Rich Kids Don't Die | Featured

Chapter Thirty Three

At the sound of his voice, Maddie's grip on her wand tightened. The flare of magic pulsing in its cedar ebbed into her skin, sending jolts of blue light up her veins to meet the blaze of pure resentment in her heart. Finally, her withering stare met his.

With every passing second, the rage within her threatened to explode somehow, and for a moment bursts of a star-filled sky flickered at the back of her skull. "I don't need a welcome, Lucian," Maddie gritted out, already reaching for her blade. "Hell is empty, it seems, and all the devils are here."

There was no need for the slow, agonizing reveal of his callous features from beneath the black cloth. Even with his face shrouded in shadows, Maddie could see the brazen smile widening into his skin, curling upwards like the curve of a knife. "You're hardly a devil," he laughed lowly. "In fact, I can think of far more accurate words to describe—"

He didn't finish. Maddie's eyes shut and her arm retracted, the movement holding such swiftness that when the lightning of thunderstorms lunged towards him from her fingers, Lucian thought of it as a trick of the eyes, of his own mind, delirious with adrenaline and veiled fear.

But then it jolted him, a surge of fizzing, electric purple slamming into his chest so hard the air was forced from his lungs, his knees collapsing from under him. Black tendrils of his cloak flourished helplessly in the air, his legs kicking hard in hopes of avoiding the abrasive thud that would surely follow. And when his single, earsplitting scream finally did thread the air, the men behind him lurched into motion, scattering outwards, Alex thought, like rats.

He didn't hesitate, drawing spears that were coated in a thick, dark liquid. He looked over to Maddie, suddenly sensing within himself an irrational fear for her life. In that moment, he had forgotten she could not die.

The blade was spinning in her fingers now, the dynamite gleam of whirling white-silver almost hypnotic. Maddie's words came out in daggered breaths, edged with ruefulness. "Once I'm finished with you, Lucian, you might feel differently."

She barely moved, but her fingers were suddenly empty. A sharp, screeching whistle pierced the air, the trill of thin metal sailing across the room to snap at Lucian's ankles.

When the blade braced his skin, wounds of grey rope began to unfurl, shimmering as the glamour wore off. They tightened around his feet, sweeping him off of the ground. As his bones collided against the marble, a strangled scream tore through his lips.

Meters away, Maddie watched Lucian closely, half expecting him to rise. For just a moment, he caught her eye, and his own eyes widened, a manic fear painted on his features. He watched her, in this horrified fascination, as if seeing her for the first time.

She blamed herself for what happened next. In the few seconds she had taken to relish the sight of him writhing, two hands grabbed at her ankles, yanking her to the ground. Lucian, as though revitalized by the sound of Maddie's scream, smiled at the sense of irony.

All she knew was that she couldn't stand. Another blow, this time to her spine. The pain had not even registered in her bones before she was yanked upwards, her feet drawn up as if by string.

Maddie struggled to keep her eyes open, and it was only in flashes that she noticed a familiar dull gleam in her peripheral vision. The hand holding her wrists captive loosened for a single moment, and the silver glow edged closer. Momentarily, she lost herself in the whistle of the knife as it dragged through the air, spinning towards her arm.

The knife hadn't yet touched her when she felt it. A cold shock.

The certainty of her fate, that is, when it finally dawned on her.