A/N: Probably wondering about the chapter name, right? Well, I ain't gonna be the person who spoils it. Happy reading!
The basintures slithered towards us. Tessa, who'd been standing closest to the shadow around Kiara when the snakes slithered out, had a nasty weal on her dark skin. Kiara had collapsed, and Ella and I had to drag her out of the way. Her sheath bumped against my shin as I hoisted her up by the armpits and slapped her gently across the face. Ella's hazel eyes shone with fear. For a project in our third year at Glasgow Prep, each of us had to fight a monster. Not Catrops, but creatures only slightly less powerful than them. Kiara and I had teamed up to fight a griffin- the worst of them all. But Ella had to take on a full-grown basinture by herself. It was the second most horrific creature in the place, and Ella'd had burns for weeks. Now she had to take on six of them, and even with two teammates, it would be a hard job. I looked around quickly, and signaled my friends to distract the basintures. Once the basintures were diverted, I stuffed Kiara in the closet and rejoined the fight. Only four of them were left, but Ella's arm was smoking and bleeding and Tessa's legs were burnt. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, a basinture reared up and spat poison directly at my face. Crap, these are females, was the thought that was in my head. Why not Crap, a basinture just spat poison at me, is a mystery that might never be unraveled.
In the few seconds that it took for the poison to reach me, I managed to move my legs out from under me, causing myself to fall. The good news was there was no acid slowly burning off my face. The bad news was that my head had landed in the pool of poison that the basinture had spat. I jerked my head up, but half of my previously waist-length braid had been burned off. Thankfully, the hair and the acid combined to make a powder that didn't burn through the floor- that would've been bad. Tessa lopped off the basinture's head. Ella skewered another one and made basinture shish-kebab. They both dissolved into clear ashes. For a second, it looked like we might be winning. Then the remaining two wrapped together, spinning faster and faster around each other. "They're fusing," observed Ella. "Sh-"
She didn't finish her phrase, because a blinding jet of light shone through the room and dissipated to reveal a twelve-foot-long, five-foot-thick basinture whose crimson eyes conveyed nothing but pure hate. In a split second, it snapped at Ella's leg, tearing the flesh, it spat poison at Tessa, who didn't raise her shield fast enough and now had burns on the side of her face, and it whipped its tail towards me, knocking me down with burned calves. It raised its fanged head to deliver a fatal blow- and dissolved into clear dust.
The dust rained down on me. I coughed and squinted through the haze. "Kiara?" I asked, bewildered. Then I looked at the closet door, which was wide open. "Oh."
"Thought you might need some help," my cousin said with a cheeky smile, reaching down to pull me up.
"Thanks," I responded. I groaned and sat down again as the pain in my calves flared up.
"Don't mention it," Kiara commented dryly. "Are you guys okay?" she asked Tessa, who was clutching the side of her face, and Ella, whose left side was stained red from the arm and leg wounds.
"Yes... I'm... totally... fine..." Tessa sarcastically forced out through gritted teeth, then removed her hands from the side of her face. We all recoiled and gasped. The right side of Tessa's face was covered in burns and boils. "Might... need... a... teeny... bit... of... healing... salve... though."
"Yeah, just a bit," Ella grimaced as she tried to walk to us, then promptly collapsed on the ash-strewn floor. "Owwww..."
"Right, here's what we'll do. You three stay here, and I'll run down to the healing room and nab some salve," Kiara told us.
