Catch Me When I Fall (34 page)

A second warlock grabbed my arm as I swung around to slice his neck, and he slammed my hand against the wall. The knife fell. And within seconds, fists were flying at me so fast, I didn’t know where to block.

hit the crimson red carpet of Kayla’s room with a thud and groaned, rolling from my stomach onto my back.

“Daniel!” Kayla shouted from across the room. She dropped to her knees next to me and brushed the hair out of my face. “Oh my god.”

I tried to speak, but my throat was too raw from all the screaming. Tipping my head to the side, away from her, I coughed. The blood that came out of my mouth matched the carpet. I wiped my lips with my hand and closed my eyes.

“Oh, Daniel, what did they do to you?” Kayla took my hand in both of hers. She kissed it. A tear fell onto my skin. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” My voice was raspy.

“This is all my fault.” Her voice broke.

I opened my eyes as she sobbed into my hand. Wincing, I lifted my other hand and wiped the tears from her cheek. “Stop talking like that.” Then I spotted the bruise on her left cheekbone and gently ran my thumb across it. “I’m going to kill him for doing this to you.”

Kayla opened her eyes and looked at me, her eyes wide. “How did you know?”

“Tabbi. Her connection with you lets her get into your head whenever she focuses hard enough. If I take her hand, I can see through your eyes.”

Kayla let go of my hand, stood and wiped her cheeks. Then she walked away. Sighing, I rolled onto my hands and knees then groaned as I got up from the floor. Kayla stood near a white sofa by the fireplace, her back to me.

I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her. She stood there like a statue. Had my revelation scared her? Before I could ask, her arms wrapped around me, and she buried her face in my shoulder. She shook with sobs. I held her tighter and kissed the top of her head. Her hands gripped the back of my shirt, and I rubbed her back as the tears flowed.

“I will get you out of here, Kayla, even if it’s the last thing I do.”

At that moment, the door to the room opened. Richard walked in from the other side, followed by four of his followers—the same four who beat me senseless minutes ago. All of them wore smug smiles.

“Oh, good. I see you two have reconnected,” Richard said. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

He snapped his fingers, and the four warlocks rushed us. I stepped in front of Kayla, poised to fight them, but my body filled with pain, like a hundred daggers penetrating my skin. I doubled over with a gasp.

“Daniel!” Kayla shouted. She reached for me, but two of Richard’s men grabbed her and yanked her away. She screamed and fought against them, but they held her tight.

The other two grabbed my arms and hauled me up from the ground. I tried to fight them and clocked one in the jaw, but a crack of electricity hit me square in the chest. I flew across the room and landed on my back, gasping for air.

“Stop! You’re going to kill him!” Kayla yelled.

“Then join me, and I promise I will spare his life,” Richard replied.

Standing, I shook my head. “Don’t do it, Kayla.” A blast of air flung me across the room and pinned me to the wall. Richard’s left hand rose in my direction.

“Your answer. Now!” Richard’s voice echoed.

Kayla stared at me, teary-eyed, then returned her gaze to her father. “Please, let him go.”

Another shock of electricity hit me, like Richard smashed me between a gigantic defibrillator. I yelped in pain, unable to control myself. Kayla struggled against her captors, refusing her father a response.

“Fine,” Richard said, raising his other hand, palm up. A wraith dropped in from the ceiling. My heartbeat screamed in my ears, and I fought the urge to squirm like a frightened child. I needed to be strong, for Kayla.

“No, please. Stop!” she yelled.

Richard smirked. “You can see them? You’re more my daughter than I thought.”

“Daddy, please. Don’t do this. I know this isn’t you.”

Maybe it was because she called him “Daddy,” but his eyes softened slightly as he looked at his daughter. Chills rain down my spine.

“You know,” Richard said, “the other three, their genes I manipulated. But you are my own. I do not enjoy doing this to you, seeing you cry. Maybe I’ve gone about this the wrong way. Maybe you, like me, respond stronger to love than to fear.”

He took a step closer to her, and I fought against the hold he still had on me. Richard waved his fingers at the two Magus holding Kayla. They let her go. Her eyes flickered to me, then fell on her father’s face.

Richard placed a hand on each shoulder. “I told you—I am doing all of this for you. You are my first true child in almost two hundred years, and I want to make this world a better place for you. I do not want the world to dispose of you like they did to my mother, Gwyndolyn—your grandmother—like they did to my other children. Please, stand with me. Together we can change the world not just for ourselves, but for all of those like us.”

Kayla stared at him, seeming to contemplate his words. Then her eyes turned cold. “Never.”

“Fine. Goodbye, Daniel.
Occidere eum
!” Richard spoke with ferocity. In a second, the wraith was barreling down on me.

Two of the Magus grabbed Kayla from behind as she pushed away from her father with a scream.

Locking eyes with her, I spoke the words I should’ve said a long time ago. “I love you.”

I closed my eyes and waited for the wraith to take my existence.
The pain will be over in a second.

“No!” Kayla’s voice was so loud the room shook. I snapped my eyes open. A crack slithered up the wall behind her, all the way across the ceiling. And to my disbelief, the wraith shrunk back from me in fear.

The gold in Kayla’s eyes glowed like the sun. Flames from the fireplace exploded into the room, catching the floor and ceiling on fire. Kayla flung the two warlocks off her arms so hard they soared in opposite directions. They fell to the floor, unconscious. The other two rushed her as Richard stepped back, but with a swift turn of her hands, their necks snapped.

My mouth gaped. I’d seen Kayla’s power in Bartholomew’s office. Even Trishna had known what was stirring inside her.

Richard just forced it to explode.

Kayla stepped toward the wraith, her eyes still glowing. The air around me grew heavier, and while the flames from the fireplace rose higher into the room, everything around us darkened.

Kayla’s hair flew behind her, as if someone held a fan to her face. Both of her hands were open at her sides, palms facing outward.

“Go back to Hell,” she said to the wraith, her voice amplified like she spoke through a microphone.

With an earsplitting scream, the wraith folded in on itself, disappearing with a loud boom. Then Kayla turned to her father, her hands held out to him. “Let. Him. Go.”

The room shook again, filling with smoke. Dust from the ceiling fell to the floor. If we didn’t get out of here soon, we’d all either roast to death or die of suffocation. Richard took one wide-eyed look at his daughter, then smirked.

I fell to the ground as Richard reached up and magically dropped part of the ceiling down in front of him, trapping us on the other side with the flames.

coughed and forced debris off my body. When Richard pinned me to the wall, he saved me from being trapped beneath the wreckage, unlike—

“Kayla!” I shouted, unable to see through the cloud of dust and smoke. Flames lined the back wall and spread across the floor and ceiling. It wouldn’t be long before they reached us.

“Daniel!” Her voice was a shot of adrenaline.

I jumped up. “Kayla, thank god. I’m coming to get you. Are you hurt?” Waving my hands in front of my face, I moved across the room to where I knew she’d been standing when the ceiling collapsed.

She whimpered somewhere to the left of me. “My leg. I think it’s broken.”

At least it’s just the leg.
“All right. Keep talking.” My eyes burned, but I kept them open, searching for her.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I didn’t mean—”

“I know. You don’t need to apologize.” I followed the sound of her struggling, and then I saw her through the haze, buried underneath a large piece of drywall. Blood trickled down her forehead. I sprinted the rest of the way to her, ignoring the pain in every part of my body, and dropped to my knees.