breaking apart from the inside out.

“Why are you doing this?” I demand. “I don't even know you. You're practically a stranger.”

“But you aren't a stranger to me, Parker.” she says.

She keeps coming forward and I have to keep stepping back. I move past the coffee table and into the middle of the lounge room.

“Have you ever hated someone so much that it's practically engraved in your soul?” she asks me. “Runs through your veins like venom?”

I don't answer.

“I have.” she says. “For years I've heard your name, listened to the rest of the coven talk about how powerful, how incredible you were going to be. I watched your mother waste her affection on a daughter who was practically mortal.”

She spits that word like it disgusts her.

My heart beats in my skull. Thumping, thumping, thumping beside my brain.

Is she jealous? Did she kill Blue because she envied the attention a stranger got over her?

“Killing you,” she says, “is my cure.”

She throws herself at me.

I've hit someone before. Only once, but it got the job done. It stopped dad from leaving the house when he was drunk. It can stop Raina now.

She grabs the front of my shirt and I swing my closed fist into her cheek hard enough to knock her head back. She stumbles half a step but then tightens her hold on my collar and pulls me into a punch of her own.

White bursts in my vision and pain cracks over my jaw. Raina holds my shoulders and slams her knee up into my stomach. My insides flip.

While I'm doubled over I dive at her waist, barging my shoulder into her stomach. She makes a sound like oof from the hard blow as we go down. When we're on the ground I instantly throw my fists into each one of her sides, feeling her fingers claw up to my neck at the same time that my knuckles connect with her ribs.

She wraps her hands around my throat and rips me to the side, rolling on top of me. She picks me up and slams me against the floor. I smack the back of my head on the carpet hard enough to feel the hard wood beneath it.

I take the shot that's laid in front of me, throwing my knee up into her crotch. It would hurt a lot more if she was a guy but it still gives me the chance to slam the side of my closed hand into her face and shove her off me.

I get up, not quite making it to my feet, and scramble towards the coffee table where the house phone sits.

Avery.

She won't hear me from wherever she is. If she isn't already dead, killed by whoever Raina brought here with her to distract them, then the rainfall will definitely drown out my voice.

I scream her name as loud as I can.

Still down on my hands and knees, I reach for the phone.

A hand locks around my ankle and yanks me back. I kick out, glancing over my shoulder long enough to connect the sole of my shoe with Raina's solid nose.

She lets me go. I grab the phone and punch in the first number to call the police.

A shadow falls over me and I feel Raina's hand on the back of my head, tangling in my hair, right before she slams my face down on the edge of the table.

My vision goes black.

And that's all I see for a little while.

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Chapter 49 jumped up to 77 comments since I posted it yesterday so I thought I'd give you guys a double update (: