The hunter came back to consciousness, a groan leaving his lips at the sharp pain at the back of head where he was hit. He was walking through the tunnels with Kate and the professor than something hit him, of course it was Tanner, his pathetic, obsessive ass found the opportunity.
The hunter got in his feet, holding to the wall as the only thing he see was darkness.
He carefully walked through the dark tunnel, hearing chanting, he quietly followed until he came close to the source of it. And of course it was the professor. He peeked inside the ancient room, his blood running cold when he saw the teenager tied to a stone, a piece of clothing in her mouth to muffle her screams.
Tanner held Richie's knife in his hand, going around the stone. He opened the knife, holding it above Kate's stomach. "Carlos wanted you here for a reason. Your blood is pure. It's gonna satisfy the lords."
Alexander slipped inside, his eyes focusing on the professor. "At least for now, before they realize that their precious Santánico is gone."
The hunter grabbed the empty gun that he had stuffed in his jeans and walked closely to the professor, hitting Tanner's head with the back of it. He fell forward at the blow, the knife falling from his hand.
Alexander grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, turning the man to face him, punching him and letting him hit the ground. Blood spilled from his noise and he groaned, clenching it with his hand.
Alexander quickly went where the professor dropped his knife and picked it up, cutting the ropes on Kate's hands. He heard shuffles where the professor laid, but he didn't pay much attention as he cut her feet free.
Tanner grabbed his sword and launched at the hunter, who moved before it could pierce his stomach. He grabbed the sword with his hand and plunged Richie's knife in Tanner's chest.
The sword fell from both of their grips, blood sipped from Alexander's fingers as Tanner fell in the ground again. "You got what you deserved, asshole." He snarled, crouching down and grabbing the Xibalbian knife from Tanner's chest.
He looked up at Kate, who thanked him before Ranger Gonzalez appeared.
"Where's my dad...Did you find Scott?" She immediately attacked him with questions.
"Yeah." He sighed in relief. "Follow me."
♆
"The hell is going in?" Arabella questioned loudly at the shoutings that they were hearing. She moved the curtains to the side, seeing Carlos, Santánico and Narciso all together. The Gecko brothers followed behind her as she walked in front of the three.
"We fought all that shit, to come to...this." Arabella looked back at the brothers, laughing bitterly.
"What's going on?" Seth asked.
"Welcome to the Twister. Can I get you anything?" Carlos spoke, a smirk on his lips.
"You know what I want?" Seth replied, "I want a gold medal...I want a podium. I want to hear the national anthem playing while the goddamn blue angels fly over my head," He wiggled his fingers above his head, making Arabella chuckle as he trailed off. "and I want to be in some cereal boxes, because, in case you haven't noticed, Carlito, we just pulled off a job that had an extremely high level of difficulty."
"Richard..." Santánico softly cut in.
"Yeah." He nodded, knowing that she was going to ask for her blood the snake had that now rested inside his body. "I got it."
She wanted to go to Richie, but Carlos stopped her. "Mi diosa."
"You're forgetting about somethingーthe money." Carlos turned around, "Where is it?" He asked Seth.
"The bonds are in a safe place." Seth replied, walking away from him. "That's exactly where they're gonna stay."
"I'm sorry...que?"
"What are you talking about Seth?" Richie asked.
"I'm talking about my take, Richard, for this whole miserable jobーtwo jobs, actually."
"The bank robbery that nearly got me killed," He pointed at Richie then at Santánico. "and your little heist that nearly got me buried, literally."
"So you're just gonna take my money too?" Richie asked.
"Well, what do you care...you already got what you wanted, right? Slithering around your gullet." Seth glared at his younger brother. "So, why don't you go do whatever the hell it is you're gonna do, okay? This is where i get off."
"You're brother and I need the money." Santánico spoke up.
"What about my money?" Arabella snapped, "Huh, Carlos?" She glared at him. "Everybody wants their money, but where's mine?"
"Your little play got me killed! You killed my fiancé. I deserve that money and your head with it too." She said angrily. "Not to mention, your little girlfriend bit me. I'm not into those kind of stuff."
She grimaced, shifting her eyes to Santánico. "Thanks to you, now I'm some kind of abomination."
"You've always been." Santánico cut her, her brown ones glaring into her blue ones.
"You didn't forget what you promised me, did you?" She cocked her eyebrow at the culebra. "Because you're not walking out of here without getting me what you promised." Her glare shifted to Carlos, who seemed somewhat shocked. "None of you are."
