The mountain road snaked by Lake Wakatipu, the T-junction was coming up next. Astra’s hands gripped the wheel tight as she glanced at Eydis.
Eydis sat unusually quiet and rigid. She stared straight ahead, that gold gleam flickering in her eyes. The whole drive, the air had been buzzing with her power, but sothing seed to trouble her.
Maybe it was Envy’s voice getting cut off like that, mid-sentence.
“I can’t feel Envy,” she finally said. “All I hear is static, as if he’s altering the ntal link.”
A sudden gust rocked the car. The air split apart. Violet smoke ripped left violently, while a heavy plum-red mist slid right in an almost coy manner.
Eydis’s voice turned to ice as she muttered inward, “Watch from above and give their position. Stay clear of the car. Go.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Cerberus and Lust together.
Astra clenched her jaw. “Would Envy intervene if…”
“It doesn’t feed on random envy anymore. It runs purely on my mana. But now? I can’t even sense it.” Eydis’s anger was barely holding together. “Envy won’t stick its neck out for this.”
Headlights found nothing but signs and dark. Astra was left with no choice, heart hamring, she stamped the brake. She ran her eyes over the map, weighing which path seed more probable.
lissa had trained her body to heal on autopilot, microcorrections ran in the background even when she was out. Cuts knitted. Bleeding slowed. Inflammation was ordered to sod off.
She ca up through fog to a quiet chant from a guy’s voice she didn’t recognise. Her head felt underwater, ears fizzing, eyes refusing to cooperate, so she kept them closed and listened.
“I am real. I am real. I am real.”
Yeah, maybe she should’ve tuned that out.
An engine rumbled under her. Petrol? When was the last ti she had seen one of those? Were petrol stations even still a—not important. Except wait… yes, hell yes it was, because in 2050 only psychos and doomsday nuts still drove petrol cars.
She was absolutely in a serial killer’s car.
Whammy.
She prised her lids open. The driver was broad-shouldered, sun-browned, moko kanohi inked across his forehead in traditional patterns. The sight snapped everything back.
He had appeared from nowhere, right when Natalia complained about uneven energy.
Invisible? No. How had he glided past the minefield of Natalia’s four “just in case” luggages and all the ski gear without so much as a squeak unless he could also fly, phase, or cheat?
And Natalia had paced those exact spots before he materialised, which ant phasing. On top of that, invisibly? A boundary breaker.
Double whammy.
Quit overthinking the why. Figure out the how. How to get out.
She snuck her phone out and hit redial on the last number—Eydis’s. She had called them earlier to join Natalia for her birthday.
The call didn't connect. How? She had a satellite phone, and it should have worked in nearly any place. Unless he had blocked the signal. She tried again while the creep muttered, “I’m real.”
Still nothing. Screw this.
“One more ‘I’m real’ from you and I’ll introduce you to hypoxia,” she said, spreading her hand out.
His head whipped around, eyes widening. “How are you even–”
She cut him off. Vapor collected on his lips, slithered like a glassy snake over his tongue and down his throat. She tightened it around his windpipe and squeezed.
The wheel jerked. He gagged. lissa lunged for the door, hauling Natalia close, ready to shove the handle and jump.
Autopilot engaged. Locks clunked shut. The door wouldn’t budge when she yanked the handle. The driver’s seat went empty. Air shimred, a sting in her sinuses, ozone riding the back of her tongue.
He was suddenly beside her, fingers closing round her arm. “I don’t plan to hurt you, Doctor. My na is Taika. You’re coming to et my associate.”
“Sure. And I’m guessing we’re headed straight to Bates Motel,” she rasped, digging into his wrist.
“Bates Motel?” His grip loosened.
She tsk’d. Only Natalia would get the reference. She needed the girl awake, like, yesterday.
“Whatever. I’m not into it. Unlock the bloody door,” lissa said.
“I can't do that.”
lissa used the banter to distract while she reached for Natalia’s head wound.
And froze.
It was a kill strike, not a sleep tap.
“No harm, my fucking ass.” She started healing Natalia anyway, brain racing to figure how the hell the girl was still breathing after a hit like that.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
lissa had trained for years to survive on auto micro-healing. Natalia’s Gift leaned fire, unusually strong fire, but still not the kind of power set that ca with auto-regeneration. So why was she still breathing?
He followed her gaze to Natalia. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“It is exactly what it looks like. You attacked us then shoved us into a car. That’s killer-coded.” Gods, now she was talking like Natalia.
“Killer? I am no killer.” Rage pulled his face tight, then sothing like sorrow leaked through. “It’s complicated.”
“So is breathing.” lissa had seen enough. She was a doctor. She wasn’t supposed to pull this crap.
She did it anyway.
Blue halos swam in her vision. She slapped her hand on his tatted forehead, reached for the fluid cushioned around his brain and yanked. Cerebrospinal pressure collapsed within the cranial cisterns. His hand at her arm spasd. He scread like he’d been flash-icepicked.
Good. He felt that.
She then stripped moisture right off his skin and shoved it back in, flooding his lungs again.
His face turned blue. He choked, but sohow gasped out, “Only the snow… only the… exist…”
“Weird mantra,” she muttered, frowning. That hit should have switched his brain off clean. She shoved the thought aside and turned to Natalia, who was starting to wake up.
“l,” Natalia whispered, eyes fluttering open, “where are we?”
“No ti, run.” lissa braced to drag her again. A hand stopped them.
Impossible.
Burns from the oxygen deprivation were still visible on Taika's lips. Sweat soaked his shirt. He snarled, gold current rolling across his dark irises like lightning.
His voice ca back colder, “You are a sadist, bitch.”
“Aweso. Bates Motel energy confird.” lissa muttered, lifting her palm.
Natalia sat up straight when she spotted him. “Hold up—what? Who? Are we actually getting kidnapped? Is this dude gonna debate his dead mom in a motel shower?”
Taika’s eyes narrowed.
“Not quite that specific. Except the dissociative expansion pack.” lissa’s eyes burned brighter as she reached for his fluids again, aiming for the brainstem this ti.
Nothing.
The water molecules in his body were vibrating at a shifting frequency she could not lock or steer.
“What are you?” she asked.
He opened his mouth. Natalia got there first. Her palm smacked his chest and orange fire exploded out.
Taika laughed. His whole torso vibrated even as his vest burned away and the ink on his skin sared. He glanced down, then t her eyes. “I like pain. Cute trick. But you wrecked my second-favourite tat.”
He swung at Natalia. lissa snapped a palm sideways and threw up a sheet of water between them. His punch hit the rippling surface and slid off.
“You really could be one of us, Doctor,” he snarled. He lifted both hands. The air buzzed. The dash lights dipped, then flickered back. tal around them gave a low, unsettling hum.
“Flattered. Pass,” lissa said, and yanked hard.
Water rushed in from outside. It hamred the window seams, shattered the glass in a spray of shards. A freezing wave from the lake slamd through the cabin and nailed him in the chest. He slamd back into the door with a grunt.
The car should’ve crumpled under that, but it held—operative-level build. Ares Van Nassau’s crew, had to be.
He blocked with crossed arms. Gold light crackled between his hands and the water, shaking the molecules hard enough to break the stream. She fought back, cycling in fresh cold lake water faster than he could destabilise it.
The roar of water was deafening.
They needed him off the car now. Even if he phased, and it clearly cost him, at least they could break containnt.
His arms trembled. His eyes drooped. His lip split under his teeth as he tried to call his Gift again. But he sagged against the door and barked a bitter, ugly laugh.
“Poor sweet Taika got both of you completely wrong. Non-combative?” He glared at lissa, then at Natalia. “C-class Fire affinity? Pff.”
“Who’s Taika?” Natalia asked.
“Him.” lissa pushed harder, but he was still fighting back.
“Then why’s he third-personing himself?”
“Bates Motel Red,” lissa hissed, locked in a shaking, trembling gridlock of wills. The water column vibrated violently like he was exploding it from inside.
Natalia sucked in a breath, eyes lighting up. Heat braided up her arms in faint mirage-ripples. "Let help."
"Natalia, don't—"
Natalia fired a dragon of burning fire through lissa’s spiralling water. Fire and water coiled, hissed, fought for the sa prey. Then the fire punched through and hit him.
He grunted and braced with one arm, the other clamped to the car’s tal fra.
The car screeched.
Headlights flared bright for a second, then died. Interior lights stuttered. Light threads raced up his arms to his neck, that grin still on his face like the whole tal box was his personal battery.
This felt like far more output than an old petrol could push.
A hybrid. His perfect playground.
So Taika is a—
“He will kill us if he gets fully charged.” lissa shut off her water at once and let Natalia burn the rest into steam. She would not hand him a perfect transmission line. “Use your fire.”
“Trying.” Natalia’s voice cracked as she drew harder. Her fire brightened, then brightened again. The heat climbed until colour peeled away from it.
White.
The temperature spiked so high the tal seats began to glow. Reality bent colour around it. The air turned humid, and sweat beaded on both Natalia’s and Taika’s faces.
lissa couldn't feel the heat on her skin as though Natalia purposely, and precisely steered it away from her. Impressive control.
“Since when,” she breathed, “can you do that?”
Natalia didn’t answer. Her eyes flared brighter. Her jaw clenched.
“Stop, you’ll kill him,” lissa said.
"I… sothing in just… hunger to—ahh." Natalia groaned as her own power seed to have a mind of its own. The colour changed again. From white to blue.
The blast landed… and for a split second Taika's body lit up like a circuit board overloading. The cabin felt like it had more energy than before.
Taika’s scream detonated with him, and the reinforced door went with it. White light blinded their vision.
lissa blinked hard. “Since when can you do this, Natalia?”
Natalia stared at her hand like she did not recognise it. Her eyes were wide with shock, guilt, and relief all at once. “I… did I just? I think my body subconsciously learned…”
A hand was already inside her stomach before the sentence finished. Blood wet the back of her shirt before either of them understood what changed. Then the hand ripped free.
“No!” lissa cried, raising a wall of water as a shield without thinking. Natalia’s head sagged against her shoulder and her whole body folded.
Taika materialised, no longer exhausted. His torso was a lattice of burns, peeled muscle exposed like anatomy sketch. Third-degree. Fourth. The burns should have been fatal. Were fatal. But the tissue around them was already knitting, albeit slowly.
And still he grinned like it pleased him.
“What the fuck are you?” lissa gasped.
“Language, Doc. You should have finished him when you had his brain in your hands. But you hesitated.” He rolled his shoulder. “Father taught us rcy only shelters the weak. Father is always right.”
lissa pressed her free hand over the hole in Natalia’s abdon and emptied every drop of power to knit tissue. She could barely keep her own breath steady.
“Why… Why does it feel like you're stronger now?” she asked, buying ti to heal Natalia.
"Because I am. Your little girlfriend did us a favour. She’s surprisingly… useful.”
lissa snarled, her heart thumping hard. He was not bluffing. She could feel the truth of it in every fibre of her body. “Who are you if not Taika?”
“?” His grin sharpened. “I’m the monster he tries to erase. The Phantom Reaper. Every one of Taika’s failures ends the sa way. Boy wonder sends to clean up every single ss.”
“It was you who knocked us both down.” lissa could sense Natalia’s body slowly healing.
Why didn’t he kill her?
He’d tried to kill them both back at the suite, but had purposely left Natalia alive this ti.
“How perceptive. And you… you really are more brilliant than I expected. Such a waste, but I don’t make the rules.”
“You’re stronger than whatever rules you were made to follow.”
He cocked his head, grin widening. “You see, Doctor, Taika’s actually the stronger of us, but he chose the hardest path: to stay non-combative. Invisibility? Phasing? A waste, when we could just…”
He placed his hand into the wall of water. The water began to glow faintly.
“Goodnight, Doctor.”
Lightning threaded through the water like it had been crafted for that exact purpose, using her own elent as a perfect conductor straight toward her heart.
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