She watched him nod at Narciso, he stood up from his seat, breaking the cuffs from his wrists. Arabella cocked her eyebrow again, noticing Santánico looking shocked at him.
"Memet." He called, a man appeared from the wall, pointing his gun at Seth, another one came from behind Richie.
"I'm moving up in the world." Carlos stated, turning to glare at the Santánico.
♆♆
"You killed her!"
"No!" Kate shouted once the Ranger to where Jacob and Scott were arguing. She looked at her brother, shocked at the blood smeared around his mouth. "He didn't Scott. I know the truth. He suffered all alone for us, Scott. Like he always does."
Scott looked down at Jacob and Kate followed, seeing blood coming from his forearm past his jacket. She took her top off, ripping a piece of it. "Scott, what did you do?" She wrapped it around his arm.
Gonzalez walked past her, going to his other side, helping him stand. "Come on, Paster, let's get you on your feet."
"Katey, listen..."
"No, daddy, stop...you're hurt." Kate cuts him. "We got to keep moving. Come on." She ushered, which made Scott angry.
"Keep moving...Where do you want to go? You want to go back to Bethel?" He snaps at her. "We came here to find a new path, and look, we found it. Here it is..." He motioned to the temple, "This is it!"
"What is, Scott?" She lets go of her father and stalks to her little brother. "You gonna turn us all into monsters? Are you gonna turn me into a monster...Is that what you're gonna do?" She asked quietly, but she was like a ticking bomb and Scott walked backwards, but she managed to push him and hit at him. "You gonna turn me into a monster, like you?"
"Hey!" Alexander moved from his spot, grabbing into Kate's arm, but she kept thrashing and taking her anger to Scott.
"Kate!" Jacob managed to call out, making her stop. "No, I get it, I get it." Scott argued.
"Scott, no." Jacob calmly said.
"No, it's fine. You guys deserve each other." He said his last words before walking away from them, angrily slamming his hand at the door before he disappeared into the temple. "Katey, you listen to me..."
She turned back to her father, shaking her head. "No, no. I won't let him near us."
"If he's gonna survive, he needs you. You need each other. "
She sighed, "And what about you?"
"You're brother's right." Ranger Gonzalez spoke up. "You can't go back to Bethel. And I don't think your dad can go back, either."
A sad look set on Jacob's eyes, he was a dead man walking, for now. "You know how this has to end."
She shook her head, refusing to believe that his minutes were numbered. She wiped a tear that slipped from her sad eyes. "No. We're gonna keep moving, okay?"
♆♆♆
"Well, I guess Uncle Eddie was right." Seth commented despite the gun pointed at his head. "Assholes do have friends."
Narciso grinned, "I thought you were leaving."
"It's one thing to ditch your brother and your friend another to leave them outnumbered in a fight."
"You don't expect to walk out here?" He continued with that grin that made the blonde woman glare at him. She looked behind her, grabbing a chair and sitting on it. She wasn't leaving without what she was promised.
"I'm sorry, were you not here earlier?" Seth asked sarcastically. "It was a goddamn bloodsucker rave, and I'm standing. So I'm warning you, slick. You better find another way to make some cash, 'cause today ain't you payday."
"Tell us where the bonds are." Carlos spoke calmly, " Let's finish this without bloodshed."
"You kill me, you're never gonna find out." Seth glared at him.
"You're jealous, Carlos, so you make a deal with my captors?" Santanico asked, moving to stand aside him. "Don't be so angry, mi amor." She said softly, but the man angrily turned his head to her. "Get away from me."
He walked around her, his eyes glaring into her. "'Find their Gods and you'll find their gold'. That's what I believed. I know it was bullshit, a fairy tale, because i had found something better, something deeper. Something stronger." He stopped, "I had found love."
"I never stopped loving you." Santanico stated, but Carlos snapped and smacked her across her face. "Do not lie to me!"
"Hey!" Arabella yelled at the man, standing up from the chair. She thought the culebra was a manipulating bitch, but despite that she couldn't tolerate Carlos. "We get it, princess. You're heartbroken." She mocked the man.
"Why don't you write a whole song about it like Taylor Swift? Maybe then i'll listen."
Santanico stared at Carlos, her hand on her cheek. "I could never hate you as much as you hate yourself." She whispered harshly at him, ignoring the blonde.
He glared at Arabella, turning back to the brunette, getting angrier than before. "I did everything for you." He harshly grabbed her arms. "I slaughtered my own men. I betrayed my God. And for what?"
"So you can go to bed with this pinche criminal?" He pushed the woman towards Richie.
He looked behind Richie and nodded at the man behind him. The man pulled something from his pocket and injected Richie with it. "Richie!"
"The venom will cripple him." Carlos stared as Richie went down on the floor. "But it will keep what's inside him alive until I decide to set you free. Perhaps I'll make you my slave now."
Richie grabbed a knife from the floor and stood up, taking everyones attention, while Arabella had a lingering feeling inside of her that pushed her to walk to Carlos. She grabbed him by the shoulder and thrusted her hand inside his chest.
His eyes widen, knowing that what was inside her was very much awake. "Who you calling a criminal, asshole?"
He had thrown his knife at the man behind Seth and Seth had shoot with the weapon in his hand the other man that was left.
Carlos clenched his jaw and pushed the blonde away, blood coming from the wound in his chest, that would take hours to heal because of what she was.
"You still think I'm a slave." Santanico's voice loud voice was heard directed at Carlos. "In here I'm the queen!" Her smooth skin turned into scales and other culebras came from corners in the room.
But what was surprising, a shriek came from her and wings came from her back and she went up in the air with the help of them. Richie went down once the venom had worked its way inside his body.
Carlos grabbed a dagger from the ground and stabbed Arabella on her left side and said something in spanish and soon Seth was down too.
Two people grabbed Richie and dragged him out of the bar, a car pulled in front of it and they threw Richie inside, while Richie shoot for the door, trying to stop them, but she hit something invisible and was sent back on the ground.
The car was heard leaving as Seth rushed out, looking at it as it disappeared in the night.
"Fantastic!" Arabella exclaimed, struggling to stand up from the ground and sitting in the chair behind her. "Why am i the only one that always get hurt?" She muttered to herself.
Seth walked back inside, while Santanico had stood up, looking outside the bar.
The blonde looked down to the white top caked in dried blood, but also something black that came from the side she was stabbed. She looked questionably at it, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and lift it up, making sure that it was coming from the recent wound, which it was.
She let out a breath, looking up at Seth and Santanico. She snapped her fingers, getting their attention. "Help?" She pointed at the dagger just below her ribcage.
"Why is my blood black?" She questioned the culebra that hurried to her. She crouched down, and without a word she pulled dagger out.
She clenched her jaw, glaring at the culebra. "Bitch." She breathed out.
"It's the dark side of you." She answered, helping the blonde up.
"Yep, that'll work." Seth muttered to himself.
Arabella grabbed the counter, leaning her back into it as she stuffed her hand in her jacket, grabbing the packet of cigarettes.
"It's all your fault." Santanico stated, tearing her eyes away from the blonde that put a cigarette between her lips.
"Excuse me, my fault?" He placed his weapon down in the ground, chuckling at the culebra. "Yeah, that...that's rich." He threw away the lid of the bottle of tequila, placing in a table along with a shot glass. "That's just...that's just beautiful."
"You wanted to leave with all the money."
"Yes, i did. You know why...because it's my money. I stole it."
"You're so caught up in your own greed, you can't even see what just happened." She walked towards him.
He filled the shot glass and drank it. "No, trust me I saw. Richie already told me all about you and Carlito. What is it, five centuries now? That's a long time to put up with you ass."
"He double-crossed me with the same monsters who imprisoned me here. What would Seth Gecko do if he got betrayed like this?"
"It already happened. You turned my brother into a goddamn slave."
"He's not a slave!" She exclaimed at him.
Arabella blew the smoke out, looking up at the ceiling with a defeated look on her face. "I only ask for a goddamn minute in silence." She muttered, taking a drag from the cigarette in between her fingers.
"How can i imprison someone when I've been in chains my whole life?" Santánico continued.
"Oh, right, you're the victim."
"I'm no one's victim." She flashed him her culebra eyes.
"Carlos is gonna call you...He's gonna offer you a deal. I want my freedom...that much i deserve."
"Well, you don't have the money yet, do you? So I don't think you're going anywhere." Seth pointed out, before drinking from the bottle again.
"Great." Arabella spoke up sarcastically. "What about my brother?" She looked at Santánico.
A U T H O R E ' S N O T E :
So, what do you guys think?
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and sorry i took so long, but i'll finish this book the next weeknd. I'm so excited to start the second so i'll try to finish this as soon.
I love you all,
peaceeee